Suntech CEO, Zhengrong Shi, a prime mover in helping to turn China into a global force in photovoltaic technology, has been a major influence in bringing China’s solar PV cost structure down and making China a powerhouse in photovoltaic technology–and became a billionaire in the process. Shi’s ambition is to make solar power as cheap as conventional electricity.
The disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has reopened the debate over the direction the United States’ energy future is headed. Now more than any other time in history, citizens are beginning to understand the necessity to evolve past our love affair with oil. An economy that is dependent on a non-renewable, quickly fleeting resource can only move towards instability if alternative fuels are not found. The Congressional Budget Office is beginning to analyze how energy policies and initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will affect employment in an economy that is trying to pull itself out of a recession. Democrats are pushing for a comprehensive energy bill that will enhance the production of clean energy technologies, put a price on emitting carbon, reduce greenhouse gases by a significant amount over the next 20 years, and influence entry into a range of new renewable energy industries. Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman are due to present their energy bill in the Senate next week. This bill, The American Power Act will be hard-pressed for passage without strong republican backing. The loss of republican Senator Lindsay Graham as a cosponsor of this bill is devastating. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “the oil spill showed drilling alone would not solve U.S. energy problems and that higher summer fuel prices will heighten consumers’ views that the country must move more aggressively into alternatives.” (Cowan & Gardner, 2010) If the country decides to aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this will have many significant implications for employment in our country.
![[Updated] Will a Greening China Leave America in the Dust? Now They Have](http://greeneconomypost.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/China-offshore-wind-farm.jpg "[Updated] Will a Greening China Leave America in the Dust? Now They Have")
The way it is looking right now it sometimes seems like China is going to leave the US in the dust in the post fossil energy economy. Recent signs point to an increasingly green thinking China that is getting serious about greening its economy and making it much more energy efficient and one has a serious long term plan (and potential) to green its economy. Its wind and solar sectors are growing at a breakneck pace and are poised to continue doing so and within a few years — if this growth rate continues — will propel China into a world leading position in solar and wind energy production. In updated news the Pew Charitable Trusts has reported that China is now spending almost twice as much as the US is on investments in investments in clean renewable energy. Last year (2009) U.S. clean energy investments reached $18.6 billion, while China invested $34.6 billion in their clean tech energy.
The New York Power Authority (NYPA) released a request for proposals (RFP) for the development of offshore wind power projects in the New York State waters of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. by Chris de Morsella, Green Economy Post In order to begin reducing New York State’s dependence on fossil fuel for electric generation and […]
2010 will see extended range plug in hybrids — as well as all electric vehicles start to hit the road in significant numbers. The plugin hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a primarily an electric vehicle with a small non-electric motor to extend their range; it is more of an electric vehicle and less of a gas powered vehicle than current hybrids. This post examines some of the main players in this emerging electic vehicle sector.
The 2009 Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report provides a critical update to the global public on the latest climate science. The purpose of this report is to synthesize the most policy-relevant climate science published since the close-off of material for the last IPCC report that supplements the IPCC AR4 in time for Copenhagen in December, 2009.
Last week, at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas, Energy Secretary Chu called for a revolution, “a second industrial revolution.” The first industrial revolution came with a “carbon dioxide cost” but “in the next industrial revolution, we must develop technologies that will enable us to get the energy the world needs to grow and prosper but “essentially reducing and eliminating the carbon dioxide,” he said. Chu said the United States has the greatest research and development centers in the world in universities, national labs and the private sector. “Once we get this great invention machine geared and going we’d be invincible. But the only trouble is, let’s get it going.”
The keystone of the green economy is a drastic increase in energy efficiency. Increasing our societies energy efficiency is the single most vital and important thing we need to do in order to have a green economy or in fact any kind of economy at all. It is also vitally important to throttle back the amounts of fossil fuel we burn in order to mitigate and diminish the rapid and potentially catastrophic climate change that is being driven by our fossil fuel habit.
Without much more energy efficient buildings and transportation systems nothing we do will be able to prevent an economic collapse brought about by the inevitable and rapidly approaching decline in the recoverable supplies of all forms of fossil energy. We cannot build out wind, geothermal, biofuel, or solar energy fast enough to sustain our civilization in the face of rapidly shrinking recoverable fossil energy reserves; unless we embark on an urgent and sustained drive to use energy (and other resources) with much higher efficiency.
