Yesterday in the Washington Post, General Electric (GE) CEO Jeff Immelt and famed venture capitalist John Doerr wrote an op ed piece highlighting the failure of the US to take the lead in green energy and the emergence of China as the leader.

Some interesting facts:

– China cars are 35% more fuel efficient
– they spend 10x what the US does as a % of GDP on green energy
– China on track to create 150,000 jobs through the deployment of 120GW of wind power within 10 years
– US is home to only one of the top 5 wind turbine manufacturers (GE)
– US is home to just one of the top 10 solar panel producers (hmm.. I thought it was two – FSLR, SPWRA)
– US is home to just two of the top advanced battery makers (taking a guess here.. Ener1 (HEV) and privately held A123?)

Immelt and Doerr say that the US doesn’t currently have the policy in place to become the leader in green energy and recommends five changes.

1.  send a long term signal that low carbon energy is valuable (cap and trade)
2.  encourage utilities to the be the driving for repowering the US through incentives, standards and a nationally unified smart grid
3. set increasingly stringent energy standards for greater efficiency of autos, buildings and appliances
4. spend more on R&D! US government currently spends only 2.5 billion on clean energy R&D
5. fulfill Obama’s commitment to become the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy