In today's competitive global economy, technological innovation is essential to long-term U.S. economic security, and the energy sector should be a particular priority. Failure to extend key U.S. clean energy initiatives would be contrary to U.S. interests.
Expansion in the clean energy industry will fuel economic progress and strengthen our national security. American scientific leadership has spurred innovative new energy generation and storage technologies -- from solar and wind power to fuel cells and electric vehicles. These sources can be domestically produced and deployed over time. And these are the energy options that the world's fastest-growing economies are using to support development without harming the environment.
Research by The Pew Charitable Trusts shows that the clean energy sector is growing rapidly -- by more than 600 percent in the past seven years. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, investments in this sector eclipsed those for conventional energy last year for the first time. Additional Pew research shows that investment in the sector could total some $2.3 trillion this decade.
As the leading inventor of modern energy infrastructure, the United States should be a prime beneficiary of emerging global interest in clean energy. But we are not capitalizing on our scientific advantage. Instead, we are abdicating manufacturing and deployment opportunities to other nations. Pew's "Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race?"2010 edition found that China and Germany have taken the lead in the sector and that the United States is falling behind on a variety of measures.
The U.S. competitive position in clean energy is at risk because our policy environment is uncertain and capital is sitting on the sidelines. Simply put: Policy matters. Whereas China and Germany have long-term, national, clean energy policies to attract investment and spur job creation, the United States has provided limited incentives of short duration and no long-term reliability. This leaves business unable to adequately plan projects and investors searching for greener pastures.
Our research demonstrates that where national policy is strong, investment follows. Private finance and investment seek out and thrive in environments that offer market transparency, longevity, and consistency, and dry up in places that don't. The United States lacks such a policy.
Unlike a number of conventional energy supports, some of which have been in place for more than 50 years, clean energy tax measures are more modest, and they are not permanent. The energy playing field is not level, and it is not sensible to continue to subsidize technologies of the past while inhibiting our competitive position with respect to the fastest-growing global technologies and markets.
This month, Congress has the opportunity to send a signal about U.S. determination to compete and win in the global clean energy sector. Our legislators should extend three essential tax credits. One supports production in the wind industry, and the other encourages investment in industrial energy efficiency. Further, the Treasury Department's grant program for solar, known at 1603, should also be continued. These modest clean energy incentives should be extended to get capital off the sidelines, help U.S. industry compete globally, and contribute to a more prosperous, clean, and secure nation.
The Earth Mother is sending a unambiguous message and GIFT.
REE (Rare Earth Elements)so necessary for all those wonderful Earth friendly Technologies, wind mills, electric cars, high tech gizmos, etc., are buried in mounds of THORIUM!
Thorium the fuel used in Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reacror(LFTR)s!
“These include the tailings of ancient tin mines, rare earth mine tailings, phosphate mine tailings and uranium mine tailings. In addition to the thorium present in mine tailings and in surface monazite sands, burning coal at the average 1GWe power plant produces about 13 tons of thorium per year. That thorium is recoverable from the power plant’s waste ash pile.
One ton of thorium will produce nearly 1 GW of electricity for a year in an efficient thorium cycle reactor. Thus current coal energy technology throws away over 10 times the energy it produces as electricity. This is not the result of poor thermodynamic efficiency; it is the result of a failure to recognize and use the energy value of thorium. The amount of thorium present in surface mining coal waste is enormous and would provide all the power human society needs for thousands of years, without resorting to any special mining for thorium, or the use of any other form or energy recovery.”
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4971
http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/press-releases/markey-introduces-long-awaited-1872-mining-reform-measures-85899366609
I think we have the breakthroughs we need, solar is as cheap or cheaper than nukes. Roofs, parking lots and road sides are more than enough area using existing cheap panels.
results:
BOEING 40% SOLAR CELL MASS PRODUCTION
http://www.gizmag.com/boeing-to-mass-produce-world-record-efficiency-solar-cells/17028/
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2006/q4/061206b_nr.html
http://www.boeing.com/aboutus/environment/environment_report_11/3_alternative_energy_pg_4.html
The cost of solar panels is not the problem. For rooftop solar, the problems include expensive inverters, the need for a complex and expensive "smart grid", and the risk of injury or death from installation. All solar technologies require practical but non existent storage technology.
Solar, particularly "distributed" rooftop solar, will never be a game changer.
We must raise the top income tax rates to 50% over a million, 90% over a billion. Ike had higher rates.
We must close the fed, by issuing greenbacks and phasing out fractional reserve. Watch "the money masters"
The bankster extorted 26T$ from the FED, this must be returned and the bankster prosecuted for the great fraud in human history. Restore Glass-Steagall and charge a transaction fee to kill derivatives.
End the wars, cut the military costs by 90% so we are just the largest military in the world.
Cut all the subsidies to fossils and nukes. Nukes get 500M$ per reactor per year and coal gets more, plus wars for oil. This is wrong.
Plow all that and more into rooftop solar, offshore wind, underwater turbines, efficiency and waste bio char bio fuels.
That's 24/7, forever, clean safe, cheaper than nukes, carbon land and water negative.
Restore free education and any required room and board for all citizens. With automation and tech, no one needs go hungry homeless, or without access to education. Sweden, Germany and Holland are example we must learn from.
Then the rest of you doc can explain why. You ramble far too much. Ron Paul and Mises are not green.
Solar is about as cheap as nukes, we just need to massively install it on all the good roofs and parking lots.
What we need to stop is the 500M$ per reactor per year that nukes get, clean coal gets even more.
End all breaks and subsidies for fossil and nukes and put all that money into feed in tariffs, and investment in rooftop solar, offshore wind waste bio char bio fuels, efficiency and underwater turbines. These are the only techs that makes things better, not wreck land.
Our natural, real Earth, our wild landscapes and their plant and animal biological diversity or ecosystems are -- the eco-nomy of all life, all the reasons man breathes.
Can a dead windmill factory or field of dead solar panels, pump out oxygen, release cooling evapotranspiration that cools the soil, the leaves and the surrounding area, naturally regulate the climate, naturally sequester the heat trapping gases that will be released when the soil is disturbed and the native plants butchered, create the nitrogen cycle, the hydrological system, create and renew the soil and balance the gaseous composition of the atmosphere.
provide decomposition, pollination and seed dispersal, 75% of all new medicines, 99% of all pest control, and the control and regulation of disease pathogens, like man-killer influenza and viruses.
Killing ecosystems is the most dangerous occupation of man as he is entombing his very own life giving and supporting functions, systems and cycles. The clean energies are only clean when utilized where people actually live. And deforestation heats up and naturally dries out the climate.
STOP shilling for Big Energy and START reporting on what is really working - engaging the PEOPLE in the renewable revolution as investors making fair returns on investments. Not only will a german-style feed in tariff create far more jobs than an endless deadly stream of BP Wind, Chevron Solar, but it will improve property values, save billions of gallons of water a year, MUCH more rapidly and effectively reduce GHG emissions, keep billions of dollars in communities that are currently flowing to Big Energy oligarchs, prevent eminent domain and save our wild places from becoming industrial wastelands AND SALVAGE A SHRED OF OUR DEMOCRACY.
Nature doesn't care if you destroy it with Big Solar or Big Oil, it needs us to use the built environment for our energy production (while hugely improving efficiency).