The U.S. has been a major player in clean energy technologies, but China is now the leader. The top six European countries, together, are spending almost as much as the U.S. The activity “flies in the face of skepticism about the clean energy sector,” says Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Given the trend, stepping up U.S. investment could enhance the country’s competitiveness; an October 2010 report from research firm Clean Edge concluded that China-based companies “are poised to increasingly dominate as clean tech employers.” Greater American effort would also slow climate change and improve energy independence; the biggest solar power plant in the world, it turns out, is being built in Blythe, Calif., by a German firm.
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Add CommentAnd America is still dead last in clean energy production and technology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsidering the way the political climate is blowing, I don't expect us to hold second for very long....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder how many of the people posting here are old enough to remember when this whole Magic Energy thing came about in the first place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBack when gasoline was 50 cents a gal, some complainers at that price were talking about the need for a pill to be invented that you could put in your gas tank, fill it up with water and walla...instant gasoline. I remember people experimenting with things like carbite, only to get some hair singed off their eyebrows. That was about all.
Then the oil embargo on Jimmy Carter brought all the kooks back out. Wind and solar became the new magic answer, but it was a flop because there is very little energy that can be tapped in either. When we got rid of Jimmy Carter it all died again. Left behind was a number of failed wind farms that did little more than kill a lot of birds.
Today, we have the war on carbon based fuels started by a minority of people who have an adjenda against fossil fuels. Add to that that we have not had a real energy policy in this country for decades has made the cost of energy artificially high.
Now, once again the kooks are beating the same drum for Wind and Solar. And to this day, after some 35 years, Solar and Wind contribute a bleak 1% of all the energy this country needs and uses.
In other words, it ain't going to happen. The power from this socalled renewables is too small to be effecient or effective. The most effecient and effective means of power is still, coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear. There is enough of these power sources to power this world for longer than we even realize.
So why are we wasting all this time and recources piddling around with wind mills and solar Panels, when it's known they are a joke? Its all political pandering. Get the price of energy back down to where we won't be depending on some future pipe dream to get us to work.
The answer is DRILL BABY DRILL!!! PURE and SIMPLE.
AJSP
I discovered here in Canada the technology of the Flying Saucer, patented it and offered it to Nasa in 1980, so that it couod be applied to the Shuttles, that then would not need rockets anymore and fly to the ISS in one hour or the Moon in a couple of hours. Nasa was not interested. It would make the Rocket Industry obsolete.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese big spheres of a Flying Saucer are the propulsion units that make Gravity Control possible.
It can now be used for the generation of clean electrical power.
(e.g) A one thousand ton weight can be lifted 1000 feet
with a small of energy, using the technology.
When it comes down, it can be used to generate thousands of Kilowatts.
A Power Station using the technology would consist of two Silos of the appropriate height and width, depending on the power requirement.
Inside the silos a weight would be able to slide up .
and down.
The Propulsion Units (Gravity Control Unit= GCU) would be mounted under the weights.
Initially the GCU in Silo #1 would be powered externally
to lift the weight to maximum height.
Then the power to the GCU would disconnect and the weight would come down, activating the generator(s) and powering the GCU in Silo # 2 that would bring the weight there up.
When the weight in Silo #1 reaches bottom, Silo # 2 takes the generation of power over and repowers the GCU in Silo #1. Then it continues.
No pollution, no water needed.
A Power Station can be built in a few months.
The cost will be a fraction of a Nuclear Plant.
The GCU's will be LEASED to satisfy the investors and taxman.
Power at 1 cent per kilowatt or less.
Plans will be prepared for a fee of $1 million after receiving the required information of power required and Generator information.
The Power Plant can be built at any place, to any capacity. A few electricians can run it.
US Patent 4,095,162 is "expired" but I left a few particulars out to thwart an unfriendly country from using it and give Nasa and the USA a bloody nose.
It will also create new jobs, as any oil- or gas furnace can be converted to electric ones.
What you have is a normalacy bias. This applies to all folks who say "It won't stay this way". I have nothing against oil, we just shouldn't burn it. Times have changed. Yes, we are swimming in oil right now, and will be for a long time. But we have dug and pumped stuff out from underneath the ground and burnt it for over 300 years. Where do you think the waste goes. It goes to suffocate your children and grandchildren in toxic funusable junk. Stop thinking of yourself for a minute and be a responsible adult for awhile. Use your head to solve the econmically unstable uses of oil and gas by burning it. Look at a graph of the price of oil and compare it to the economic climate over the past 60 years. When oil is high, times are bad. Unless you are in the oil business, then it's countercyclical. Check out the new 2 million USD white gold-plated Mercedes the Saudis just bought themselves. That car could have educated a lot of American kids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember selling gas during the "gas wars" at 33 cents a gal. in Indiana. And free dishware for every other fillup. Then the Arabs formed their union (OPEC) and the US (with my Phillips 66 station) crashed into a wall. Ten years later, my hog farm propane price shot up 300% in one year and mortgages went to 19%. A year ago I overlayed a graph of crude oil prices on top of global GDP and the theory proved itself. The price of crude goes up, and with a small lag, everything else goes to the toilet. Talk about wag the dog!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow I market-produce farm in the Piedmont. My tractors (24 & 75 hp) run cold-filtered canola and "Browns Gas" (HHO)electrolyzers, get TRIPLE the hours over diesel, with cooler head temps and more power. The 4000 sq. ft. house my family lives in used 200 gals of propane this last season from my multifuel furnace (wood/LP). I like the house 72 to 74. Sweaters are for outside work. This is far less that the 3100 gallons we used the first year on LP alone. It's an all LP house, the queen bee likes to cook with it, the on-demand water heaters work better and faster that electric, the clothes get dried faster and cheaper. It's just a more efficient use of energy.
We constructed a hybrid solar/wind generator AC system. The solar is an inverted parabolic reflector (40"), and the wind is an array of "squrrel-cage" DC motor/generators. My electric bills run $80 to $100 a month. Far lower than the average $277 the first year here. When the irrigation pond is stabilized, the hydro will get us to the point of a decision to remain on the grid, or green-sell KW's to the co-op. A low-carbon life can be lived. None of this could have been done without crude oil (LP is a waste product of cracking crude), I just use a lot less.
If anyone is the REALIST here, it's me. A stable life, business, family, government, world cannot be built on the shifting sands of unpredictable varible expenses. That is why we buy insurance. Do you know how to price your time, skills and labor if the cost's to produce them are unknown? There is no insurance for the spot-market buyer of energy. Only a baseline contract with the jobber, and the jobber always wins at the year-end round-up.
In my 74 years, I have breathed enough exhaust to get lung cancer. And being the REALIST, I'm not mad. I knew the risks, and decided living Amish-style just didn't have enough fun.
But money is the key, and BURNING money is stupid. Since it costs money for oil, BURNING oil is stupid.
Remember how China argued that it shouldn't be taxed more in cap and trade because even though it's the number one polluter, it's not the number one polluter per capita?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, China may be the number one alternative energy investor, but it's not the number one alternative energy investor per capita.
bfels, burning oil may seem stupid until you get cold enough to keep you from freezing, or you need it to get to work, then it becomes a very wise thing to do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut back to the beginning, that’s all well and good to hear how you live and the gadgetry you find that works for you, but not everyone can, or will want to do these. I happen to do some cost savings things myself like burning wood in my Fireplace insert. I burned 3 cords this winter and its shut down now unless the weather turns again here where I live.
During the Jimmy Carter mess, my commute to work was a 90 mile round trip every day. I built a water injection system for the Dodge van I had back then and it helped, but again, the nation as a whole is not going to convert their cars to burning used cooking oil, injecting water, or any of the hundreds of gizmotchies that are coming down the pike. 1/2 of this nations drivers (women) don't even know how to lift the hood up, much less add some water and baking soda to their hydrogen jar.
The bottom line to keeping oil prices at a more even keel to have your own supply in your own backyard and that means Drill Baby Drill. It makes common sense, just like why I get my firewood here where I live rather importing it from China.
Our young president Obama just cut a deal with Brazil to "Drill Baby Drill".
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2692496/posts
Whats this all about!?! We have the whole state of LA suffering because of his moratorium and he cuts a deal to have Brazil Drill, and we buy their oil? Wonder why the T.E.A. party is growing leaps and bounds?
I find you a very interesting person to gab with, you and I may be more alike than you think, but you need to realize that this country and the whole world's economy operates on carbon based fuel, and it will be for a long long time.
And as my dad told me early in life, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and any thing that looks too good to be true, it probably ain’t,
AJSP
It really amuses me to read here that the USA only manage to get 1% of their energy from solar and wind power. Here in Germany, we already get 6% of our electricity from wind, and 2% from solar - and those numbers are rising fast. Add to that the increasing so-called "passive houses", which actually produce more electricity than they consume thanks to advanced insulation and other tech, and it increasingly looks like Germany is living in the future, while the USA is living in the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut then again, the USA _has_ become the "Can't Do" nation of late...
You really need to realize that Fox News is an entertainment source and not a viable news source. They even went to court to prove that they are not a real news channel and won. The court upheld their right to lie and they use that right extensively.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile renewables are not a major energy contributor for us, if you bothered to read the text with the picture you would have seen that Germany is up to 16%. Combining this with recent improvements, we can expect to see a variety of renewables enter price competitiveness within the next decade.
My power for heating, cooling and transportation are all fossil fuels and will continue to be so until renewables are price competitive. Most of the cost is taxes which are primarily to support military and social spending as well as federal kickbacks to the fossil fuel industry. That doesn't make much sense to me but that is how the USA works. Power generation from solar and wind have already passed the point where they generate more than they require to produce. That happened quite a while ago. The problem is primarily a matter of storage. Electricity storage is very inefficient. Fortunately there have been a number of break throughs in this arena that should hit the market in the next few years.
As for your infantile name calling, I'm old enough to remember the "silly kooks" that hooked up networks for computers and the "kooks" that thought people should have personal computers. Then there were the "kooks" that thought maybe you could use a phone for more than just phone calls.
If the US had invested in clean technology instead of attacking Irak and afghnistan they could have equipped the entire american population with free solar panels and electric cars. Arms technology is the worst form of pollution in that it kills far more people than many diseases. Porto Rico has no army and very high biodiversity. If arms shareholders were made to clear away mines and spent uranium munitions we would all be able to live in peace.
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