May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Duke Energy Corp. is scouting for new clean-energy technologies in China after President Barack Obama’s bid to pass U.S. legislation curbing carbon emissions stalled, the company’s chief technology officer said.

“China is going to set the standard for development and deployment of clean energy,” David Mohler, a senior vice president at Duke, said in an interview May 21 in Beijing. Mohler was among representatives from 24 companies who joined Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on a trade mission to China last week in a bid to increase trade in clean-energy technologies.

Duke of Charlotte, North Carolina, which now generates 70 percent of its power from coal-fired plants, is one of the largest corporate emitters of carbon in the world and needs to replace each of its plants between now and 2050, Mohler said.

“That’s not very much time,” he said. Duke is working with Chinese companies to help them develop renewable energy or clean technologies that could help it curb emissions.

It has already teamed up with a Chinese producer of algae that captures carbon dioxide from smokestacks and turns it into a feedstock for biodiesel fuel. Mohler explored other potential partnerships during the week-long trip in China, he said.

“Before we buy it, we also help develop it,” he said.

China’s surging demand for energy means the country is desperate for alternative sources of power, Mohler said. Duke had predicted in 2007 that climate legislation in the U.S. would be law by now, he said.

“Cap-and-trade” legislation backed by Obama to cap carbon dioxide emissions and create a market to trade in pollution allowances passed the House last year and then stalled in the Senate.

--Editors: Larry Liebert, Steve Geimann

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Drajem in Beijing at mdrajem@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at lliebert@bloomberg.net.

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