Falling Behind

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—This summer I'm interning at the San Francisco offices of a Chinese solar panel company, which by some measures is the biggest manufacturer of solar photovoltaic panels in the world. For a couple years I have avidly followed the course of climate legislation in the United States as well as in the international community, but getting to watch that debate unfold from within the "green economy" bubble has been an eye-opening experience, made all the more interesting by the fact that my employer is Chinese. In brief, the last couple of months have left me with the strong impression that unless America begins making massive investments in renewable energy and pledges sharp cuts in emissions, we are effectively dropping out of the race to become the world's leading provider of these technologies.

Whatever your thoughts on the causes of climate change, the irreducible fact is that enough people around the world are sold on the threat of global warming, as well the long term problems from the air pollution, dwindling supply and ever-increasing costs of fossil fuels, that trillions of dollars are going to be spent over the course of the next century on renewable energy technologies. No country, nor even any American state, can expect to stake a leading position in this emerging industry unless there is a strong base of domestic consumption underpinning the industry. One person who seems to have gotten the message Governor Rick Perry seems to have gotten that message, along with his Republican cohorts in Texas, some of whom remain unconvinced that global warming is even a man-made threat to the planet but are nonetheless aggressively seeking to attract high-tech renewable energy companies. Not surprisingly, Texas has long since surpassed California in installed wind capacity.

The U.S. currently trails Japan, Europe, and China in the number of top renewable energy companies. America currently ranks third behind Germany and Japan in installed solar capacity, and is first by a slim margin in installed wind capacity, ahead of Germany, a country with less than a third of our population. The American Clean Energy and Security act (ACES), the federal climate and energy legislation under consideration this summer, which has cleared the House, but is likely to be watered down, if it ever passes the Senate, would aim for between 12 and 15 percent renewable energy by 2020. If other countries follow through with already-existing commitments, in 2020 we'll be well behind all of Europe, Japan, and China in installed renewable energy (as a percentage of our total energy demand). The company I'm working for, like many solar photovoltaic companies, has relied on sales in Germany and, until the market collapsed, Spain. It is thought that the Chinese market for photovoltaic panels could grow tenfold by 2020.

In the debate over ACES, the Republicans and coal-state Democrats opposing or at least seeking to neuter the legislation repeatedly speak about the competitive disadvantage America will suffer if it takes the lead in fossil fuel regulation, particularly in relation to a still developing country but major rival such as China. Yet China, for all its unwillingness to commit to carbon caps, stands poised to seriously outpace us in the global renewable energy market. The Chinese are actively pursuing a beefed up version of what Republicans like to call an all-of-the-above energy policy. Yes, plenty of coal-fired power plants, but also generous emphasis on wind, solar, and nuclear. It appears as though China will have little difficulty surpassing its 15 percent renewable energy target by 2020, and will end up closer to 18 percent—between three and six percent more than the U.S. To give just one example, the so-called "Three Gorges of Wind" project—named after the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest—aims to produce 20 gigawatts of electricity by 2020, and is merely one of six similarly-sized projects currently in development. To give you a sense of how big that is, the entire U.S. today has 29 gigawatts of installed wind power. Oil-tycoon-cum-wind-power-magnate T. Boone Pickens’ roadmap for energy independence, the "Pickens' Plan,"which got so much press last summer, involves only four gigawatts of wind.

Servicing a billion-plus person domestic market, the Chinese energy industry looks to a future of being both the world’s biggest polluter and source of carbon emissions, as well as the globe’s largest and most mature market for renewable energy. As a result, China could come to dominate the international market for renewables. America, which only very recently ceded the title of “top carbon-emitter” to China after a century of unchallenged dominance, and is still living down the Bush administration’s rejection of the Kyoto treaty, seems poised to position itself as an also-ran in perhaps the most critical industry for the future world economy, despite the best efforts of the Obama administration, It is troglodytes in Congress who are putting America at a “competitive disadvantage” vis a vis China.


Clay A. Dumas ’10, a former Crimson associate editorial editor, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House.