The "Green" War

Europe: The Current Kings Solar Energy
According to the 9th Annual Photovoltaics Status Report, Europe is responsible for 73% of the worlds solar installations in 2009. Europe had a total of 5.8 GW of solar energy, with Germany as the continued dominate European solar leader. [TreeHugger]

World Solar Energy Levels:
Germany (3.8 GW)
Italy (0.73 GW)
Japan (0.48 GW)
United States (0.46 GW)


China: The Clean-Tech Lab for the World
China has now become a green technology center for the world, as they are planning to build a 102 MW Wind Farm by Shanghai. As OE Tech has said before, China is the world's leader in solar panel production, and now has become a leader in green technology development.

Peggy Liu, the founder and chairwoman of the Joint US-China Collaboration in Clean Energy, said "What the US doesn't realize [is that China] is going from manufacturing hub to the clean-tech laboratory of the world," clearly placing US clean energy development under the spotlight. [New York Times]


The US?
In order for the US to catch up to German solar investment, Obama would need to multiply current solar output by levels 8, which would cost quite a bit of money, but would also create a lot of new US jobs in the process. To catch up with China, the US will need to start investing in grand scale clean-energy projects, [like Operation Green Goods], in order to compete with China and Europe.

Brian Merchant recently wrote an article entitled, "If Obama had Chosen Energy over Health Care...," where writes about David Brook's article, An Alternate History, discussing if Obama had chosen his Energy Bill before health care, and how this decision would have allowed Democrats, "to spend the entire summer talking about technological advances, private sector growth and breakthrough productivity gains." Though this maybe true, I disagree with both Merchant and Brooks. Choosing healthcare before [not instead of] energy allows Obama to concentrate on green job development during the second half of his term, a perfect jump start into his second term.

Merchant writes, "But Brooks is right about one thing -- doing energy would have given Obama and the Democrats a chance to engage the public on the economy, and to make genuine strides towards genuine, sustainable job creation..."What I don't agree with here is the phrase, "doing energy would have..." helped out economy, but is this to say that passing a huge multi billion dollar energy plan tomorrow would not help stimulate US employment? Timing is everything, waiting to pass an energy bill and create more jobs for our returning troops and the currently unemployment meant waiting for a war to be over. The new National Train System will cost the US $50 billion and should create many new jobs as well.

In the end, it is clear that the US is under scrutiny for not investing in more Green technology programs, both at home and abroad. Not investing in major green tech programs hurts our reasoning for not joining the Kyoto Protocol. But I truly believe that this is on purpose. Creating mass amounts of green sector jobs for unemployed Americans and returning US troops is a sure-fire way to win the 2012 election.

Watch and see..!


Sources: [TreeHugger] [New York Times] [TreeHugger - Obama]