From our friends
Thursday, November 15, 2012
7:45am Continental Breakfast
8:15-9:15am Forum
CLEAN TECH NATION:
How the U.S. Can Lead in the New Global Economy
Ron Pernick
Founder & Managing Director
Clean Edge
Gensler
500 South Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071
PURCHASE TICKETS: $20 includes breakfast, $40 includes Pernick’s book
Ron Pernick is founder and managing director of clean-tech research and advisory firm Clean Edge and the coauthor of two books on clean-tech business and innovation, the recently released, Clean Tech Nation and The Clean Tech Revolution (2007). At Clean Edge he has coauthored more than two dozen reports on clean technologies, markets, and policies and oversees the firm’s research, event production, index publishing, and advisory services.
With the 2012 presidential election fast approaching, energy, environment, and the economy are some of the most prominent issues at stake.
On its current path, the United States risks losing out on the most critical opportunity for job creation and global economic leadership in the 21st century. In the global economy today:
- China is spending hundreds of billions on clean tech and is now the world leader in solar-panel and wind-turbine manufacturing
- Germany plans to shutter all its nuclear power plants within a decade and build a new energy economy focused on renewables and efficiency
- Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, India, and many others are also enthusiastically pursuing these burgeoning opportunities
As political partisanship rages in the U.S. election season, from the Solyndra bankruptcy to the potential expiration of the federal tax credit for wind power against the backdrop of continued fossil fuel subsidies, Ron Pernick places these debates in the larger context of 21st century economic competitiveness. If the U.S. is to remain dominant, as it has in the earlier high-tech and Internet revolutions, it needs to supercharge clean-tech efforts at every level—in federal, state, and city governments and in schools, small businesses, and large companies.
In Clean Tech Nation, Pernick highlights:
- The rapid expansion of clean tech, with global markets for solar and wind power alone increasing from $7.6 billion to $163.1 billion between 2001 and 2011
- The six “C’s” that are key to understanding the clean-tech market: Costs, Capital, Competition, Consumers, Climate, and Connectivity
- The biggest clean-tech developments reshaping the world including smart grid, green building, hybrid and electric vehicle, and waste-to-resource breakthroughs
- The top 10 states and 15 cities in the U.S. for clean tech including California, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, and Colorado and San Francisco, Boston, Denver, Seattle and Houston
- 100 companies to watch, from innovative startups to corporate behemoths, that are leading the global charge
Pernick’s book, Clean Tech Nation is co authored with Clint Wilder, senior editor at clean-tech research firm Clean Edge and the coauthor, with Ron Pernick of The Clean Tech Revolution. He has covered the high-tech and clean-tech industries since 1985.
