Page 63 - Accelerating out of the Great Recession

ACCELERATING OUT OF THE GREAT RECESSION

around one-millionth of a millimeter in size) is already worth
around $65 billion, and it is growing at 15 percent per year.
Similarly, the global photonics market (optical technologies
focusing on microscopic light quanta—the study of which won
Albert Einstein a Nobel Prize) reached $70 billion in 2008 and
is growing at more than 8 percent per year.
Another hot new industry—the $100 billion so-called white
biotechnology industry (which brings living microorganisms
such as molds, yeast, and bacteria to industrial use) is growing
at 10 percent per year, whereas material science (the develop-
ment and application of new industrial materials) is already a
$450 billion industry that is growing at 5 percent per year. To
put these numbers in context, the information technology (IT)
industry is forecast to grow at 1.1 percent per year, whereas the
chemicals industry is forecast to grow at 2.5 percent per year.
To understand how governments are supporting such indus-
tries, take a look at the German government’s announcement in
June 2009 of an €18 billion research and education development
plan. It pledged €700 million for promoting electrical mobility.
This initiative aims to bring together green technologies, mate-
rial science, and nanotechnology in order to develop a high-pow-
ered car battery expected to enter serious production in 2012.
Meanwhile, in the United States, states and towns have been
promoting green technology. Michigan, an important industrial
state, has spent more than $1 billion in the last several years to
attract alternative-energy companies, and Toledo, Ohio—a center
of glass manufacturing in the nineteenth century—has leveraged
the presence of the local university and its innovations in solar
energy to pursue the development of solar panel manufacture.
Although governments are promoting reindustrialization, it
is not clear that this is an entirely practical policy. Given the liv-

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