Will Investors Embrace Clean Energy and Help America Regain Her Strength?

I want to call readers’ attention to the post a few minutes ago by guest-blogger Don Harmon, who I think has nailed the issue.

It seems to me that this is the time for private investors, banks, and Wall Street to join in to make America once again a world leader in the Renewable Energy markets. Or, sit back and watch us all be downgraded to a third world country.

I’m sad to report that I hear this kind of thing all the time. One of my clients in New York who has a breakthrough in waste-wood pelletization doesn’t even attempt to push this technology in the U.S. “I’m through squandering my time on a country whose people just don’t get it,” he told me. “The Europeans and the Asians care about environmentalism, and they LOVE this stuff.”

The multinational industrial giants like GE apparently see the world similarly. They may be based in the United States, but they clearly don’t give a DAMN that the U.S. is sitting on its hands; they’re selling clean energy products and services all over the world, to whomever will buy them, and they’re not short on customers in the international markets.

I certainly wish I didn’t have to, but this is why I’m working so hard to develop relationships with people in places all over the world. I have an ever-expanding set of business relationships with people in India, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Thailand, France, Bulgaria, Portugal, and China. I’d love to help my country lead the world in this space, but I need to be pragmatic, and so far, it’s just not happening.