U.S. President Barack Obama has enlisted another energy player, America’s northern neighbour Canada, in a drive to create a renewable energy industry able to cut the country’s import of its 70 percent of its energy.

But as with all giants, moving slowly is the rule: a first agreement was to create “clean-energy” dialogue.

Obama was in Canada Thursdsay on his first foreign visit as president together with Carole Browner, White House Energy and Climate Coordinator and former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Canadians have long-focused on developing large-scale carbon capture and storage for oil and gas, while Americans have functioning technology for coal-fired CCS. And U.S. oil companies are already adept at injecting carbon to better exploit oilfields.

Canada has serious Kyoto-like goals, including the cutting of greenhouse gases by 330 million tonnes a year. Canada’s CCS targets 30 megatonnes a year, and last month C$1 billion was earmarked for a clean-technology fund.

But the U.S. has taken the lead in installed wind capacity and American innovation has produced a number of solar technologies. To speed their use, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has begun touring with a “smart grid” message promising investments to automate an aging electricity infrastructure ahead of “a dramatic expansion in renewable energies such as solar and wind power”.

Chu is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who has worked on carbon-neutral technology.

And Obama — who’s charm and presence appeared to awe Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper — has quietly stopped ex-president George W. Bush’ opening of nearshore oil and gas drilling in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.