Randomly Noted

Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., worries about traffic gridlock on a global basis.

Zhengrong Shi, chairman and chief executive of China’s Suntech Power Holdings, one of the world’s largest solar panel companies, wonders whether “perhaps there’s too much democracy” in the U.S., making it difficult for the nation to adopt a coherent and consistent industrial policy.

“There are no decisions being made,” he said. “It’s like in a company. Sometimes you hear all the voices. The CEO knows what the right decision is and sometimes they just want to bang the table and say, ‘Let’s do it.’”

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If you are looking for reasons to be optimistic about prospects for the American economy, and that search these days requires real effort, spend some time with the proponents and practitioners of clean technology.

For a layman, it’s a bit like going to the world’s fairs of yesteryear, filled with whizbang and excitable notions of how different technological advances, now at various stages of development, will dramatically alter our future daily lives.

From electric cars to the possible creation of synthetic organisms that would eat carbon dioxide to ‘clean coal,’ to wind and sun power and oilman T. Boone Pickens’ nationalist campaign to use U.S.-drilled natural gas in trucks to replace some imported crude oil, it was on display at The Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference in Santa Barbrara, Calif.

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An emerging theme at The Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics energy conference is that a lack of action by the U.S. government on climate change legislation creates uncertainty for utilities to embark on major, long-term investments.

Skepticism has been frequently expressed at the conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., that Congress and the administration will be able this year to pass legislation that essentially sets a price for carbon emissions.

Michael G. Morris, chairman and chief executive of American Electric Power, which he described as the largest coal burner in the U.S., supported the notion of a carbon price set by the government as it would allow businesses to “be better about your planning,” he said.

“The more uncertainty that can get sorted out, the more willing” companies will be to make big, long-term investments, said Lewis Hay III, chairman and chief executive of FPL Group.

“Some sort of price signal” about carbon is needed for investment certainty, said Tom Albanese, chief executive of Rio Tinto. He said his “preferred view” is a cap and trade system, as opposed to a carbon tax.

The number of automobiles on the planet will double by 2050 to two billion and 40% of those cars at mid-century will be electric cars.

So said Peter Voser, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Along the way there will be room for all sorts of alternatives, he said.