Thomas Friedman weighs in

And now Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat) steps into the discussion about clean energy. His opinion piece in the NYTimes shows how the US is completely missing out on what should be the next big financial opportunity.

Honestly, can someone please point out the disadvantages to heavily promoting research in clean energy? I agree that possibly now might not be the time to deploy these technologies on an extremely large scale (the improvement curve is probably still too steep. For example any dollars invested now in a solar cell based power plant would have a lesser output than what much fewer dollars invested a year from now might achieve because improvements are happening rapidly owing to its being a young field). However, this still does not excuse not spending money for that research.

Besides, its not money spent, but rather invested, because the patents earned would be extremely lucrative as global pressures to force companies, consumers and governments towards clean energy keep increasing.