Who leads in the renewable race?

Ladies and Gentlemen...its a hands down victory for ....The Germans!

Who would have thought that the USA, with all of its initiation of patented ideas for Solar and Wind technologies, would be dragging its feet in the race for energy independence? The goal in Germany as stated in their energy plan is to be 100% powered by renewables and it looks like they will make it by 2030...off of fossil fuels by 2030. Some of their cities are at the 100% mark already. German roof tops are filling up with solar power for hot water, heating, and electricity and they are moving forward with more wind farms than they need so that the rest of Europe can benefit from low carbon energy.

Just around the corner Denmark has entire districts fueled by renewables...they call it their Free-Energy Island...even super heated water systems providing heat for entire towns in a region north of Maine in the US. 4300 residents and their entire community generating energy and selling some of it back to the mainland grid.

The US Congress, in all of their wisdom, first ignored and then voted down renewable energy legislation...making it a political issue instead of realizing that energy and pollution are part of our national security and offer millions...that's right...millions of jobs if we just get on board. One example, the third largest wind producing company in the world is Florida Power and Light, even exceeding Iberdola of Spain,...who knew. Their wholly owned subsidiary Nextera has nearly 90 wind farms in 17 states and Canada generating almost 8,570 net megawatts of energy along with solar farms, natural gas and emerging bioenergy production.

But industry funded US production in renewables is falling off in 2012 due to lack of US national commitment, and if the Republicans win the Presidency all bets are off...considering that Romney/Ryan intends to cut the $2Billion in subsidies that the renewable developers are now getting while stating a continued commitment to maintain Big Oil's 40Billion in subsidies... When they say that they have an energy policy that will use all sources they failed to mention that they took the line item about energy efficiency out of the Republican platform for 2012 and are not sponsoring any new growth or development in renewables.

What America and the world needs is to generate new jobs through the development of a renewables centered energy policy and R&D commitment that will allow us to harness our industrial power to lead the world in this industry...rather than follow it because our Congress is in a short-cycle rather than viewing America over the long term. We should be reducing CO2 emissions, and eliminating toxic emissions like mercury and NOx by focusing on efficiency and renewables...not by moving back to support Big Oil at their expense.

So let's hear it for the Germans and the Chinese too. They are leading the race with countries like the UK, Spain and Denmark moving up while the USA is holding back...apparently to give all these other industrial powers that chance to dominate in what really is the next big thing...renewable industries in a less polluted world.