US: China rise a 'Sputnik moment' for clean energy

[cowcommander]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON — A senior US official called China's growing innovation a "Sputnik moment" that should spur the United States to ramp up investment in clean energy, despite a shift in Washington on climate change.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu likened a series of Chinese milestones -- including the development of the world's fastest supercomputer -- to the Soviet Union's landmark 1957 satellite that led the United States into the Space Race. "America, I am optimistic, will wake up and see the opportunity. And when it does, it still has the greatest innovation machine in the world," Chu said in a speech entitled "Our New Sputnik Moment."

Chu said the United States still concentrated on research in areas such as computers, defense and pharmaceuticals but that its funding for energy innovation was paltry. By contrast, China, the world's largest emitter of carbon blamed for global warming, is working to build the world's most expansive high-speed rail network and has developed technology for the highest-efficiency coal plants.


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[prairierose]

1. I hope Chu is correct but....

I have little faith that it will actually happen. The media would have to explain to people that the Chinese are overtaking us in so many areas. I do not think that will happen. The President would have to use the bully pulpit to try to energize people. I do not think that will happen since he has not done it for any of the very important topics that came up in Congress in the last 2 years.

But most of all, we would need corporations and small businesses to work hard on this series of challenges. The corporations do not care if America is falling behind. They care about their profits period. Small business gets little or no help from the government. The SBA has been taken over by large corps and they now lend money to Bechtel and Coors. Actual small business gets little help and those are the people who create the most jobs and the most innovation.

[David__77]

2. What China is doing takes macroeconomic planning and controls.

The US is degenerating because of the evil represented by Milton Friedman. We need central economic planning, in the New Deal sense.