U.S. may lag behind in developing renewable energy

By Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON (Xinhua) -- The United States may lag further behind many nations in the race to develop renewable energy technologies if the U.S. Congress did not pass a climate bill, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said this week.

The Congress is facing hurdles in enacting legislation -- a bill is now in the environment panel -- and a split is emerging among Democrats over the economic and industrial costs of reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Democrats also warned of the economic consequences of moving too aggressively and swiftly away from fossil fuels, as the bill under consideration aims to cut greenhouse gases by 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Some analysts have warned against limiting carbon emissions before there are sufficient renewable technologies in place, arguing that moving too soon toward a lower carbon economy could cost jobs. Others contended that no technology was nearly as efficient as fossil fuels.

Charles Ebinger, director of the Washington-based Brookings Institution’s energy security initiative, said the United States was lagging behind countries such as Japan and Germany.

“If you consider that just a few years ago, most solar and wind companies were U.S. companies and now they are (not), that is cause for alarm,” he said.

Another cause for U.S. concern, experts said, was the discrepancy between the Obama administration’s plans to make renewable energy a massive U.S. industry and reality: The industry was still a relatively minor, albeit growing, one.

But Ebinger said all that could be changed.

“It’s easy for us to catch up ... but it will require some concerted resources and government leadership,” he asserted.

Julian L. Wong, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, said legislation was badly needed to help the United States catch up in the global race toward renewable energy.

“We make the leading technologies, but we have disinvested in (clean energy) in the last two decades, and the rest of world has caught up,” he said.

What the United States needed now was a policy that provided enough infrastructure, especially in the form of high speed rails and grid technology, to deploy these new technologies en masse, he said.

“When all these pieces are put together, that’s what will help the United States stay competitive,” he explained. “What we have now is inadequate to help the U.S. catch up.”

In his Senate testimony this week, John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress and former White House chief of staff, said the U.S. market share of production of solar PV cells,devices that convert solar energy to electricity, dropped from 45 percent to less than 10 percent between 1995 and 2005.

At present, the U.S. top priority was replacing the outdated U.S. electricity grid, some experts said.

Others contended that the government should avoid choosing technologies and let the market decide.

Ben Lieberman, senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, said that “A central authority ... should notpick winners and losers.”

“There are risks to fossil energy use but also benefits,” Lieberman said. “It’s more affordable energy, and that has lifted poor people (around the world) out of poverty.”

The challenges over enacting climate legislation come at a time when many are looking to the United States to act decisively on climate change.

Speaking at a recent luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Jorma Ollila, chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, said it was time for Obama to take the lead in reducing carbon emissions.

The Congress also needed to act, but it was still unclear what actions it would take to reduce carbon emissions in the United States, one of the world’s biggest polluters, he said.

The key was public-private cooperation in an array of technologies, including carbon capture and storage, he believed.

The world’s population was set to grow to 9 billion by 2050, from current estimations of around 6.7 billion. Many would reside in urban areas, a factor that would sharply increase greenhouse gases if nothing is done, he warned.

Many are also looking to the United States to pass a bill before December’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, although it seems unlikely at this point, just five weeks from the summit.

Ollila said a comprehensive agreement at the summit was unnecessary. Rather, a first step toward a future goal would make the meeting a success, such as a common understanding on how to put a price on carbon emissions, he remarked.

“From that umbrella statement, we can move ahead over the next few years,” he concluded.

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