Expert Available to Discuss State of the Union - Alternative Energy Analysis

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Tonight President Obama will announce in his State of the Union address a strategy for American economic recovery. He is expected to base much of this future on the creation of millions of "homegrown" jobs created by the manufacturing of alternative energy technologies.  He stated in a recent video to supporters that the recovery will be "fueled by homegrown and alternative energy sources."  In fact, there will be no such home grown jobs because America no longer has the resources and raw materials necessary to produce any of the green technology products required to build a U.S. alternative energy infrastructure.

What many Americans are unaware of is that over the last 3 decades the United States has increased its reliance on foreign sources for 100% of its raw materials needs to produce alternative energy equipment, such as wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells, electric cars, as well as, fluorescent and LED lighting. At present, essentially all of our most important ingredients for producing these products come from one source- China. For example, China maintains a complete monopoly on global rare earth metals production. Deng Zhao Ping said prophetically more than 20 years ago, "While the Middle East has oil, China has rare earths." What Chairman Deng failed to say was China also has the means to produce and globally distribute every product that cannot be made without rare earths.

While the president will be right that America's greatness and successes in the past, particularly at the beginning of the 20th Century, flowed from revolutionary homegrown innovations, such Edison's light bulb and Bell's telephone. What he will miss is that America no longer has the resources to manufacture our own inventions. Edison and Bell could rely on the copper mines of the southeast to build their communications and energy infrastructures. However, the metals of today's green technologies—neodymium, indium, europium—are totally unavailable within our borders. Thus, the next great American invention should be expected to go to the nation with the monopoly on these materials; which happens to be the same place the jobs generated by the American invented Apple iPod went. That place is of course China.

Even worse, in the long term if nothing changes in America's energy policy to address this current crisis, America may find itself reliant on China and Chinese companies to construct, maintain and upgrade its alternative energy infrastructure over the coming decades. As we reduce our reliance on gas and oil and increase our reliance on wind and sun for energy, we will in effect be making China the Middle East of the 21st Century. This has far greater risks then having our energy needs concentrated in the hands of several Middle East countries because China is also our chief trade competitor in the 21st Century and control over our energy costs would be devastating to our competitive position. Not to mention the impact on our military posture.

America must quickly revise its energy, mining and foreign policies. Late last year I published a five point agenda for making such a policy shift which includes (1) changing our foreign policy to focus on foreign mining sources, similar to what China has done in Africa, and (2) a recognition by our environmental community that they are in a dangerous Catch-22 in that they are both adamantly against any form of mining, yet in favor of the construction of a green technology future that cannot happen without mining certain metals; the only alternative being that the countries willing to mine these resources will control our alternative energy  future.

Contact:  Robert Wynne, 310.540.7204, [email protected]

SOURCE American Elements

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