The latest data compiled by The Green Jobs Report indicates that manufacturers in the solar and wind power industry are eager to move forward with plans to expand production and create new green collar jobs despite the current economic crisis. Media reports issued between November 16th and November 22nd, 2008 detailed plans by seven solar and wind sector manufacturing companies to create a total of 4, 130 new green collar jobs through expanded operations.
A press release issued by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and posted on the website News Blaze on November 17 detailed OptiSolar's plans to create 1,000 green collar jobs at new manufacturing plant in Sacremento, California.
Brevini USA is planning to build a new manufacturing facility in Yorktown, Indiana that will eventually employ 450 workers according to a November 18th report in the Anderson Herald Bulletin. A press release issued by the company said that the facility would be dedicated to designing and manufacturing main driver gear boxes for the wind turbine industry.
Also on November 18th, Providence Business News covered the opening of Konarka Technologies, Inc.’s new manufacturing facility in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The facility will be the world’s largest roll-to-roll flexible thin film solar manufacturing facility and will employ 100 workers within two to three years, according to a press release issued by the company.
A November 19th story posted on NJ.com detailed Amelio Solar’s proposal to locate a new solar panel manufacturing plant in Vineland, New Jersey. If approved, the facility will create 130 to 175 new jobs.
On November 20th, Forbes.com published an AP article on SCHOTT Solar’s new manufacturing plant in Albuquerque. A press release issue by the company states that the plant will eventually employ 1,500 people.
Also on November 20th, a story about Shoal Technology’s plans for a new plant in Portland, Tennessee appeared in the Nashville Business Journal . The new plant will one day employ 450 workers.
Finally, CBS Evening News covered TPI Composites plans for a new wind blade factory in Newton, Iowa during its nightly report on November 21st. A press release issued by the company said that in time the factory will employ 500 in a community that was hard hit by Whirlpool’s acquisition of the company Maytag in 2006.
“In 2006, after an acquisition by Whirlpool, the former Maytag offices and plants in Newton were closed, putting 1,800 people out of work and ending a century-old legacy of washing machine manufacturing. Today, Newton boasts two wind energy firms, and Iowa is one of the leading wind producing states in the country," the release stated.
The reports came at a time when President-Elect Barack Obama was detailing the roll that green technologies could play in solving the nation's economic woes.
"We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels; fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead," Obama said last week.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced that U.S. economy lost 90,000 manufacturing jobs in October, including 9,000 in the motor vehicles and parts sector alone.
The Green Jobs Report has documented plans by 20 solar and wind manufacturing companies to create 10,490 new green collar jobs since it began monitoring media reports on October 24, 2008.
David Anderson is the author of the Green Jobs Report and is a New & Politics Correspondent for Gather.com
Keep up with David's writing by the groups Green America and Gather Politics Essentials
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Comments: 26
4130 new green jobs sounds like pitifully few to me, but I'd acknowledge that it is a start and I hope we encourage and promote this development.
The Greening of America is coming - and it's a very, very good thing. (Sorry Big Oil and Mountaintop Coal Mining!)
You're joking, right? We are nowhere in position to take any kind of bite out of oil and coal, and we could not even replace the 20% of energy we generate from nuclear.
I have just come to the conclusion that American will be in a dark age for many years if we survive at all before the average American understands the problems we face enough to be willing to really so something that will make a difference.
As Ethan said above, the storage problem is one of the main things with wind and solar. Storing energy and the costs and losses associated with that doubles the cost of wind and solar, and synchronizing all these sources of power together into a grid is a problem that still have not been solved.
Bruce, we need some more minds to take on the problem of storage for solar farms. One idea I read (Scientific American?) was to use the electricity to heat molten salt, then use the molten salt at night to spin turbines to generate electricity. Then there is the idea of using the daylight solar eletricity to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen, then burn the hydrogen at night to generate electricity. Obviously some power is lost in any of these processes, but we cannot stay with fossil fuels. Sure coal is cheap, but not if you look at the price of climate change.
This molten salt idea to me sound much more scary than a nuclear reactor and not much less toxic.
People like to handwave and say problems solved based on something they most likley misread in popular mechanics or something. I hear, oh, no problem, we can convert biomass to ethanol, nevermind that there is not a good economical model for this anywhere in nature.
i am not saying anything cannot be done, but we have critical existential problems today that we have done nothing about.
The bigger problem maybe convinced the rest of the world to stop using oil. Maybe we can do it because we are spending huge money on our security, and then again maybe we cannot, but why should China or other countries that cannot afford the changeover stop using oil or burning things? And in order to halt global warming we would have had to stop CO2 production 20 years ago or more.
The price of climate change may already be paid, that is we may have already destroyed nature in our stupid folly. Even if we do not destroy it fish population are down and pollution is up, habitats are shrinking and mobility for animal populations is basically gone. There is nowhere for polar bears to go, and most plants and animals do not have an environmental range that is flexible.
Whatever we do we also still have a hugely growing population. Face it there are so many problems and we are not even close to realistically talking about solving any of them.
It is like saying you could grow enough trees on your suburban lot to generate the power for your house, there is not enough energy to do that for most buildings/properties.
It all starts with little steps and quickly accelerates to mind boggling discoveries. Don't sell scientific innovation short. Build it and they will come.
I am just a little leery about using windmills and solar panels for energy. Because all it would take would be a lack of wind or sufficient sunlight to throw a monkey wrench into the works.
Of course, I already realize that you will respond with the possibility of drought or some other natural catastrophe wiping out the farming of cellulose plants as well.
But, at least, with growing cellulose plants, there is a marginal degree of control using irrigation and indoor farming.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy:
- Wind power outpaced coal in terms of growth in 2007. Wind power capacity has expanded rapidly over the past few years, growing by 46% in 2007, by 21 percent in 2006, and by 45 percent in 2005.
- Energy from renewable sources accounted for 8.4 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. in 2007. 7 percent of the electricity consumed by Americans came from renewable sources of energy, about the same as the 8 percent produced by nuclear power.
Obviously we have a ways to go, but the renewable energy sector is already growing at a rapid rate. California Governor Arnold Schwazenegger believes that renewable energy can supply 33% of California's power by 2030.
The state is a leader in the biomass field. Forbes recently ranked Georgia the third best state for renewable energy from biomass in the country.
You can find a lot of information by going to the Georgia.gov website and using the site's search engine. Try using search terms like "renewable energy", "biomass', "solar power", and "wind power".
Google and Google News are always great places to start a search for information as well.
The bottom line has changed. It is no longer "how many pennies did it cost me to burn the coal that heated the water for my morning shower". The new question is "what happens to my great grandkids if I have a hot shower that is not powered by renewable"
I admit that meeting the steeply increasing demand for power and transportation primarily with renewables is daunting economically and technically. But you can't prove it impossible without trying to do it.
> hot shower that is not powered by renewable"
I really like that framing of the debate ... and I would add, there are many
kinds of people in this world, that are trained and habituated to think of
things is many different ways, so what is the effect of having people
around who do not think primarily of the future in all of their actions, and
if they are not thinking of the future, what are they thinking of?
It is people's minds we need to change, and their character, personality,
thoughts, after all we are seeking to bring more freedom and democracy
to the world, what good is that going to do if like the Muslims we simply
vote for bad ideas of bad people because we have a society made up of
mostly bad people?
We need a change in human consciousness ... and I have thought this
since I was a kid in the 60's.
If the nutrients are not replaced, the soil becomes barren. Biofuels are as much a dead end as fossil fuels.