The United States has the opportunity, through the enactment of energy and climate legislation, to position itself as the leader in what many experts are predicting will be the most explosive growth industry of the 21^st century: clean energy. Without action, the United States risks falling behind other nations in the race to create clean energy jobs and could lose the opportunity to lead the world in energy innovation. 

Encouraging much greater private and public investments in clean energy technologies could also help revive American manufacturing and vastly improve the strength and efficiency of our economy, all while reducing dangerous carbon pollution. Just as importantly, these clean energy investments hold the promise of creating millions of jobs and entire new industries in the United States. 

This Fact Sheet outlines some of the job creation benefits that moving quickly toward a clean energy economy could provide and describes the aggressive investment and deployment actions that other nations are taking to challenge the United States in the race to become the global leader in clean energy technologies and products.

Benchmarking the U.S. Against China and Europe

The following statistics summarize some of the most recent available information on the levels of clean energy investments being made overseas and in the United States in 2008 and 2009.

China

·In 2009, China invested $440 billion in clean energy.[1]

·China’s renewable energy industries are adding 100,000 new jobs per year and reached 1.12 million in 2008.[2]

·China is home to the world’s leading solar cell manufacturer, one-third of the globe’s solar-energy manufacturing capacity, and 400 solar-energy companies.[3]

·China’s six largest solar photovoltaics manufacturers, most of which did not exist ten years ago, had a total market value of over $15 billion in July 2008.[4]

·China is home to two of the world’s top 10 wind energy companies (Sinovel and Goldwind, as measured by order production). 

·In 2009, China overtook Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines. 

·According to press reports, manufacturing represents 70 to 75 percent of the jobs in the solar industry in China, and Chinese companies represent one-third of global solar component production.
 

Europe

·In 2008, Europe’s clean energy investments increased from $48.6 billion to $49.7 billion.[5]

·Europe is home to six (Siemens, Vestas, Acciona, Gamesa, Nordex and Clipper) of the world’s top ten wind energy companies.[6]

·Spain became the clear market leader in grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV), surpassing long-time leader Germany.[7]

United States

·When measured by market capitalization, the United States is home to only four of the world’s top 30 solar, wind, and advanced battery companies.[8]

·When measured by production, the United States headquarters only one (GE) of the world’s top 5 wind turbine manufacturers.[9]

·The United States ranks fifth in the solar photovoltaic industry, but led the world in solar thin-film production. 

·The United States remained the world leader in the development of geothermal power capacity with more than 120 projects under development in early 2009, representing at least 5 gigawatts.

Economic Benefits of Clean Energy Investments 

The United States has the opportunity, through the enactment of energy and climate legislation, to create millions of jobs and entire new industries in the United States. The following information describes some of the job benefits that we could realize from winning the race to become the global leader in the clean energy technology. 

Job creation and investment in clean energy. The University of Massachusetts—Amherst and the Center for American Progress analyzed the job creation benefits that would be generated by investments in clean energy, and for the sake of comparison, oil and gas.[10] The following charts summarize their findings on the number of jobs that would be created. 

Manufacturing jobs in the Midwest.The jobs that would be created by transitioning to a clean energy economy would be especially beneficial to the nation’s manufacturing sector. The University of Michigan recently released a report which found that clean energy and climate policies have the potential to[11]: 

·Create over 104,000 jobs in the Midwest by 2015; and 

·Generate new revenues of up to $12.3 billion for Midwest businesses by 2015.
 

Jobs impact of a National Renewable Electricity Standard. In February 2010, theindependent firm Navigant Consulting completed a study for CEOs of American renewable energy companies on the jobs impact of creating a National Renewable Electricity Standard. The study found that if the nation produced 25 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2025, we would create 274,000 more renewable energy jobs (116,000 in the wind industry, 60,000 in biomass, 50,000 in solar, 34,000 in hydropower and 15,000 in waste-energy) than if no policy existed. The report also notes that creating a National Renewable Electricity Standard would benefit every region of the country because every region would see increases in the number of people employed by renewable energy companies.