The entire world needs to be re-plumbed and re-wired and everybody is putting it off as long as they can waiting for the technology to mature a bit and using every method they can to keep everything going in the meantime with so much string and bailing wire. For example, in recent years the technology to desalinate water has improved enough to cut the cost in half and, in fact, someone had the bright idea of turning every river that empty's into salt water into a battery as well as clean water. What is about to explode onto the scene is self-assembling solar power cells that can be printed out using reel-to-reel printing like a newpaper where you can cut production costs down to nothing and steadily improve upon the product.

Its about the mass production technology with every major corporation today investing in more analog scalar solutions including self-assembling and printing including half a dozen at least of the first 3D printers that print entire houses complete with the plumbing and wiring built in within a matter of hours. The technology we developed over the last century to achieve this next scientific revolution has all been the brute force approach and is now about to get some swing in its hips as well as going flat out Star Trek.

This really does not address my concern.
The West is not investing in this type of ground up infrastructure projects while in the Middle East there is an ever growing trend towards that kind of design and implementation.

How can the West hope to keep up if we continue to grow with fossil fuel dependent infrastructure while the Middle East is growing on foundations of renewable alternatives?

In my opinion simply mass producing solar panels does not make you a worlds renewable energy superpower.
Actually implementing a ground up renewable solution in urban infrastructure does.

To my mind Clinton was deluded if she believes that the US, Germany, and China are even in the race.
In the Middle East there is something of a cultural revolution going on as more and more planers and educators are preparing for the time when oil exporting nations run out of oil to export.
They want to be able to sustain a modern civilization even if they do not have fossil fuels in abundance.
For these countries it is not a matter of if they run out of fossil fuels it is a matter of when, being that they are not morons they are taking efforts to prepare now for what will eventually come to pass, the days when they can not sustain themselves with fossil fuels.

The West cannot hope to emerge as a renewable energy superpower without a similar cultural revolution in my opinion, and in the West the topic of alternative energy solutions is fraught with controversy while in the Middle East it is just a foregone conclusion that they will eventually run out of fossil fuels and will be forced to rely upon some alternative.
Reality has yet to set in with the West, While in the Middle East they have accepted reality.

I couldn't agree with you more, but the problem is that kind of ground up infrastructure investment is the kind of thing that countries do when they are in an economic depression or serious recession or just have way too much money they need to invest. The US is the world empire and its economy is still driving everything else. Its empire baby, and this train ain't stopping until she derails. The US could seriously use the infrastructure upgrade, but within twenty years the costs of these kinds of things is about to go in the toilet and the US will likely not be doing all that much ground up improvements, but phased in ones.

I am not talking about an infrastructure upgrade alone.
The West needs a cultural revolution.
It is not a matter of if fossil fuels eventually run out it is a matter of when.
If your economy is dependent upon fossil fuels then it will cost more to do anything.
So if are forced to use fossil fuels to build an infrastructure upgrade, and there are less fossil fuels latter than there are now, it will be more expansive not less expansive to do that upgrade.

The idea that the cost of implementing that infrastructure will go down is simply wrong.
The material costs of renewable technology will not drop significantly enough to offset the increase in costs in the fossil fuel energy it will take to implement it.

And as we lose or competitive edge in energy solutions we will no doubt also lose our economic productivity edge as well.

I am simply not so optimistic as you are that the US or West in general takes the problem seriously enough to be considered a true world leader in energy alternatives.
Even if we still have some residual lead that lead is going to quickly evaporate without a cultural revolution.

The biggest problem with the West is we are not forced to think about it as a necessity the way that the Middle East is, we do not export enough fossil fuels for it to be a major concern that we will eventually run out.
So that reality of running out has not set in with the West.
The same is not true in the Middle East, they export serious amounts of fossil fuels and the reality that their supply will be gone is very real, this forces them to change their culture regarding alternative energy.
For them it is not a politically controversial issue it is simply a matter of fact that they will have to change to survive.
This means they are taking the steps now to be competitive in the future, where as with the West it is a something of a conflict and people are content to put it off until the day when it will magically become affordable and easy to do.
I am simply skeptical that day will ever come.

If we really want to compete as a superpower that can be sustained, we need to keep up with the competition now, not wait until it is magically easier to compete.

What is coming is a self-organizing scientific revolution that will transform the world with the new manufacturing capacities merely representing the tip of the iceberg. Currently the money and guns are doing all the talking worth listening to which is how its been since the beginning of civilization but, within twenty years at the outside, the change will begin with confirmation of a theory of everything that makes it no longer viable to do business the old way.

The problem to me is the West will not be leading this revolution of transformation.
It seems the Middle East is forging that path first.

The irony is the Middle East is contributing to global warming and has money they must invest in their future.

The Middle East does not consume nearly as much fossil fuel as the West or East.
So they do not contribute to global warming nearly as much as US and China.

They only have the money to invest in green energy because they sell their oil to everyone else.

I am not sure what you are suggesting.
Are you saying the West should not compete in being a renewable energy superpower because it is too expensive?

If so, I disagree.
Instead of continuing to use current infrastructure (which we do as we grow) we need to start using the next generation infrastructure as we grow.
Again it will only cost more and more to do this the longer we put it off.

No, I'm saying that over the next century we will be rewiring and re-plumbing the entire planet, but that's a big job and doesn't happen according to our personal schedules or desires. For example, somebody just figured out how to use carbon nanotubes in asphalt to both heat the road for de-icing and make it last fifty times longer or something ridiculous. These are often the kinds of duh! moments that if people rush into a big job like this they live to regret. Star Trek is coming in the very near future and then its down the rabbit hole or toilet of your personal preference.

To put it perspective, the sum total of scientific data now doubles in as little as nine months, yet, only recently was the first apparently complete quantum mechanical model of five hundred states of matter confirmed. Its like the elemental chart for physicists and they've only now created the first version. Within a hundred years they will have achieved the dream of the alchemists, but the next twenty will give us a much better idea of what to expect. Once you know what to expect, people with big money will push the technology ahead.

My point is the Middle East is proving right now that renewable infrastructure works and I am saying that in order to be competitive the West will also have to implement the same proven and reliable technology as we grow.
I am not suggesting we refit existing infrastructure I am saying as we grow we use proven technology to stay competitive like the Middle East is doing.

The reason this is more common in the Middle East is because their culture has accepted the fact that fossil fuels are a finite resource.
The West still argues over fossils fuels and opinions create a political divide where nothing gets done.
Instead of worrying about opinions we need to focus on staying competitive.

You seem to be saying that it doesn't matter because sometime in the future a magical technological breakthrough will occur and everything will be cheap and easy.
That is a gamble.

What I am talking about is existing technology that is proven and that the Middle East is already using as they grow.
To keep up the West will need to use that existing technology as well.

The middle east has no other resources to exploit other than the sun and the oil they possess. That's like say fish are to be admired for exploiting water.

I've been following a scientific breakthrough that happened only recently that has tremendous potential to disrupt the current energy landscape. It's called LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) that was first demonstrated by Pons and Fleischman and was called at the time 'Cold Fusion'. Since around some 30 or so years, the debacle that ensued after the inability of many scientists to reproduce their (Pons and Fleischman's experiment) things have calmed down again and some renewed research has followed in the field.

Now, a guy called Andrea Rossi claims to have a working LENR device that has quite considerable energy densities and COP and temperature achievable all while using abundant and cheap fuel (Mainly Nickel).

Around 2011 is when I became convinced that this was real science when the U.S NAVY and soon later Toyota acknowledged the legitimacy of this new field and is actively researching how (probably) to utilize this technology apart from other pet research projects (e.g Polywell devices, etc.).

The future looks really bright despite the usual gloom and doom you hear... just about everywhere nowadays.

Then there are companies like 'Lockheed' and 'General Fusion' that are actively working on fusion devices and are making headway.

Finally, if all else fails we can always rely on dirt-cheap solar panels from China or soon domestically spray on solar paint.

To be honest, at this point, there is so much technological progress and innovation that the only thing holding us back is a lack of vision, not funds, and the powers that be (coal & oil lobbies). They can only stifle progress; but, there will be a tipping point sooner or later at which the U.S' hand will be forced when other countries choose to adopt clean energy technology simply out of economic reasons. Just a matter of time at this point.

Andrea Rossi claims to have a working LENR device that has quite considerable energy densities — Question

I've got God in this box, you know!

The Navy contract was for an entirely different device. Of the 26 supplied under the contract 19 did not work at all and the remaining 7 had an output 800 times lower than predicted/promised. The contract has unsurprisingly not been renewed. The Toyota association seems to be a figment of your imagination as far as I can tell. Rossi's patent application for LENR remains unresolved as it is effectively no more than a plea to protect an unspecified 'black box'. It includes no specifics as to the design and function of the device or any explanation of how it defies all known laws of physics!

In short, Rossi is a fantasist and charlatan at best. He will play no part in any genuine advances in this field.

Wow, nice to find someone interested in the field.

Well, there's also the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project that is open source with no gimmicks. Then there's Brillouin energy. I never liked Rossi and his game of 'cat and mouse' if you get the reference. I still think there's legitimate science behind the claims, unlike something that Blacklightpower has pulled out of their ass wit hydrinos (makes me want to laugh). Time will eventually tell.

The US looks prepared to take the lead if they want to with most of the fundamental research being done there. What everyone is waiting for with baited breath are graphene supercapacitors and reel-reel printed solar cells. Already the big car manufacturers in the US are preparing the first all carbon body factories and, theoretically, you could even retrofit existing cars with graphene supercapacitors lining the inside panels and get a thousand times the power to weight ratio of batteries.

You can even throw all that carbon on the ground and its like piling up leaves and print solar cells on the body so you'd never see them. That's a ways away though, but there's also long time interest in the roofing industry to produce the first widely adopted low cost solar shingles that last decades without maintenance. Storage capacity and instillation costs are a big part of what's holding people back, but the supercapacitors could be ready for prime time in just a few years and you can already make crude ones using just a home dvd laser.

Most notably, the ability to make a wide variety of extremely powerful magnets out of dirt cheap materials has just been discovered meaning all the motors for cars and golf carts and everything else will become much more powerful and cheaper to make. Just to make a point Mercedes Benz built a 900 horsepower van that looks like an economy van. Even 400 horse power is just ridiculous for an internal combustion engine and they are all about to become history and not a moment too soon for the planet. Already several countries have been investing heavily in research to make useful products out of all the CO2 in the air using solar power to turn back the worst effects of global warming.

I give up, again my point is that in the Middle East they are implementing technologies that work and exist now and as well I am sure they are investing in research of similar technologies that were mentioned.

Every one seems to think that there is no concern because someday in the future new technologies will emerge that are better than those that exist now.

Meanwhile we are losing the competitive edge now, research for the future is not the same as existent technology being applied in the here and now.
Equating the two does not address the point I was making.

Greenland uses geothermal energy to run everything including to smelt aluminum which they are the largest exporter of in the world. They are merely leveraging what resources they have in a resource poor country. Similarly, the Tibetans have practiced polyandry for ages as a way to control their population because they only have so much land that can be cultivated. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, but what the world requires is someone to take the lead rather than merely treading water or falling to earth.