New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman entitled his piece about Green Energy Research, Manufacturing and Deployment in China "The New Sputnik".
He indicates that in China, where the percentage of engineers among political leaders and among business leaders is far higher than it is in the United States, the realization that Green Energy needs are unavoidable was reached rather quickly. Meanwhile, the U.S. political elites, aware of all the Coal plants China has commissioned, still thinks China is committed to low-tech and polluting energy sources.
As usual, U.S. political elites are deceiving themselves. I agree with Friedman and the people he quotes, such as Lester Brown, that China's leap to Green won't be realized immediately, but when it comes, it will be sudden. Should the U.S. compete? Will we have the resources to compete if we continuing pouring large amounts of funds into maintaining a huge military force around the world? Questions that I wish more of my political leaders were carefully pondering....
