A couple months ago, I was listening to Stephen Lacey’s podcast Inside Renewable Energy. The show was called ‘The Next Great Global Industry’. I listened to the round-table discussion that featured experts from the around the world discussing what’s happening in their region in cleantech. While doing so, it became very clear that the US is falling behind in cleantech investment across the board by almost every metric; R+D, installed capacity, manufacturing, etc. All this talk and a small bit of research got me really wondering ‘What are  we (citizens of the United States of America) doing wrong and what do we need to do to increase cleantech investment?’ So, I’ve decided to host an event, called Save the World or Beat China: How to Sell Cleantech Investment to the US?, inviting 5 Boston experts to help answer this question.

I did a quick survey of the blog o’sphere and other traditional new sources to find the answer myself. The same conclusions kept popping up, but none yielded any actual answers. See for yourself; China Cleantech Spending Blows past the United States, Rising Tigers Sleeping Giants, Corporate Investors Open Wallets for Greenteh, 10 Reasons China will be a Cleantech Leader, China’s Cleantech Boom, China Cleantech: First Wind and Solar, Now Cars, China Stops Loans to Environmentally Unfriendly Firms, and China Leads the World in Clean Energy Investment.

Personally, I could care less where the breakthrough comes from and feel much of the fear from China, is xenophobia. Notice how the topic of European kicking out butts doesn’t seem to bother us as much?

I realized that the easiest way to get an actual answer to the question is straight from the horses mouth. I’ve decided to invite a host of Boston experts from various sectors and industry to help out and share their perspective. The good thing about living in Boston is these people aren’t hard to find!

Here’s the deal. We’ll be having 5 speakers representing private industry, government, media, communications, and research answer the following questions:

1. What are you working on?
2. From your perspective, why is the US falling behind in cleantech investment?
3. From your perspective, what are at least three things we must do to reverse this trend?

To me the goal is to have a useful discussion about specific items that must be accomplished instead of everyone running around being scared about China et al.

Without further adu, here are out amazing speakers that will help us answer the question.

• Private Industry – Mitch Tyson - CEO and Founder – Advanced Electron Beams, Co-Founder – New England Clean Energy Council
• Government – Galen Nelson - Greentech Business Manager – Boston Redevelopment Authority
• Research – Steve Minnihan - Cleantech Research Associate – Lux Research
• Media – Martin LaMonica - Senior Greentech Writer – CNET News
• Communications/Lobbying – Jim Cabot - Senior Vice President – Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications

More Event Details

Date: Thursday September 30th

Time: 6pm to 7:30pm

Location: NEXUS Green Building Resource Center. 38 Chauncy Street, 7th Floor. Boston, MA

REGISTER FOR ‘Save the World or Beat China: How to Sell Cleantech Investment to the US? HERE.

Note: you must register for the event, as there is limited seating.

How can you help?

Please share any and all questions you may have for the speakers in the comment section.

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About Chris Williams

Chris Williams is the editor of Green Light Distrikt and Chief Marketing Officer at HeatSpring . He has experience in business development, prototyping and new venture research with a focus on geothermal heat pumps, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technologies. Chris is an IGSHPA accredited geothermal installer and NABCEP certified solar installer. Chris is focused on solving customer facing issues in the creation and adoption of clean energy technologies and products. Chris has installed over 300kW of solar and tens of geothermal systems. He's invented the PV Pal , developed many trainings at HeatSpring, publishes the NABCEP Study Guide , the Hitchhikers Guide to Cleantech and has done due diligence research for Urgent VC . Feel free to connect with him @topherwiliams , on Linkedin , or through email about new ventures, collaborating, writing, research or whatever is on your mind.

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Tags: advanced electron beams, boston redevelopment authority, cnet news, galen nelson, inside renewable energy, jim cabot, lux research, martin lamonica, mitch tyson, new england clean energy council, rasky, save the world or beat china, stephen lacey, steven minnihan