Tribune. “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, when they have exhausted all other possibilities. “ Whether or not Churchill uttered that phrase, it could prove prophetic if Biden wins in November. His plan for renewable energy is so massive that it will eclipse the European Union’s current agenda.
Has the United States exhausted all other possibilities? Without a doubt. Presidents Bush have launched two wars against Iraq. The first focused almost entirely on petroleum. As for the second, Alan Greenspan, former president of the Fed, writes in his Memoirs: “It is politically awkward to admit what everyone knows… The war in Iraq is largely about oil. “ Obama had campaigned on greening the economy, but he pushed for the development of fracking. Trump tried to revive coal, and he too favored the fracking industry. The latter continued to operate, going into massive debt. Crude prices have fallen. Russia and Saudi Arabia have embarked on a price war. Add to that the collapse in demand with the pandemic; covered in debt, most of the ” frackers Are bankrupt.
Under Biden, the United States would finally do the right thing, with a plan to achieve carbon neutrality in the electricity sector by 2035. If elected, we will have to expect an unprecedented acceleration, which will see the United States recover the patents, the markets, and become the undisputed leader in the field of renewable energies, as they did with the digital one thirty years ago.
Europe should, however, in principle, win the competition. It owns the leading developer of pure player offshore wind turbines, Orsted. The Danish Vestas Wind Systems and the German-Spanish Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy dominate the global wind turbine market. Unless there is a scientific breakthrough – which figures in Mr Biden’s strategy – long-distance transmission of electricity will pass through high-voltage direct-current lines: in this area too, Europe has a considerable competitive advantage, with world leaders such as the French Nexans, the Italian Prysmian, the Danish NKT and the Swedish-Swiss ABB.
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What big American companies could compete with them? For wind turbines, GE. For cables, GE and a few others, including General Cable which belongs … to the Italian Prysmian. But GE is not a pure player, its management is encumbered by a wide range of independent products.
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