U.S.-China meeting heralds a ‘Sputnik moment’

U.S. feels urgency to catch up to China in clean-energy innovation
By
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 1:05 pm

With Chinese premier Hu Jintao’s arrival in Washington on Wednesday, energy will be a priority point as the two heads of state meet – and may well herald the launch of U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s “Sputnik moment.”

In November 2010, Chu addressed (PDF) a gathering of journalists at the National Press Club, and put forward his vision for U.S.-led innovation in clean technology. Chu described the creation of a new innovation race with the same urgency as President Eisenhower called on the U.S. to get a satellite into orbit after Soviet Union’s successful launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957.

“When it comes to innovation, Americans don’t take a back seat to anyone – and we certainly won’t start now,” said Secretary Chu. “From wind power to nuclear reactors to high speed rail, China and other countries are moving aggressively to capture the lead. Given that challenge, and given the enormous economic opportunities in clean energy, it’s time for America to do what we do best: innovate. As President Obama has said, we should not, cannot, and will not play for second place.”

Though aptly named the ‘Sputnik race’ for the urgency with which the U.S. needs to address its lagging position as a world innovator in the clean energy field, Chu was careful to point out that this innovation requires bilateral agreements between the U.S., China and other developing nations who are currently leading a global clean tech revolution, including India and Brazil.

Past meeting between the U.S. and China on energy matters have ended in deadlock. In the nail-bitingly tense closing meetings at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, China and the U.S. refused to compromise on who should take the responsibility for the bulk of emissions: China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and an emerging economy, or, the U.S., historically the world’s largest emitter and the largest emitter on a per capita basis. Continued reluctance to address key responsibilities for carbon emissions left the 2010 Climate Change meeting in Cancun, Mexico, also without a binding treaty.

On its home turf, China’s dominance in the global solar industry is causing contention in the U.S. The Obama administration is currently reviewing a complaint (PDF) from the United States Steelworkers union that China has violated free trade rules with its subsidization of renewable energy companies. And the market dominance by Chinese companies in California following the passage of the California Solar Initiative (CSI) in 2007 –- which offers subsidized solar panels to homes and businesses -– is also raising questions about how the current administration plans to marry the two central principles of its energy policy — energy independence and domestic job creation.

Chu’s Soviet-era rhetoric seems to be a thinly-veiled call for the U.S. to step up its clean tech innovation game. And it will be interesting to see how it plays in to the next four days of meetings between the two leaders.

Comments

3 Comments

Hercule_Savinien
Comment posted January 20, 2011 @ 12:35 am

DEGENERATIVE ECONOMIC SPIRAL – The path of decline!

[Tyranny of the Bottom Line]

The [American-Israeli Military Industrial Complex] is locked into a Tyranny Of The Bottom Line, degenerative economic spiral of its own making, with jobs such as the recent relocation to the [PDRC] Peoples Democratic Republic of China of the Evergreen Solar Inc., company a solar panel manufacturing firm, from Danvers, Massachutes, a company which has been provided with substantial financial assistance from the [PDRC] in all phases of its growth and development, along with Massachutes tax relief of a lesser amount. And, what was the cost to the American-Israeli Military Industrial Complex, [800] eight-hundred employees are now without jobs in a job less economy. What are the short term loss’s to the [NYSE] New York Stock Exchange, the stock dropped from [$100 USD] per share to [$3 USD] per share, but this will be more than recouped by lower cost of development and manufacturing capabilities as this firm along with other companies are relocated too the [PDRC], the average cost per monthly cost per employee plus benefit package and pay in Danvers, Massachutes, [$5,400.00 USD’s] compared to [$300.00 USD’s] in equivalent [PDRC] currency the Renminbi/Yuan, [1/2 of 1%] the monthly cost, all going to the long term bottom line profitability of the company due to its movement off shore, [Sphere of Influence] as the [NYSE] with its Tyranny of the Bottom Line mentality, balloons its profits. But, this is but one company now multiply it by [50] one per each state, that’s [40K] jobs lost in one month, each month for [12] months [480K] jobs lost in one year, are you getting the picture?

[The Elite Class / The Fat Cat’s]

The Millionaire Elite Class / The Fat Cat’s have been discussed by Peter Schiff, the president of Euro Pacific Capital in an article entitled [Washington fat cats prosper, rest of America suffers] and we quote; Washington, D.C., and Wall Street have combined to bleed Main Street dry. “All the wealth is being sucked out of the private sector and the productive part of it’s economy and is being redirected to Washington, DC. Washington, D. C., is like a giant parasite feeding off the American economy. The bigger the parasite grows the weaker underlying economy becomes,” he explained. As Washington, D. C., grows, more people will lose their jobs and the economy will shrink, Schiff argued. Government works are no longer civil servants, but an elite class. “It’s producing big profits on Wall Street, but at the expense of everybody in Main Street, Unquote, Federal employees have actually made more money during the recession and more jobs have moved to the Washington, D. C., area.” One thing is sure about this recession is that the public sector employees have been relatively sheltered compared to the private sector,” said Economist Veronique de Rugy from the Mercatus Institute, paraphrased, The parasites earn [50%] more than a private sector employee and expect this percentage to increase, as the parasites get a [100%] average pay raise above that given to the private sector each year, while the ranks of parasites employment grows by [10%] a year, as the private sector employment declines by [7%] a year, un-paraphrased, as the unofficial unemployment rate stands at [20%], Washington, D.C. the [Beltway] is living in the lap of luxury while Main St., grovels in poverty, the poor underclass living on the dole, and food stamps, living with relatives, in their cars, in homeless shelters, looking to those products purchased at Wally-World/Wal-Marts, for low priced [BRICS] developed and manufactured goods, just to keep them going.

[Degenerative economic spiral, the path of decline]

And, the citizens of the American-Israeli Military Industrial Complex have the Millionaire Elite Class to blame, Massachutes, U.S. Representative Barney Franks, who repeatedly successfully opposed any attempts to increase regulation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which became part of the financial implosion, Clinton’s signing in to law [NAFTA] the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the sound could be audibly heard of jobs being sucked out of the country. Clinton again signed into law the [1998] revision of the [1933] Glass Steagall Act, which originally forbade commercial banks from engaging in investment backing activities, preventing collatorized debt obligations, credit default swaps. And again Clinton, signing into law the [2000] Commodities Futures Modernization Act, credit default swaps, which lead to the melt down of its credit markets, and traders et., el., Citigroup, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and the list goes on. While feeding into the [American-Israeli Military Industrial Complex] growth Politically were [50] state have military contacts providing every elite millionaire fat cat Washington, D.C., politician with campaign contribution for their reelection from gerrymandered districts, without term limits, Economically the [NYSE] profits growth is due to low labor costs from off shore based companies. All this at the cost of generations of [American-Israeli Military Industrial Complex] workers and taxpayers thru loans provided by the [Economic Sphere’s of Influence] to the tune of [$14 Trillion USD’s] and increasing by [$4.15 Billion USD’s] a day, and the [PDRC] which is [1st] and foremost a lender to it. As the [American-Israeli Military Industrial Complex] paints a continuing picture of prosperity and wealth which is being supported by off the cuff, credit card, put it on the tab debt, and dependent on other [Geo-Economic Spheres of Influence] such as the [BRICS] Brazil, The Russian Federation, India, The Peoples Democratic Republic of China, and The Union of South Africa which purchase their debt thru treasury securities with increasingly high rate’s of return interest, this is not a path of development but a degenerative economic spiral a path to future decline, of the middle and lower class of the [American-Israeli Military Industrial Complex], a path chosen by the millionaire elite Fat Cat Class of so called elected officials, who are dully appointed by the masters of the [Military Industrial Complex].

HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN


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