Fixing U.S. Renewable Energy Policy - Lessons from Germany

is being presented by Christoph Stefes & Frank N. Laird, Associate Professors, with University of Colorado Denver and airs on Thursday, April 21st, 2011. For more details or to register, please visit our site at www.fxconferences.com

Starting around 1990, Germany began promoting renewable energy with aggressive and consistent policies and, despite its weak renewable resources, became a leading country in terms of both renewable energy installations and manufacturing. Around the same time, United States policy makers began debating greater support for renewable energy but never got onto a new policy path, providing instead weaker and volatile policy supports for these technologies.

Germany adopted an innovative policy instrument, the feed-in tariff, now popular almost everywhere except in the United States. The U.S., in contrast, seemed both technologically and institutionally poised to become a leading renewable energy country, but failed to do so, in part because of inconsistent and short-term policies at the national level. Much of the progress in the United States has been driven by policies at the state level.

In this audio conference, we examine the different paths and divergent outcomes in renewable energy policy in the U.S. and Germany, and discuss how a consistent, long-term vision is needed before the United States can regain its competitiveness in this area.