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Richard Kauffman, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy, details how the U.S. clean energy industry is able and prepared to produce real energy for American consumers.

Yesterday, President Obama visited the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility in Boulder City, Nevada. The facility is the largest photovoltaic plant in the country, and its one million solar panels power 17,000 homes in California.

Top tribal leaders, industry and tribal executives, and federal representatives are teaming up with the Office of Indian Energy at a forum on “Exploring the Business Link Opportunity: Transmission & Clean Energy Development in the West” -- an exciting opportunity to integrate these issues into a broader dialogue on tribal energy interests.

America’s entrepreneurs are on the front lines of the global clean energy race, and the Department of Energy and the Administration want to hear from you about the barriers that are standing in your way and what we can do to help remove them.

This week, I joined with the Řež Nuclear Research Institute, the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Texas A&M and the Czech Nuclear Education Network in Prague, Czech Republic, to announce a series of bilateral nuclear research and development programs that will help to advance safe and secure nuclear energy technologies in both countries.

Hundreds of thousands of people found work in the past few years thanks to Recovery Act and Energy Department programs designed to stimulate the economy while creating new power sources, conserving resources and aligning the nation to once again lead the global energy economy.

Some people talk about the clean energy economy as if it’s a hypothetical future development, but the fact is that it’s already here and poised for tremendous growth in the coming years.

More work must be done to streamline the process from creation to commercialization in order to ensure that the best ideas are appropriately matured and introduced to the marketplace, and avoid what is referred to as the “Valley of Death” – where great innovations go to die. Just as in the broad marketplace, the Energy Department has a large number of unlicensed patents that could be commercialized.

Last night the President laid out the American Jobs Act, a specific, tangible, bi-partisan strategy for putting Americans back to work. This plan will cut taxes for small businesses and put more money into the pockets of hard working Americans, without adding a dime to the Federal deficit.

As the two largest economies and the two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere, the United States and Brazil share many common values and common interests. Across a broad range of topics - from economics and energy to culture and politics - there are countless opportunities for the U.S.

Read about our blueprint for addressing the nation’s energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions and watch Secretary Chu's town hall event for more information about the Department's 2011 Strategic Plan.