Winds of change

Clean energy also provides business opportunities, as Nick Blitterswyk and his family have found. While working on New York's Wall Street three years ago, he suggested his Chinese wife, Wendy Liu, and her parents start a wind turbine business. They co-founded Urban Green Energy shortly after.

Liu's parents, who hail from Central China's Hunan province, now live in Beijing and were involved in real estate and mining before they turned to manufacturing small wind turbines at a factory in Chengde, Hebei province.

Urban Green Energy sold almost all of its wind turbines in 2010, half to residential customers and the rest to commercial installations or government-funded projects, such as in San Francisco and Pusan in South Korea, said Blitterswyk, the company's chief executive.

His New York office sells turbines to 45 countries, including the US, the biggest market, Canada, Mexico and several Caribbean nations.

He credited much of the company's success to its Beijing-based chief engineer, Song Hanjun. "He's a really talented designer of clean-energy products," said the CEO, who added that Song holds several patents, including three co-held by the company. International patents are also pending.

The technologies have enabled Urban Green Energy to develop small but quiet wind turbines with less vibration than conventional products so they can be installed on top of residential homes.

"All our customers want to look green," he said. "Our turbines look really beautiful. It's a visible statement."