U.S. Getting Left Behind in Alternative Energy

China, set to dethrone America as the world’s top manufacturer in the very near future, has already supplanted the U.S. as the world’s largest investor in clean energy, which could have major implications for the future of the nation’s economy.

While U.S. policymakers are struggling to reach a consensus on how to wean the nation off fossil fuels, Beijing has been aggressively moving forward to curb carbon emission and position itself as the world’s leader in alternative energy innovation and manufacturing.

China’s large-scale investment in clean energy is not simply an international show. Recognizing that millions upon millions of 21st Century manufacturing jobs will be reliant on the production of clean energy, the Asian nation has vowed to get 15 percent of its primary energy from no fossil fuels by 2020.

Not only has America failed to become the world’s leader in alternative energy, but the nation is quickly falling behind some of its largest economic competitors, a development that could cost millions of American jobs in the future.

In 2009, China became the world’s leader in private investment in renewable energy. Even in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, China invested $34.6 billion in green technologies.

America, meanwhile, invested just over half the amount of China in clean energy technologies. For the year, private investment in the U.S. totaled just $18.6 billion, down 48 percent from 2008.

Lack of investment in America has led to the production of solar panels, wind turbines and other alternative energy products elsewhere.

A report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop and ABC News, found that $8 of every $10 spent on wind energy projects through the stimulus package went to a foreign company. Total recovery funds spent on wind energy projects total nearly $2 billion.

The report estimates stimulus funding for wind projects have created roughly 6,000 manufacturing jobs overseas and just hundreds in America. Thus far, the Recovery Act has paid to create 1,807 wind turbines to fuel American homes, businesses, schools and other buildings. Just 588 of those were manufactured domestically, according to the report.

“American wind turbines are the manifestation of freedom from foreign oil,” United
Steelworkers president Leo Gerard writes. “The more American wind turbines, the
fewer barrels of oil America must import to meet its energy needs. And American-built
wind turbines help propel the nation out of the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression by generating good-paying American jobs.”