Thanks to plummeting costs and state support, America’s energy sector could go mostly green within a decade.

A quiet revolution in alternative energy is underway that has the potential to wean the United States off most carbon-based fuels in just ten years, says Reed Hundt, CEO of the nonprofit Coalition for Green Capital, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under President Bill Clinton, and a member of several corporate and nonprofit boards, including Intel’s.

The first key factor supporting this potential revolution is the plummeting cost of solar panels — down 80% over the last four years alone. The second key, says Hundt, will be setting up state-backed “green banks.”

As he explains, “If I went to anybody in the United States and said, ‘Could I just give you electricity that is cleaner?’ [they’re] going to say, ‘Yes, but is it going to cost more?’ Suppose I say, ‘It is cleaner and cheaper.’ Who is going to say no to this?”

In this Knowledge@Wharton interview, Hundt explains the nuts and bolts of green bank programs he claims could change the face of energy in the US almost overnight.

*[This article was originally published by Fair Observer’s content partner, Knowledge@Wharton.]

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