China has surpassed the United States as the world's number one energy consumer. The U.S. is still tops in terms of per capita consumption, but developing a nation of 1.3 billion people requires all the energy China can find, be it through oil imports or local wind farms--so much so that the PRC has become a global leader in renewable energy investments along the way.
The correlation between between energy demand and investments in R&D of alternative sources should not come as a surprise to anyone, but begs the question of when U.S. priorities in this area will be recast as matters of national security, to which traditional "market" considerations do not apply.
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