Study: Asian nations set to pass U.S. in clean energy race

Investment needed to compete

Vilas Bhuchar, Nov 19, 09.

A new study shows that the U.S. risks falling behind China, South Korea, and Japan in the clean energy race, according to a New York Times Green Inc. blog posting.

The study, Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant: Asian Nations Set to Dominate the Clean Energy Race By Out-Investing the United States, was released by The Breakthrough Institute and Information Technology and Innovation Foundation at an event hosted by the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday, November 18.

According to its overview, the report “provides the first comprehensive comparison of public investment by the United States and key Asian competitors in clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, advanced vehicles and batteries, and high-speed rail”.

It notes that, “China, South Korea and Japan will invest a total of $509 billion in clean technology over the next five years (2009-2013) while the United States will invest $172 billion” and suggests that the U.S. needs more significant public investment in clean energy in order to compete with the Asian nations:

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 clean technology 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 America’s currently proposed 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 significant, direct and coordinated investment in clean energy R&D, manufacturing, deployment, and infrastructure.

(Photo Credit: __LakwatserO__)