Green as We Want to Be

There is nothing I agree with Thomas Friedman on more than the need for the United States to become a leader in the next industrial revolution: the creation of a global industry producing, transmitting, storing, selling and trading clean and renewable energy.

As Friedman argues so lucidly in his column this week, this is the next area of global economic competition that America must take the lead in, lest we not only deepen our dependence on foreign sources of energy, but also miss out on the potential economic opportunity in creating domestic alternatives.

The story Friedman shares about Toledo, Ohio-based FirstSolar building their next thin-film solar modules plant in the former East Germany rather than here at home can be dismissed as anecdotal, but it is an obvious example of what could continue to happen, and why we should be spending our money and our brains figuring out solutions to the energy crises rather than coming up with band-aids like tax credits for motorists. You can't avoid reality forever, and the longer we do, the more this generation is borrowing against the next. I could write a book on how I feel about this subject, but thankfully, Friedman's already doing it for me. His next release, "Green: The New Red, White & Blue," is due out this summer.

Above, Virginia's blue ridge mountains.

Comments

[Sri]

GE may be a good example of a US multi nat who sees the profit potential in so called green initiatives. Form what i have read, and this may very well be PR put out by GE, but they seem to have gotten a head start on their competition by making it a priority in 2005-2006.

I applaud Jeff Immelt for having the vision and guts to take such an ambitious approach for a typically staid company. I am worried that GE's recent earnings misses and economic downturn may force them to refocus on pressing issues and push their green initiatives to the backburner.

Another example where public companies dont have the luxury to invest in long term projects at the expense of short term profits. Can major companies lead the charge on green technology under they purview of shareholders who crave instant gratification?

[Robert]

Glad to see Friedman has followed my lead. I said this in a presentation I did for my speech class at SF City College last fall:

"In addition, one cannot help but be stunned by the shocking failure to plan for the future that appears to be underway in the US. Other parts of the world have taken substantive action to convert their infrastructures to non-fossil fuel sources. Why can't we? Even from a purely capitalist point of view, failing to develop industries that will be equivalent in scale to Boeing, Airbus, Toyota, and General Motors would seem to be foolish. As any monopoly capitalist knows, there is a crucial capital aggregation (i.e., market share control) phase, and the world is in that phase now for alternative energy industries (Parfit, 2005)."

The relevant page from that presentation is here:
( http://tinyurl.com/44aq7h ).