The U.S. Should Develop Clean Energy Solutions for Export

RiechesBaird is an advertising/branding agency in Orange County California with which I’ve had an extremely friendly and productive relationship, going back almost 15 years.  I happened to be on their website just now, and came across this interview in which Ryan Rieches speaks with author, business consultant and entrepreneur Verne Harnish.

Harnish notes that sadly, where the U.S. and Germany are similar in many ways, e.g., GDP per capita, Germany exports four times as much per capita as the U.S.; even Spain exports twice as much as we do here.  When the recession came in 2008, the U.S. bailed out only the largest corporate entities and paid people not to work.  Not Germany.  Angela Merkel focused on keeping everyone working, regardless of the size (and political clout) of the employer.

The point? Perhaps the U.S. can learn something from the Germans, and build products that people want outside our borders.  And here’s an idea, as if you didn’t see it coming: clean energy.  It’s true (amazingly) that we ourselves have little reach for clean energy solutions; we seem to have no problem amping up fossil fuel exploration, building pipelines with obscene environmental characteristics, etc.

But since the rest of the world doesn’t see it that way, let’s foster innovation in cleantech – renewables in particular – even if the focus is export.