The Race 09/18/2009
 
On Tuesday September 15, Thomas Friedman described the economic outlook of clean energy in the United States ("Have a Nice Day" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16friedman.html). Friedman's column tells the story of Applied Materials, a member of the Coalition for the Green Bank. Applied Materials manufactures the machines that make microchips for computers. More, importantly, Applied Materials recently (2004) expanded its production to manufacture of machines that produce solar panels.

The real point of the column is that, so far, Applied Materials has found next to no market for any sort of clean energy products in the United States. They have plants all over the world working to produce solar panels, but none here in the US. The simple reason behind this lack of investment is that the US government has yet to incentivize or spur the creation of a domestic clean energy industry in our country. Countries across the world (most notably China and Germany) are using low-cost financing and other financial incentives to facilitate the creation of clean energy industries within their domestic boundaries because they recognize, as Friedman puts it, "The world is on track to add another 2.5 billion people by 2050, and many will be aspiring to live American-like, high-energy lifestyles. In such a world, renewable energy — where the variable cost of your fuel, sun or wind, is zero — will be in huge demand."

This is an exciting time for the country. We have the opportunity to create a completely new domestic clean energy industry that will comprise of generation, transmission and manufacturing. With this new economy come stable new jobs and an opportunity to seize global leadership in what will be one of the largest growth industries of the 21st century, the clean energy economy. But we risk falling behind the competition and losing this economic stimulus opportunity if we don’t take action to encourage the growth of this sector. The CEDA/Green Bank would provide the tool for financing the deployment of new American-generated clean energy. The low cost financing provided by the CEDA/Green Bank's guarantees would smooth the transition to the clean energy economy while keeping the cost to both consumers and shareholders at zero.

Our Co-Chairman, Reed Hundt, knows something about the possibilities of American entrepreneurship and new technologies. As Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 1993 to 1997, Hundt presided over the FCC during a time that saw the transition to wireless communication, setting the stage for an entirely new industry to be created and billions of dollars and millions of jobs to be realized.

Today, we are in a similar situation, standing on the brink of incredible possibilities for clean energy technology in the United States. With a CEDA/Green Bank as part of an energy legislation package coming out of Congress, we would be in position to take leadership in the global market of clean energy.

Posted by: Alex Kragie