According to a recent report by Advanced Energy Economy, clean energy is worth $1.4 trillion worldwide. Coins indeed.

The US has historically been a huge innovator in clean energy. An American invented solar panels, Vermont had the first megawatt wind turbine, and naturalized citizen Elon Musk (ever heard of him?) has built the first industrial-scale battery company and arguably deserves the credit for mainstreaming electric vehicles. And the US still has a lot of momentum; renewable energy sources are starting to drop in price such that they actually undercut fossil fueled power without government subsidies.

A lot of those US innovations started off with government help. The Department of Energy's $32 billion loan program helped many clean energy companies get their start. (And despite high-profile failures like Solyndra, the overall failure rate of companies enrolled in the program is only 2.7 percent.) The DOE also funds a lot of early-stage research--through programs like ARPA-E, and tech transfer programs at many of its national labs--nurturing technology until it's ready for private companies to commercialize. "The vast majority of new technologies that scale up and become big biz success stories have many years of life symbiotically linked with government," says Ion Yadigaroglu, partner and managing principal at Capricorn Investment Group. "There are no private subsidies for the kind of early-stage R&D work that flows from the government, and if you shut that down, then X years after the fact you see a lot less innovation flowing to the private market."

These are exactly the kinds of programs that President Trump and congressional Republicans have threatened to axe. Also worrying are the administration's stances on immigration and trade policies. "We rely on being magnet for talented people in order to keep innovating in this sector," says Yadigaroglu. Elon Musk, who Yadigaroglu calls a "one man show in saving the world" was an immigrant.