In U.S., green means gold

According to New York Times columnist and author Thomas L. Friedman, the world is not going through a green revolution.

"Have you ever been to a revolution where no one got hurt? That's the green revolution. In the green revolution everybody is a winner. Exxon's green, BP's green, GM is now green," said Friedman during a discussion of his new book "Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How it Can Renew America."

"That's not a revolution my friends, that's a party...it has no connection whatsoever to a revolution. You'll know it's a revolution when somebody gets hurt."

Friedman explained that recent threats to the environment has made a revolution of this magnitude necessary, and that it can be carried out through innovation in energy technologies (ET).

"Whichever country, company, or community can come up with a source of abundant, cheap, clean, reliable electrons...will actually have the answer for energy resource supply and demand, will be able to undermine petro-dictatorships, will be able to mitigate climate change, will be able eliminate energy poverty, and will certainly be able to slow down bio-diversity loss."

Friedman said that with the opportunity to provide so many benefits, energy technologies will be the next great global industry, and the country that dominates the field will have the greatest economic, national, and energy security.

"That country has to be the United States of America. If we don't own ET the way we owned [information technology], the chance that our kids having the same standard of living we did will be zero...it's still up for grabs."