Last Wednesday’s New York Times had a troublingly familiar article, yet another example of how China, and not the United States, “increasingly dominates the manufacture of clean energy technologies…including the production of million-dollar wind turbines.” Even worse, according to this article, “The United States is too reliant on China for minerals crucial to new clean energy technologies, making the American economy vulnerable to shortages of materials needed for a range of green products — from compact fluorescent light bulbs to electric cars to giant wind turbines.”

Former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George “Macaca” Allen is now Chair of something called the American Energy Freedom Center. It seems like starting a front group is the default choice of every politician to leave politics (Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future, and former Representative Bill Paxon’s Americans for Affordable Electricity).

By Mike Casey and Lowell Feld

Last week, Venture Beat Executive Editor Owen Thomas spoke to the staff of Tigercomm about social media, energy, politics and sustainability.  It was a fascinating discussion, chock full of ideas, by someone who knows what he’s talking about.  This Tuesday, we posted on Scaling Green about Owen’s thoughts on marketing the cleantech sector in a “visceral” manner, not just in a dry, intellectual way. Today, we’re going to give you a flavor of Owen’s observations on why Google is interested in the energy space, and how successful it might be there.

A new report by the National Wildlife Federation once again illustrates the potential for wind power off the U.S. east coast. According to the report, “up to six gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind projects have been proposed along the Atlantic coast - the equivalent of about five coal plants and enough to power about 1.5 million average U.S. homes.” Even more impressive, “the Atlantic Ocean has significant offshore wind potential, with over 212 GW of wind resources in shallow waters where current technology is best suited.”

The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) has a fascinating new piece, Big Polluters Freed from Environmental Oversight by Stimulus.

The Post Carbon Institute has produced a compelling, high-pass-around-value video, “300 years of fossil fuels in 300 seconds.” The video charts the path to our current addiction to fossil fuels, shows why it’s so destructive, and makes the case for case for changing it. Far from the propaganda spewing from the dirty energy lobby, it demonstrates beautifully why we can’t afford to stay with the untenable status quo.