megaman79 said:
Jobs will change and people will get retrained. Local manufacturing and assembly will be needed for windfarms, solar, nuclear (if thats an option), geothermal, etc. New transport lines, trains everywhere, manufacturing of electric busses. All this stuff is going to bring a boom in the economy but you have to be positive about it. Go look at Germany's GDP and their environmental product manufacturing sector, its BIGGER than japan now. Go check out China where one of that countries biggest and most valuable companies makes solar panels (suntech). Its possible to make green industries as big as the internet boom and they will last much longer than them too. |
If it is that easy to switch over to solar, wind, nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal energy why hasn't it happened yet?
The truth is they are not cost competitive, and won't be cost competitive unless fossil fuels are pushed to a price level where Oil is (roughly) $400 per barrel; and they also face massive environmental and political lobbies against their creation.
When you add massive energy costs to massive labour costs and high taxes there is very little reason for any company to choose to do business in the United States anymore. When you can build the same product in Canada with lower labour costs, lower energy costs, and lower taxes why are you going to build it in the United States; and when you can build it in China or India, ship it to North America, and pay any tariffs they throw at you for less than manufacturing it in North America where is the incentive to build it here?
