“What names come to mind when you think of the internet?

Google.
Facebook.
Amazon.
Netflix.

How about Digg? Aardvaark? Boingo? These are names you might not have yet heard of, but they’re some of the companies that will define tomorrow’s internet landscape.

But in 1969 – when UCLA Professor Leonard Kleinrock sent the first Internet message from his laboratory – and for years after, none of these companies were even imaginable.

The names back then?

DARPA.
NIST.
FCC.
NASA.

What does this name game tell us? That when we invest in research and innovation, we never know where it might lead. That American capitalism can take a germ of an idea, and create revolutions in our economy and society.

But none of this was an accident. Realizing the potential of the internet demanded the public and private sectors work closely together – dreaming big and creating the future.

As Senator Udall said in his introduction, I am Jon Cowan, and I am the President of Third Way, the moderate voice of the progressive movement. We are thrilled to co-host this summit with Senator Udall, an honorary co-chair of Third Way. He is undeniably one of the nation’s leading advocates for clean energy – and the model of a passionate, pragmatic and deeply thoughtful public leader. We also want to thank Secretary Chu, Governor Ritter and Senator Bennet for their participation.

When we started our energy work three years ago, Third Way set out to challenge some of the conventional thinking on both the policy and politics of clean energy.

First, we believed that advocates for clean energy needed to rethink some of our policy orthodoxies. If we are going to have enough clean energy, we cannot afford to take nuclear power off the table. And the same is true for natural gas, especially in a state like Colorado.

Second, we’ve advocated for new policy ideas. Inspired by the model of the National Institutes of Health and the legacy of DARPA and NIST, we’ve proposed establishing a National Institutes of Energy to drive innovation through public-private partnerships. And we’ve proposed Clean Energy Business Zones to help conventional energy states transition to clean energy.

Finally, we believed from the outset that we needed to tell a different story to the American people. One that is not primarily about climate change. We looked deeply into public perceptions of energy and found that Americans care about global warming in the abstract, but what is motivating them is their pocketbook and concern for the economic future of their children.

As captured so brilliantly in today’s Summit, the story MUST be told that clean energy is one of the greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century. Because the carrots that come with reform must be big and tangible enough to be worth the disruption. Fortunately, that’s a promise we can meet – as the global demand for clean energy is growing by $1 trillion dollars every year. And that could mean a LOT of American jobs.

But how do we make sure these jobs are created here in America – in centers of innovation and entrepreneurship like Colorado?

To answer the question of how to create jobs here, we have assembled a diverse panel of clean energy leaders. Our panelists know how to train workers and create energy jobs. They’ve helped string the transmission lines connecting wind turbines to cities; prepared students and under-employed workers for jobs in clean energy manufacturing and natural gas extraction; transformed the world’s largest retailer into a leader in sustainable building; and even brought Democrats and Republicans together to support renewable energy.

While today’s panel focuses on the promise and possibilities of clean energy, there also is an alternate and more perilous path ahead – that some of our earlier speakers referred to. The United States had the Internet to itself in the 1980s and early 1990s as the market was taking shape. Today, we’re in a race against the EU, China, India, Korea and others to meet the world’s clean energy demand. An entrepreneurial, technologically advanced country like the US should do well in such a race. But the current numbers do not look good.

Over the last five years, as clean energy started to boom, the United States’ renewable energy trade deficit ballooned by 1400 percent.

China invests almost as much money in clean energy R & D in one week, $2 billion, as the United States does in an entire year.

Europe already has more than 150,000 people employed in the wind energy sector of their economy and Denmark is the world’s leading exporter of wind turbines.

These figures are more than just opportunities missed. They are canaries in the coal mine for what the future could look like. If the United States loses this race, we risk becoming a second rate power, dependent on other countries for our energy needs and technologies, and losing out on tens of billions of dollars in GDP.

This is a race we can win – we know how to build clean energy industries and how to create jobs within them. But it takes the right incentives, resources, and partnerships to make that happen."