“Secretary Locke and the Administration have demonstrated bold leadership in setting this goal, and issuing the National Renewable Export Initiative,” said Karl Gawell, Geothermal Energy Association Executive Director, who was elected Chair of the Advisory Committee. “The Initiative lays out goals and specific steps towards those goals that commit the government to action.”
The Advisory Committee met for its first day of deliberations yesterday and outlined its work for the coming year. “There was a strong consensus that first we need to help decision makers understand that a strong domestic market is key to expanding US exports and that US leadership in these technologies will pay dividends in billions of dollars in new exports,” Gawell said.
The world wide markets for renewable and efficiency technologies are substantial and growing. According to the Department of Commerce (DOC) report, “$162 billion of private-sector capital was invested in RE&EE technologies globally in 2009. As the economy improves, global investment in RE&EE is likely to increase further.”
Expanding US exports in these markets will not be without challenges, as worldwide governments from China to Germany also see the opportunities they present. As the DOC report notes, “Globally, nations are using RE&EE as a catalyst to promote economic growth and to create high-tech, high-wage jobs for their citizens. As of 2009, stimulus bills worldwide invested an additional $183 billion in RE&EE technologies.”
To support achieving these US goals, the Secretary chartered a Federal Advisory Committee of leaders in the renewable energy and energy efficiency field to provide advice and recommendations on a number of topics. These topics include assessing the competitiveness of the U.S. renewable energy and energy efficiency industries and their ability to develop products, services and technologies, helping guide trade policy development and negotiations, developing programs to encourage U.S. producers to enter foreign markets, study the effects of U.S. policies, regulations, and programs on the competitiveness of U.S. companies, prioritize export markets, enhance industry and trade association export promotion programs, improve resource allocation for export promotion efforts, and study policies and practices of foreign governments impacting the export of U.S. renewable energy and energy efficiency goods, services and technologies.
“We expect this Committee will be an active partner working to succeed in achieving the aggressive goals for renewable exports being set by the Administration,” Gawell said. The Committee also established several subcommittees, which will be reporting back to the full Committee early next year.
"make green a reality" visit http://www.thesolarandwindexpo.com/
For more information about the Geothermal Energy Association visit http://www.geo-energy.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment