Bingaman Gets Clear on U.S. Clean Tech Competitiveness

Highlighting China's rapidly developing economy and even more rapidly developing energy sector, John Fleck at the Albuquerque Journal highlighted Senator Jeff Bingaman's (D-NM) reflections on the clean energy race after his recent trip to China:
 

But this is about more than just meeting China's internal needs, according to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. China sees green energy -- wind, solar and the like -- as the global growth industry of the 21st century. And it aims to dominate this new global market.

"The Chinese government has determined that this is an area of substantial opportunity for them," said Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, in an interview last week after returning from a week-long fact-finding trip to learn more about what the Chinese are up to.

If the United States does not respond, we risk losing out on a major global economic growth opportunity, Bingaman said.

Fleck expands on China's clean tech progress, citing our report, "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" and quoting Breakthrough's Director of Climate and Energy Policy, Jesse Jenkins:
 

Some 200 green energy firms are now located [in Baoding, one Chinese clean energy cluster], according to Jesse Jenkins, an energy policy analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, a California think tank. Jenkins and his colleagues published a report last fall arguing that China and other Asian economic powers are "set to dominate the clean-energy race by out-investing the United States.