Who Will Win The Race For Jobs In Renewable Energy?

When it comes to renewable energy innovation and equipment manufacturing, China is challenging the West, and the outcome will decide where millions of jobs go in the future.

As The New York Times reported recently, “China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain, and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year. China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. … These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines, and other gear manufactured in China.”

The United States’ growing dependence on China is one issue of national concern, but another is: Where will the jobs that innovation creates go?

We still have a big advantage — for now, at least — in our nation’s scientific research facilities, the most advanced in the world. And the $400 million funding of ARPA-E, created in 2007 but dormant until President Obama’s stimulus bill was approved, is a positive sign.

Huffington Post