It’s one of the top stories on all the financial news sites:

China “worried” about US Treasury holdings - AP
China “worried” about safety of U.S. Treasuries - IHT
White House Seeks to Reassure China U.S. Debt Safe, Deficits Under Control - Bloomberg
China’s premier worried for U.S. investments

Most analysts estimate that China has $1 trillion invested in U.S. Treasuries and notes. That’s roughly half of its currency reserves… And if China decides to sell them - at least, if they sell them all at once - it could slash T-bill values.

That would ultimately slash creditor’s reserves, though, which would be a little like self-mutilation.

I’m not alone in thinking that the move away from T-bills will be more like blood-letting than amputation… And some emerging markets are actually still interested in buying U.S. Treasuries.

Russia, for instance. On March 4, 2009, Russia became the 5th largest U.S. creditor with a total of $116 billion in U.S. T-bills in its coffers.

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For those of you that remember me from my days as editor for Material Profits, the commodity-based newsletter that has since evolved into Christian DeHaemer’s BreakAway Investor, you will also remember that I had quite the “green crush.”

My first international trip for Taipan Publishing Group was to a tiny island off the coast of Denmark called Samso. It had won a contest to participate in a ten-year race to become 100% renewable energy-based.

This year is the tenth year, and the tiny island has been more than successful. It now sells electricity back to the mainland.

So you can say that I was duly enthralled, and my model portfolio was packed full of alternative energy companies… most of which performed extremely well. (To be fair, some did perform poorly.)

My recommendations didn’t make me many friends…

I remember fondly the insults slung via email calling me a leftist treehugger that should just stick to investment picks instead of researching and recommending pie-in-the-sky renewable energy companies.

Well, as climate change and energy independence have headlined a number of events during the past two years of presidential campaigning, I’m happy to see alternative energy back in the investment ring.

Surprisingly, many top-notch European companies see the U.S. as a major growth region for the renewable energy business, and they are coming over in droves to set up shop.

Let’s take a look at just one of the technologies that’s already being employed around the world: wind power.

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