The race for market share . . .

Though it is hard to find the time, I try to keep up with what’s happening in the world related to green technology and the movement to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels. Regardless of one’s opinion on global warming, I believe that all of us should be focused on the need to find alternatives to fossil fuels for our nation’s security and economic health.

Related to this, I want to share this post from Tom Peters where he writes about a New York Times article about wind turbines and other renewable energy projects in China. I have shared previously about the changes taking place in China including their rapid expansion into green technologies. This growth is creating concerns:

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

The president shared his concerns with these words in his state of the union address.

. . . in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. “I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders — and I know you don’t either,” he told Congress.

If this is true we better start making changes with laser focus at the federal level on establishing incentives for American entrepreneurs to enter this market. We need to unleash our creativity and take advantage of our technological expertise to discover new renewable sources of energy and bring them up to scale. This won’t happen if the incentives are not present.

You can read more about China’s aggressive moves in this area at this post in Climate Progress.

In China, the government poured an estimated $440 billion into clean energy last year. It is investing heavily in renewable energy and nuclear power. It also is pursuing efforts to make extraction of its vast coal reserves cleaner. Already home to one-third of the globe’s solar-energy manufacturing capacity and 400 solar-energy companies, China is expected to surpass Spain this year as the No. 3 country in terms of wind power installations, behind Germany and the United States….

How we, as a nation, respond now will have significant influence on our future position in the world.