[jyl]

The US inherently has a very hard time competing in manufacturing that can be done with low-skill worker, does not require a culture of high quality (so-so product is okay or quality can be achieved via automation), and is highly price-competitive. I don't think it is a political issue - just the brutal economics of labor in China, Vietnam, Mexico, etc willing and able to work for wages that a US worker cannot work for. I don't mean the US worker doesn't want to - he simply can't, because he'd be homeless. I don't care how hard you work at $2/hour (which would be 3-4X average manufacturing hourly wage in China), its not a living in the US.

But things like wind turbines are complex, require highly-skilled workers, and must be high quality. They are also very expensive. We could make those, but for the most part we don't.

Conventional Solar PV cells are sort of low-tech semiconductors, built in a simpler version of a semiconductor fab/process. The labor content is pretty low. We have a lot of un- or under-used fabs in the US. We could make these, but we don't.

Why are we so far behind China and Europe in alternative energy industries? Because our government and many of our people have not supported these industries. Our incentive programs and mandates are late, small, and fragile (they come and go). And too many people in the US think alternative energy is not worth until the cost/watt reaches parity with cheap coal power. Well, it will reach that point, as the technology improves. And when it does, and we decide to get into the alternative energy business, it will be too late. More forward-thinking countries will have locked up the industry.