WHAT’S SO HARD ABOUT GREEN?

Why Green has Such a Tough Time in America; We’ve invented a lot of green technologies, but we’ve also failed to embrace them. Is it a cultural thing?
Michael Kanellos, July 13, 2010 (Greentech Media)

"The U.S. has long been a leader in green technologies…[and] fumbling that lead…

"…Charles Brush built what is considered the first automatic wind turbine for generating electricity… in 1888 in Ohio…While the U.S. has more installed wind capacity than anyone else, the only top U.S. wind manufacturer remains General Electric.. One of the most promising U.S. startups is Nordic Windpower, located in Berkeley by way of Sweden."

The world's first automatic electricity-generating wind turbine. 12 kilowatts (350 small light bulbs). 1888. (click thru for a detailed history)

"…Calvin Fuller, Daryl Chapin and Gerald Pearson created the first silicon photovoltaic cell at Bell Labs in 1954… but the U.S. is a far smaller market than Europe…M. Stanley Whittingham led a research team at Exxon that resulted in the first lithium ion battery…[but] Sony's lithium cobalt battery became the standard in the early 1990s. The battery industry is now based in Asia… In 1976, General Electric’s Ed Hammer invented something that many thought impossible: the compact fluorescent bulb…[but] CFLs would require entirely new manufacturing facilities…CFLs only came to market because the design leaked out -- others copied it before GE had a licensing program…

"The reasons are…1. Conservation = Being a Loser…If you can't waste, you haven't made it…frugality is only fashionable in times of serious deprivation… 2. Abundance…[T]he U.S. has enjoyed an abundance of natural resources and people have exploited them…It will take a bit of time to get used to the era of resource scarcity."

click thru for the detailed history

"…3. It's Not New. This is one of the principal dilemmas of the greentech market worldwide… Solar panels give you electrons that pretty much function like those from the power plant. To date, only electric cars and green homes seem to have an abundant "Wow!" factor for consumers. This will change, but it partly explains the slow ramp…4. Lobbying. The fossil fuel industry knows how to work Washington and the state capitols. They can discuss jobs and raise fears about the economic cataclysm…The solar industry has improved on this score, but it's still got a long way to go to catch up…4. Environmentalists as Scolds…[L]ike it or not, the posture of some green advocates has made it easier for the opposition…"

Alan Salzman, VantagePoint Venture Partners: "[Burning coal] is a short distance away from gathering firewood…Do you think we could figure out a better way to boil water that doesn't kill people? There is no solution other than that that anyone can envision?"