In an article entitled “China Drawing High-Tech Research From U.S.” the New York Times documents how development in the Chinese clean-tech industry is drawing some of America’s most highly educated engineers and executives out of the country.
To read the full article, click here.
To read commentary from The Breakthrough Institute, click here.
Last week, Kristina Johnson, Under Secretary of Energy testified to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development:
“One crosscutting initiative that I’d like to highlight is RE-ENERGYSE, or REgaining our ENERGY and Scientific Edge. RE-ENERGYSE is a $55 million collaborative effort which includes EERE ($50 million) and NE ($5 million) and involves close coordination with the Offices of Science, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies. This initiative is aimed at filling the gaps in the energy workforce pipeline by training current and future generations of energy professionals through fellowships for higher education, energy-focused curriculum development for technical training, and K-12 education and outreach. We have extensively surveyed existing educational activities within the Department and in other agencies and found that we lack a coordinated funding approach for these proposed activities. REENERGYSE will focus on engineering and applied sciences, separate and distinct from existing Office of Science educational programs focused on basic science and experiential teacher training. REENERGYSE will also, however, tap into existing Department resources to administer fellowships and coordinate other activities.
(more…)
A report in Science Magazine outlines changes made by the Department of Energy to the new RE-ENERGYSE proposal for FY 2011. After Congress did not fund the $115 million proposal for 2010, the DOE cut down certain programs to bring the budget request down to $50 million.
Kristina Johnson, undersecretary for Energy, helped rework the proposal to address concerns that RE-ENERGYSE overlapped too much with initiatives of the National Science Foundation and Department of Education. The changes include a reduction in the number of funded graduate fellowships and interdisciplinary masters programs in energy studies. Despite the trimdowns, Johnson underscored the urgency of RE-ENERGYSE.
“This year, about 6% of entering college students say they are interested in engineering and about 4.4% of them graduate with an engineering degree . . . It’s pretty hard to compete globally when you’re relying on such a small segment of the population to provide the innovation we need. We know from studies NSF has done that we lose kids in grades three to five. And if they don’t maintain an interest in science and math, they won’t take enough courses to be able to become an engineer.”
Miller-McCune Magazine has published a question and answer with Teryn Norris about the clean energy race, “Throwing the Race for Green Energy,” that discusses the growing global competition for clean-tech and what the U.S. can do to regain its leadership:
A few years ago, the news was that China was adding two new coal plants a week to its energy grid. Last year the narrative shifted: China was erecting wind turbines at the rate of one turbine a week.
In 2010, yet another narrative is at work: China, Japan and South Korea are pouring lots of money into research and development of green technologies (not that China has abandoned coal, which provides about 80 percent of its electricity). Because of these strategic investments, China is positioned to emerge as a global green tech leader, gaining first-mover advantage and diminishing the United States’ chances of capitalizing on green manufacturing jobs and the fruits of technological innovation.
Among those who have addressed this concern is Teryn Norris, one of the authors of a paper titled “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant” released late last year by the Breakthrough Institute and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. The authors conclude that the Chinese, Japanese and Korean governments will spend $509 billion on developing green energy from 2009 to 2013. The U.S. government will invest $172 billion over that same period — if the American Clean Energy and Security Act is fully implemented.
Increasingly, proponents of more aggressive U.S. funding for green tech are framing the issue in competitive terms, some referring to it as the “Earth Race.” With the topic getting broad coverage, including articles in The New York Times, the Guardian and Newsweek, and think tanks like the Center for American Progress weighing in, Miller-McCune asked Norris directly about the findings.
Read the full interview here.
Originally published by Clean Edge
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the United States faces serious questions about the future of its economy and jobs market. Where will the good jobs of the future come from, how do we prepare the American workforce, and what is our strategy to maintain economic leadership in an increasingly competitive world?
A growing consensus suggests that clean tech will be one of our generation’s largest growth sectors. The global clean-tech market is expected to surpass $1 trillion in value within the next few years, and a perfect storm of factors – from the inevitability of a carbon-constrained world, to skyrocketing global energy demand, to long-term oil price hikes – will drive global demand for clean-energy technologies.
That is why the national debate about global clean-tech competitiveness is so important, sparked by the rapid entry of China and other nations. My colleagues and I recently contributed to the discussion with “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” a large report providing the first comprehensive analysis of competitive positions among the U.S. and key Asian challengers. In order to compete, we found, “U.S. energy policy must include large, direct and coordinated investments in clean-technology R&D, manufacturing, deployment, and infrastructure.”
But even if the United States adopts a real industrial policy for clean energy, there is little evidence that our workforce is skilled enough to compete. Unfortunately, according to the Department of Energy, “The U.S. ranks behind other major nations in making the transitions required to educate students for emerging energy trades, research efforts and other professions to support the future energy technology mix.”
Update 03/16: More on China’s growing high-speech rail dominance in today’s Financial Times:
“the rapid rise of Chinese state-owned rail producers is posing a serious threat to the dominance of companies such as Germany’s Siemens, France’s Alstom, Canada’s Bombardier and Japan’s Kawasaki… In a sign of how competitive the Chinese state railway equipment producers have become, Siemens has abandoned its bid for the second phase of the “pilgrim express” linking the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and has joined a Chinese consortium instead.”
From 03/15: “Fortunately for the U.S., China is ready and willing to share as it speeds ahead in its development of domestic high-speed rail,” notes the Breakthrough Institute. “Even though China still imports HSR technology to manufacture trains, it has developed its own model that it has yet to commercialize. And now, the AP reports that China is not only planning to build out 16,000 miles of high speed track by 2020, it is aiming to bid for a piece of the $8 billion U.S. HSR pie.”
China plans to bid for contracts to build U.S. high-speed train lines and is stepping up exports of rail technology to Europe and Latin America, a government official said Saturday.
China has built 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) of high-speed rail for its own train system and President Barack Obama issued a pledge in November with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to cooperate in developing the technology.
“We are organizing relevant companies to participate in bidding for U.S. high-speed railways,” Wang Zhiguo, a deputy railways minister, told a news conference…
“China is willing to share its mature and advanced technology with other countries to promote development of the world’s high-speed railways,” Wang [Zhigou] said.”
[chinaenergy2010] [China Energy Systems] High-speed China changes rail landscape
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High-speed China changes rail landscape
Financial Times For decades the high-speed railway sector has been dominated by a handful of companies in Europe, Japan and North America, which have mostly concentrated on projects in their own regional markets. But just as the industry is witnessing a proliferation of high-speed rail projects across the globe, the rapid rise of Chinese state-owned rail producers is posing a serious threat to the dominance of companies such as Germany’s Siemens, France’s Alstom, Canada’s Bombardier and Japan’s Kawasaki. “Chinese companies are changing the landscape of the global railway market because of the dimensions of their home market and because they are becoming involved in international tenders, which is new,” said Dominique Pouliquen, Asia-Pacific managing director for Alstom.
In a sign of how competitive the Chinese state railway equipment producers have become, Siemens has abandoned its bid for the second phase of the “pilgrim express” linking the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and has joined a Chinese consortium instead. While the Chinese companies are new to the global stage and lag their European rivals in terms of quality and technology, they have some significant advantages. “Price is their number one competitive advantage and they are very well organised with financing support from Chinese state-owned banks,” Mr Pouliquen told the Financial Times. “They offer a global package, which is usually combining technical solution with financing, so it is very easy for governments to make a decision to use their products.” The Chinese ministry of railways, which directly owns many rail companies, co-ordinates tenders so they don’t bid against each other, and encourages foreign companies to join Chinese consortia by holding out the prospect of greater access to an enormous market. Analysts said Chinese companies were already very active in bidding for projects in Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Latin American countries including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. They are also targeting projects in Australia and the US, and have made significant inroads in their own region, with contracts in Thailand and Hong Kong. The rise of the Chinese rail industry with its global aspirations has happened quickly. Iain Carmichael, managing director Lloyd’s Register Rail in Asia, said that as recently as three years ago Chinese companies didn’t have the knowhow for many parts of their own rail systems, such as signalling and high-speed technology, and that provided a huge opportunity for European companies. “But as the Chinese gained the knowhow, the relationship changed, so now the Chinese have the upper hand and the Europeans now have to work co-operatively if they want to compete,” he said. “Rolling stock products are built cheaper in China than anywhere else and the quality is now at the level where they can sell to global projects.” He said the main constraint on Chinese exports of rolling stock was capacity, because Chinese producers were trying to keep up with orders at home in what had become the largest market in the world. “Some big manufacturers are tripling their output this year and we’re seeing a vast expansion of metro systems as well as high speed rail,” Mr Carmichael said. China’s market for rail equipment, including trains, components, signalling systems and other equipment, is expected to quintuple from an average of $10bn a year in the period between 2004 and 2008 to more than $50bn a year between 2009 and 2013, according to estimates from McKinsey. This year China is expected to account for more than half the total global expenditure on rail equipment. The government plans to build at least 30,000km of railway, most of it high-speed, in the next five years and China is soon expected to overtake Russia to have the second-largest rail infrastructure in the world, after the US. These ambitious expansion plans have been on the books for years but, in the wake of the financial crisis, the government accelerated its build-out to boost growth, moving the target date for completion for many projects from 2020 to 2015. The size and scale of the Chinese market partly explains why European and international rail equipment providers are scrambling over each other to partner Chinese state producers inside the country and around the world. But co-operation has come at a price. “European manufacturers have complained that they have transferred technology to China as required [by Beijing] and now the Chinese are using their technology to compete on price in the international market and even in the European home markets,” said Evan Auyang, an executive at Hong Kong-based Transport International and a former infrastructure consultant at McKinsey. Chinese regulations for the sector include onerous local content requirements stipulating that 70-90 per cent of rail equipment must be Chinese-made. The official state policy on using foreign rail technology is known as “introduce, digest, absorb then innovate”. “Around 90 per cent of the technology the Chinese currently are using is derived from their partnerships or equipment developed by foreign companies,” Mr Pouliquen said. –
Reply
More on high-speed rail in China: “the rapid rise of Chinese state-owned rail producers is posing a serious threat to the dominance of companies such as Germany’s Siemens, France’s Alstom, Canada’s Bombardier and Japan’s Kawasaki… In a sign of how competitive the Chinese state railway equipment producers have become, Siemens has abandoned its bid for the second phase of the “pilgrim express” linking the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and has joined a Chinese consortium instead.”
- Hide quoted text -
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Collin Cronkite <ccronkite@gmail.com> Date: Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 8:11 PM Subject: [chinaenergy2010] [China Energy Systems] High-speed China changes rail landscape To: chinaenergy2010@lists.stanford.edu High-speed China changes rail landscape Financial Times For decades the high-speed railway sector has been dominated by a handful of companies in Europe, Japan and North America, which have mostly concentrated on projects in their own regional markets. But just as the industry is witnessing a proliferation of high-speed rail projects across the globe, the rapid rise of Chinese state-owned rail producers is posing a serious threat to the dominance of companies such as Germany’s Siemens, France’s Alstom, Canada’s Bombardier and Japan’s Kawasaki. “Chinese companies are changing the landscape of the global railway market because of the dimensions of their home market and because they are becoming involved in international tenders, which is new,” said Dominique Pouliquen, Asia-Pacific managing director for Alstom. While the Chinese companies are new to the global stage and lag their European rivals in terms of quality and technology, they have some significant advantages. “Price is their number one competitive advantage and they are very well organised with financing support from Chinese state-owned banks,” Mr Pouliquen told the Financial Times. “They offer a global package, which is usually combining technical solution with financing, so it is very easy for governments to make a decision to use their products.” The Chinese ministry of railways, which directly owns many rail companies, co-ordinates tenders so they don’t bid against each other, and encourages foreign companies to join Chinese consortia by holding out the prospect of greater access to an enormous market. Analysts said Chinese companies were already very active in bidding for projects in Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Latin American countries including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. They are also targeting projects in Australia and the US, and have made significant inroads in their own region, with contracts in Thailand and Hong Kong. The rise of the Chinese rail industry with its global aspirations has happened quickly. Iain Carmichael, managing director Lloyd’s Register Rail in Asia, said that as recently as three years ago Chinese companies didn’t have the knowhow for many parts of their own rail systems, such as signalling and high-speed technology, and that provided a huge opportunity for European companies. “But as the Chinese gained the knowhow, the relationship changed, so now the Chinese have the upper hand and the Europeans now have to work co-operatively if they want to compete,” he said. “Rolling stock products are built cheaper in China than anywhere else and the quality is now at the level where they can sell to global projects.” He said the main constraint on Chinese exports of rolling stock was capacity, because Chinese producers were trying to keep up with orders at home in what had become the largest market in the world. “Some big manufacturers are tripling their output this year and we’re seeing a vast expansion of metro systems as well as high speed rail,” Mr Carmichael said. China’s market for rail equipment, including trains, components, signalling systems and other equipment, is expected to quintuple from an average of $10bn a year in the period between 2004 and 2008 to more than $50bn a year between 2009 and 2013, according to estimates from McKinsey. This year China is expected to account for more than half the total global expenditure on rail equipment. The government plans to build at least 30,000km of railway, most of it high-speed, in the next five years and China is soon expected to overtake Russia to have the second-largest rail infrastructure in the world, after the US. These ambitious expansion plans have been on the books for years but, in the wake of the financial crisis, the government accelerated its build-out to boost growth, moving the target date for completion for many projects from 2020 to 2015. The size and scale of the Chinese market partly explains why European and international rail equipment providers are scrambling over each other to partner Chinese state producers inside the country and around the world. But co-operation has come at a price. “European manufacturers have complained that they have transferred technology to China as required [by Beijing] and now the Chinese are using their technology to compete on price in the international market and even in the European home markets,” said Evan Auyang, an executive at Hong Kong-based Transport International and a former infrastructure consultant at McKinsey. Chinese regulations for the sector include onerous local content requirements stipulating that 70-90 per cent of rail equipment must be Chinese-made. The official state policy on using foreign rail technology is known as “introduce, digest, absorb then innovate”. “Around 90 per cent of the technology the Chinese currently are using is derived from their partnerships or equipment developed by foreign companies,” Mr Pouliquen said. – _______________________________________________
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This week, the youth energy and climate movement achieved a victory when Johns Hopkins University — one of the largest research universities in the world — announced a major new climate and energy plan, resulting in large part from student activism and leadership.
Announced by JHU President Ron Daniels, the plan includes (1) a $73 million energy investment to cut university carbon pollution over 50% below projected levels by 2025, (2) a new Environment, Sustainability, and Health Institute to promote new research and education in climate, energy, and sustainability, (3) a new Master’s Degree in Energy Policy and Climate, and more.
“Global climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges,” declared President Daniels in his statement. “Facing this challenge head-on is our shared responsibility, especially as residents of the developed world. But universities have a special role in our society and a special responsibility. We are institutions that discover, that educate and that, often, set an example. When it comes to global climate change, Johns Hopkins will be a leader in all three.”
By Jesse Jenkins (Director of Energy & Climate Policy, Breakthrough Institute) Published at Huffington Post and Forbes Energy Source
When you think ‘green jobs,’ do you conjure images of green hard hats, caulk guns, and tool belts? Well it might be time to start thinking about ‘green’ lab beakers, ‘green’ drafting tables and ‘green’ brief cases as well, because the careers needed to secure competitive clean energy industries will also run the gamut from cutting-edge researchers and high-tech engineers to innovative designers and fearless entrepreneurs, according to Dr. Henry Kelly, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.
Dr. Kelly spoke to an audience of Stanford University students Monday about the steps necessary to educate “the Energy Generation,” warning that it will take a generation of the nation’s best and brightest, working in dozens of diverse fields, to truly build a clean and prosperous American economy:
“So what is a green job? Well green jobs are architects and engineers that build buildings, design buildings that operate at extremely low energy use. They are people that design, manufacture, and install devices in buildings ranging from high-tech windows to lighting to sensors and controls and electronics. It means looking at radically new industrial processes which simply replace previous kinds of industrial manufacturing with sophisticated bionumetics and nanotech approaches, to cutting down the material intensity and energy intensity of production, this is the kind of thing you need to do to stay competitive in the modern world.If you look at what the nation’s transportation system is going to look like, Henry Ford looks like he’s toast, it’s going to be replaced with an entirely new generation of either extremely high efficiency fuel powered vehicles, electric vehicles, perhaps even hydrogen fuel cells – the people that make and maintain these are going to be operating in a different world that’s an enormously sophisticated operation.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu spoke at Stanford University today. The full recording is available here (introduction begins 20 seconds in), which is also available at WhiteHouse.gov, Energy.gov, and permanent link here.
The Apollo Alliance and Center for American Progress have both released new reports on the global clean energy race and strategies for U.S. leadership:
Apollo Alliance: “Winning the Race: How America Can Lead the Global Clean Energy Economy,” March 2010
Center for American Progress: “Out of the Running? How Germany, Spain, and China Are Seizing the Energy Opportunity and Why the United States Risks Getting Left Behind,” March 2010
The Breakthrough Institute and Information Technology & Innovation Foundation released a major report in November 2009 on this topic called “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giants,” which provides more analysis on China, South Korea, and Japan compared to the United States.
