WASHINGTON, DC, US, March 28, 2007.
The federal and state governments in the United States should join companies and the financial community in capturing the ‘enormous’ potential and benefits of the country's ability to produce green power and green fuels.
“We should act with decisiveness in favour of renewable energy and other energy technologies that support our national goals for security, growth, environment, climate and jobs,” says Michael Eckhart of the American Council On Renewable Energy. “We should increase U.S. competitiveness on renewable energy in the global marketplace.”
U.S. companies are barely scratching the surface of the underlying economic, environmental and national security dividends that can come from tapping more of the potential for wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, tidal and other renewable sources of energy, he told the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology & Innovation. U.S. energy policies should address both the challenges of oil dependence and of global warming in an integrated way.
“The U.S. needs to accelerate its research and development for renewable energy ten-fold and, in the process, strike a balance between near-term needs with investments in longer-term research and science that will produce the next generation of technologies,” he explained. “This way, the U.S. can compete for global leadership in those technologies.”
The infrastructure must be built for a more sustainable society with long-term incentives to catalyze investment in new renewable power, he recommended. The U.S. also needs a modernized electric transmission network similar to the national highway system, and systems which allow optimal utilization of on-site distributed renewable technologies at the point of use.
ACORE is dedicated to bringing renewable energy into the mainstream of the US economy and provides a platform for the wide range of interests in the renewable energy community.
