U.S. President Barack Obama  renewed efforts to sell his clean energy initiatives to Americans, saying those ideas not only have short-term benefits, but also help the economy in the long run.

Obama made the comments while addressing an audience at ZBB Energy Corp., a battery factory at Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. The company is now expanding with the help of 1.3 million dollars of federal stimulus loan.

“We expect our commitment to clean energy to lead to more than 800,000 jobs by 2012. And this isn’t just creating work in the short term — it’s helping to lay a new foundation for lasting growth,” said the president.

He noted that the United States had the capacity to build only 2 percent of the world’s advanced batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles just a few years ago, but thanks to a new focus on clean energy, the country could have as much as 40 percent of the world’s capacity to build these batteries in just five years.

Obama also touted his achievement in propping up the economy and adding private payrolls, saying the U.S. economy is “heading in the right direction” despite great challenges ahead.

“Just a year and a half ago, the economy was shrinking rapidly. Now the economy is growing. We were bleeding 750,000 jobs each month. Now the economy has added private-sector jobs for seven months in a row,” he noted.

So far this year, the U.S. private sector employment has increased by 630,000. But at the current pace, there is still a long way to go before recovering the nearly 8.5 million jobs lost during the recession.

The Obama administration has been trying to convince the public and lawmakers that clean energy could be tapped as a new engine for the U.S. economic growth and job creation.

A comprehensive energy and climate bill stands in the center of Obama’s clean energy strategy. The bill, which cleared the House of Representatives last year, is now stalled in the Senate. Analysts doubted that it will ever get passed this year, as many lawmakers face battles pending the mid-term elections in November.