Draining The Energy From The Green Debate

NY Times columnist Bob Herbert takes America to task for losing the green energy race to the Chinese.

That we are allowing this to happen is beyond stupid. China is a poor country with nothing comparable to the tremendous research, industrial and economic resources that the U.S. has been blessed with. Yet they’re blowing us away — at least for the moment — in the race to the future.

Our esteemed leaders in Washington can’t figure out how to do anything more difficult than line up for a group photo. Put Americans back to work? You must be kidding. Health care? We’ve been working on it for three-quarters of a century. Infrastructure? Don’t ask.

But, as Mr. Bradsher tells us, “China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines and is poised to expand even further this year.”

China also has become the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels and is pushing hard on other clean energy advances. As Mr. Bradsher wrote: “These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.”

We’re in the throes of an awful and seemingly endless employment crisis, and China is the country moving full speed ahead on the development of the world’s most important new industries. I’d like one of the Washington suits to step away from the photo-op and explain the logic of that to me.

The truth, of course, is that there is no reason at all for this to be happening. The United States, in many ways, is very well prepared to move ahead on clean energy. It could and should be the world’s leader. Many, if not most, of the innovations in this area were developed right here. But much of that know-how, as we are seeing in China (and have been seeing in Germany and other places), is being implemented overseas.

Ahh, but Herbert is wrong.  Dead wrong.  Oh, he's not wrong about the race for renewable energy and the Chinese killing us in this respect, he's wrong when he says there's "no reason at all for this to be happening."  That's simply frightening naivete' on Herbert's part.  He knows damn why why this is happening, because America's energy giants, the largest and most powerful corporations on Earth, the ExxonMobils and the ChevronTexacos of the world, will never allow America to do this.

There's far more profit to be made in controlling a dwindling supply of fossil fuels and the resource wars that exerting that control results in than investing those trillions in creating solar plant and wind turbine factories.  The energy giants want to dominate renewable technology too, but not until it become more profitable than holding the world hostage for hydrocarbons.

You would think that the Teabaggers would hate giving jobs to Red China.  China is employing millions building high-speed rail and renewable energy resources.  Those are jobs we could use here.  But that would be freedom-destroying Communism, which is cause for an armed revolution to overthrow the horrible fascist Obama.  Infrastructure is Socialism, you see.  Jobs that might affect the bottom lines of our corporate masters cannot be allowed.

So the Village continues to tell the Teabaggers that only free-market businesses can create jobs, and they will only create jobs if they aren't taxed, causing services to be cut through lost revenue and the people to hate the government for not fixing everything.

And we continue to destroy ourselves in the name of our precious corporate citizens who rule us.