The United States can’t lead the world in the 21st century with its current energy policy, Vice President Joe Biden told alternative technology supporters Tuesday at a clean energy summit in Las Vegas.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, left, D-Nev., and John Podesta, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. Photo Credit: Sacramento Bee/ AP
Biden said the nation is already trailing China and Germany in green technology. It will trade its dependence on foreign oil for a dependence on foreign clean energy technology if its leaders don’t act to help fledging green researchers and businesses, he said.
“If we shrink from deciding whether we are going to lead in the area of alternative energy, renewable energy, then we will be making the biggest mistake that this nation has made in its history,” Biden said during his keynote speech at the fourth-annual National Clean Energy Summit.
Biden said the future will demand cities that produce all the energy they consume; battery-powered cars able to travel great distances and bacteria that converts sunlight directly into fuel, among other innovations.
“Innovation and energy will go on whether or not we join and no nation which experts to be a leader of other nations can fall behind,” he said.
Biden announced during his speech that five technology companies receiving up to $6 million each from the Department of Energy have since attracted more than $100 million in private investments. The firms in North Carolina, California and Colorado are developing advanced grid scale batteries or new approaches to biofuels or waste heat recovery. Biden said the private investments demonstrate that the green industry needs both public and private contributions to succeed.
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