From the top of a nacelle in Jilin Province, a landscape ripe for wind power stretches into the distance. (A nacelle contains the control electronics, gearbox, and drive train in a wind turbine.)
Thanks to development here and elsewhere, China's wind market doubled every year between 2006 and 2009, overtaking the United States as the country with the most installed wind energy capacity in 2010.
An example of how the Chinese industry has been working to expand its global footprint is Xinjiang Goldwind Science and Technology, which manufactured the turbines shown here at the Qian'an I Wind Farms. In September 2011, Goldwind signed a deal to build a wind farm in Illinois, at an estimated cost of $200 million, and this month the company has secured more than $5.5 billion in loans and guarantees for domestic and overseas expansion.
But there has been push-back. The U.S. International Trade Commission voted just last week to investigate charges from U.S. wind equipment manufacturers that they are being unfairly harmed by cheap government-subsidized imports from China and Vietnam.
With similar charges also launched by some U.S. solar manufacturers, renewable energy eventually could spur a trade war between the United States and its largest source of imported goods, China.
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