Asia’s rising “clean technology tigers”—China, Japan, and South Korea —are poised to out-compete the United States for dominance of clean energy markets due to their substantially larger government investments to support research and innovation, manufacturing capacity, and domestic markets, as well as critical related infrastructure. Government investment in each of these Asian nations will do more to reduce investor risk and stimulate business confidence than currently proposed U.S. climate and energy legislation, which includes too few aggressive policy initiatives and allocates relatively little funding to directly support U.S. clean energy industries. Even if climate and energy legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives becomes law, China, Japan and South Korea will out-invest the United States by a margin of three-to-one over the next five years, attracting much if not most of the future private investment in the industry. Global private investment in renewable energy and energy efficient technologies alone is estimated to reach $450 billion annually by 2012 and $600 billion by 2020, and could be much larger if recent market opportunity estimates are realized. For the United States to regain economic leadership in the global clean energy industry, U.S. energy policy must include more direct and coordinated investment in clean technology R&D, manufacturing, deployment, and infrastructure.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Issues in Science and Technology, Winter 2010, Real Numbers: Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant
Author: IssuesOnline
