@flu: this is happening in “green tech” projects as well, but before anyone gets any nationalistic dander up, it’s because there’s only a few places in the world with certain areas of technical expertise for certain highly bottlenecked steps. I have to wonder if that’s one reason why the Chinese were permitted to bid. Perhaps a devil’s advocate example might illustrate my point:
If a company in Japan is the only one that has extensive experience machining the containment vessel for a nuclear reactor core (and remember that there are many countries in the world way ahead in this technology), I would have serious concerns if that company were banned from bidding over a hastily-put together corporation that is US based that claims it can do the job because it’s done it twice…
Perhaps the way to alleiviate some of these technical expertise bottlenecks would be to figure out a policy framework that would 1) encourage more people towards science/math education; 2) encourage development of this kind of long-term expertise to stay in the US.
I know far to many scientists in San Diego who are fed up with the economic climate and are decamping for more hospitable climes. If the nerds who know how to make things work leave, what will the rest of the country do?
