Slip Sliding Away

That refrain from Paul Simon’s song by the same title inserted itself into my brain recently as I read that Samsung had signed a $6.6 billion solar and wind power deal with Ontario, Canada.

Dalton McGuinty, Ontario’s premier, has brought together manufacturing, a large power generator, and local developers to establish a local, clean energy ecosystem….a concept we at Applied have been calling fab2farm.

Purportedly one of the biggest renewable energy deals worldwide, a Korean consortium lead by Samsung will be building 2,500 megawatts of solar and wind power in the Canadian province just north of the United States. The deal, inked on January 21, will bring thousands of jobs (according to The New York Times, some 16,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next five years) and could supply clean energy for more than half a million homes.

And to really top this irony off, the new plant will be built near an old coal plant scheduled for decommission by 2014.

According to the public disclosures, the new Samsung manufacturing plants (said to be four factories when completed) is slated to produce wind turbine towers, wind blades, solar inverters, and solar assemblies by 2015.

So, I have one question for our U.S. Senators and Representatives, state governors, legislators, local mayors and city councils: where is your green vision? Isn’t it time to set aside red and blue partisanship and look seriously at what is being left behind?… like I say, slip sliding away…