Our clients at United are grappling with the impact of oil at $133 a barrel. My colleagues in the auto business are grappling with the impact of gas spiraling well over $4 a gallon. And our clients at Applied Materials, who are now deeply involved in applying nanotechnology to help make generating solar energy more affordable, are grappling with the massive capex bets their customers need to make in order to effectively scale solar into a viable solution.
Solving our dependence on oil is not just an economic imperative, it is increasingly a national security imperative.
We need a serious and concerted effort that joins government and business behind a noble and important goal -- energy independence. In 1962 President Kennedy rallied the country to go to the moon, and in so doing created a space program that went well beyond putting a man on the moon -- it served as a catalyst for many parts of our society including science, engineering, medicine, computers and education. Hell, we even got Tang out of the deal.
What if we did the same for clean-tech. A forceful call to action for government, businesses and universities to invest and collaborate around a single goal -- a safer, more economical, more secure and cleaner country.
What are we waiting for?
