China's Five Year Business Plan Dominates the Global Economy

Combining his considerable expertise in finance, science, technology and layering it with today’s political realities, Jack Hidary gave an excellent presentation to our New York Clean Energy Forum this morning.  His speech, entitled The Gamechanger:  China’s Unstoppable Clean Energy Exports, centers on the fact that China makes a rigorous and massive business plan every five years.  That plan, coupled with the enormity of China’s population, landmass, and financial resources, puts a footprint on every country and every major business in this global economy.  Ignore this five year plan at your peril.

According to Jack, clean energy is front and central to China’s economic plans.  “Do not underestimate the Chinese speed and alacrity in this area”, he points out, “we tend to think in a linear fashion, China thinks exponentially. At this point, our economy is unprepared for China’s exponential dynamic.”  The plan includes targeting Solar, LED light bulbs, Electric Vehicles, and Batteries.  Electric Vehicles are a huge initiative for China and their plan is to develop batteries at 60 kW capacities in the next six months.  Using their considerable resources, China intends to take solar, currently at $1.20 kw, to $.50 kw within the year. Amazing.

As Jack points out, this could very well be an economic boom for the United States.  China is taking a page of Japan’s automobile industry playbook.  Following in the footsteps of Honda and Toyota, who have automobile manufacturing plants throughout the USA, four Chinese solar companies are building plants in the USA this year alone -with plans for more in the future.   This makes for the initial creation of construction jobs in our country, especially building trades which is where our economy has lost the most jobs.  In addition, installation jobs, which unlike manufacturing jobs cannot be outsourced, will grow to accommodate these investments in clean energy and could be a massive job creation for the USA. 

Already, Hidary demonstrates, there are at a minimum 100,000 jobs in wind and solar manufacturing and installation today.  This 100,000 is compared to the 87,800 jobs in the coal industry which provides a majority of our electricity today.  Think of the opportunities for the future.

A critical factor states Hidary, is for political and industry leaders of our country to sit down with China and work together to see how we can leverage this technological potential between China and the USA.  Currently there is no economic policy to encourage collaboration in this area.