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Once the top dog in clean energy, the United States dropped to third place in terms of investment, falling further from the top spot it held in 2008, with only $34 billion in private clean energy investments.
China continues to lead, according to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, attracting a record $54.4 billion in clean energy investments in 2010 -- a 39 percent increase over 2009 and equal to total global investment in 2004. Germany saw private investments double to $41.2 billion and was second in the G-20, up from third last year.
"The clean energy sector is emerging as one of the most dynamic and competitive in the world, witnessing 630 percent growth in finance and investments since 2004," said Phyllis Cuttino, director, Pew Clean Energy Program. "In 2010, worldwide finance and investment grew 30 percent to a record $243 billion."
The good news is: investment in clean energy has bounced back from the recession, at least globally. The question is, will the US be able to keep pace in the years to come?
That China leads will come as no surprise to readers of The Green Skeptic. That the US is slipping further down the ladder is more disturbing to those of us who see the new green economy as a platform for our competitiveness in the global marketplace.
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Global Clean Energy Investment $243 billion; US Drops to 3rd
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Posted March 30, 2011
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Scott Edward Anderson
Scott Edward Anderson is currently global marketing director for cleantech at Ernst & Young. He is the founder of the popular blog, The Green Skeptic, and the VerdeStrategy consultancy. He has held management positions with Ashoka and The Nature Conservancy and is co-founder of the Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic. An award-winning poet, Scott was a John Sawhill Conservation Leadership Fellow, ...
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A guest says:
In the mid 90s a productive inventor developed a technology with the help of a retired UC Berkeley Professor and then spent 93k getting worldwide patents. When China and Singapore saw the patent app. they each flew reps to have a meeting with the inventor and offered him full funding to build working prototypes of the technology. The state department then told the inventor that because the invention could have military application they forbid the inventor from taking any offshore funds or granting any license on his foreign patents. They then put a 3 year hold on the US patent. The IRS then fined the inventor for thinking that the legal expenses were a business expense. After 6 years of working to get out of debt from the IRS fines and interest and paying all the taxes on the money spent on patent attorneys, the inventor starting building workable prototypes this took more time and thousands of after tax dollars that he was generating with his professional work. After five generations of prototypes the IRS again told him that operating his money making design business which funded this energy R&D out of a business incubator where he was doing energy R&D violated IRS rules and he was fined again. This resulted in 5 more years of indentured servitude to the IRS. Well this guy now after 15 years of getting the shaft from the Feds is thinking of going off shore. He has two offers from governments that will give him either a 7 or a 14 year tax holiday. Can you blame him the feds have wasted 15 years of his life, and withholding his technology has caused billions of tons of carbon to get into the atmosphere. Carbon that his invention could have blocked. Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvwdQA26fcc
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Paul O says:
I see little or no value in the US entering a race for clean energy just for the sake being in the race. What we should be doing is honestly and dispassionately figuring out how best to meet our current and future needs, and pursuing the most effective means to attain those needs. In fact I am grateful to the Germans for turning their society into a massive experiment in the limits and/or viability of some of these renewable technologies. We should watch what happens in Germany closely so as to avoid any pitfalls that they might fall into.
As inferred by David, competing with China in producing products like turbines and photo-voltaics cheaply, is massively unwise. We'll never win that race.
Again, what we should be doing is dispassionately identifying the capabilities and limits of all energy sources, and then selecting those which will provide our needs economically. In the end, it might make more sense to buy some sources from China while producing others here ourselves.
On a side note, I find it ironic that the forces which have labored tirelessly to hinder and oppose the US developing more advanced, and more inherrently safe nuclear technologies by political means, are the very self same ones using Fukushima (which is an older technology) as an emblematic example of the dangers of Nuclear power. Nevermind the fact that current nuclear technology already exists that would not have been affected by the failure modes seen at Fukishima, and that these current technologies are hardly the best designs for Nuclear power safety and reliability were these designs not being politically impeded.
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Scott Edward Anderson says:
Completely agree with you, Paul, especially with your sentiment that we should "dispassionately identifying the capabilities and limits of all energy sources, and then selecting those which will provide our needs economically."
And on the nuclear side, the opposition has successfully blocked adoption of the latest technologies and dealing with the waste and spent fuel issues.
--Scott
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David Lewis says:
China defines "clean" energy as including nuclear power. Its stated goal to reduce its carbon intensity has nuclear power as the largest source of "clean" energy that will be added to its grids, if you take the total power delivered each year as opposed to the nameplate capacity.
Pew doesn't include nuclear. The word "nuclear" does not appear in the source document for your post, i.e. Pew's Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race?
China would be winning the "race" whether nuclear was included or not. But it is getting tedious to have to sort out what various people mean by the words "clean", "low carbon", and "renewable". The Chinese understand that if its the climate problem you want to solve, its carbon that matters, and sources of power that emit low amounts of carbon are what you want.
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