Renewable Energy Leaders Push RES to Create Jobs
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This week a group of renewable energy leaders, part of the RES Alliance for Jobs, announced their plan to boost clean energy employment by more than a quarter of a million over the next fifteen years. The group's study shows they could do it 'without' a controversial cap-and-trade plan, something that may appeal to politicians in an election year. Clean Skies Dan Goldstein reports.
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This week a group of renewable energy leaders, part of the RES Alliance for Jobs -- announced their plan to boost clean energy employment by more than a quarter of a million over the next fifteen years. The group's study shows they could do it 'without' a controversial cap-and-trade plan, something that may appeal to politicians in an election year. Clean Skies Dan Goldstein reports.VO: With unemployment in the U.S. over 10 percent, and with the Kerry-Boxer cap and trade plan bill stalled in the Senate, some groups like the RES Alliance, made up of wind, solar, biomass and geothermal companies, are jumping up with a different take. Leave cap-and-trade on the sidelines for now, get rid of a patchwork quilt of state renewable energy standards -- mandate stronger renewables use NATIONWIDE --- and GREEN employment will rise. SOT: Don Furman, SVP Iberdrola Renewables IN:00;49;39: "A Renewable Energy Standard would...." OUT: 50:05 "For sophisticated machines." VO: The RES Alliance touted a study by Navigant Consulting that shows a 25 percent renewable energy standard would create 274,000 jobs, many in states that have unemployment well over the national average. That's more than what would be created under Waxman Markey, which called for 20 percent renewables by 2020, OR its Senate counterpart which called for 15 percent by 2021. Both those plans have cap-and-trade, which some critics say would BE JOB LOSERS.SOT: Robert Cleaves BioMass Power Association President IN:42:19 "Most of our facilities" OUT: 42:52: "Double our existing employment" VO: But the alliance plan backers concede the study doesn't account for what could be job losses as a result of higher electricity prices from using more expensive power sources like wind and solar. And advocates of the plan say they'll still need plenty of help from the federal government, in form of tax credits. But they say, more than 37 other countries, including China, are boosting their renewable portfolios, and the U.S. capital, and jobs could soon follow. SOT: Donald Furman IN: 53:07 "We have a number of companies..." OUT: 53:36 "The growth of this industry" STANDUP: And a Renewable Energy Standard, together with stronger incentives for domestic may be easier to pass than cap-and-trade. That's especially important this election year, when the job many politicians are concerned about most -- is their own. In Washington, Dan Goldstein, Clean Skies News.
Published: 02/05/10 1:33pm
Running Time: 03:08
Related Keywords: Power Generation (Other- Biomass, Hydro-Electric, Hydrogen, Geothermal), Other- Biomass, Hydro-Electric, Hydrogen, Geothermal, Clean Skies News, Daniel J. Goldstein, Biomass Power Association, Don Furman, Iberdrola Renewables, Navigant Consulting, RES Alliance For Jobs, Robert Cleaves
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*This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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I think this is such a great
I think this is such a great idea. There are so many people out of work that need a job. I think we need to push this more and more in the future. There are so many great things to come from this.
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The consolation prize hidden
The consolation prize hidden in the victory of renewable energy over alternative ideas like upgraded Thorium nuclear fission energy would appear to be GREEN JOBS. Producing energy by less energy dense methods will require a greater number of Americans dedicate their productive efforts to generate the energy required by the nation. The attraction of MORE GOOD GREEN JOBS in a recession is very hard for a good politician to avoid when many of his constituents are out of work. Unfortunately, creating 1000s of green jobs is spurious unless, at the same time, the overall cost of providing energy to the nation, as measured in herpes symptoms a percentage of GDP, drops relative to the existing system. Using more of the nation’s workforce to provide the nation’s energy only means that less of the nation’s productive capacity is available to perform other creative functions (go to the stars, cure cancer and aids, end intolerance and resolve long standing hatreds, etc) that would benefit the nation. A nation that has to dedicate a larger proportion of its workforce and wealth to generate the same energy will be a poorer and less secure nation.
I think this is such a great
I think this is such a great idea. There are so many people out of work that need a job. I think we need to push this more and more in the future. There are so many great things to come from this.
Live Food
Congress has given billions
Congress has given billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil, gas & coal industries for years (see for example the 2005 energy bill). Things like free roads and below market leases to extract resources on government property (& then not being required to clean up afterward). Also, significantly lower taxes for oil & gas related items than other businesses have to pay. So where are all of the fiscal conservative free marketeers on that issue? Strangely silent.
So, in reality, the types of items described in this article would only be a small step towards leveling the playing field which has been controlled by the fossil fuel industries for years.
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Many influential analysts,
Many influential analysts, like Tom Friedman (and Dr. Steven Chu), suggest that the only way to make substantive progress in forwarding Green solutions is to tilt the energy playing field with a tax or fee on carbon.
More than 85% of economic activity in the US is driven currently by use of fossil fuels. Pricing up the cost of the dominant energy sectors will have real economic impacts.
If there were renewable technologies that were close in cost to fossil fuels which we could quickly scale and deploy we could attempt to transition to them. There is no evidence that any such renewable energy technology exits or will exist for decades.
The consolation prize hidden in the victory of renewable energy over alternative ideas like upgraded Thorium nuclear fission energy would appear to be GREEN JOBS. Producing energy by less energy dense methods will require a greater number of Americans dedicate their productive efforts to generate the energy required by the nation. The attraction of MORE GOOD GREEN JOBS in a recession is very hard for a good politician to avoid when many of his constituents are out of work. Unfortunately, creating 1000s of green jobs is spurious unless, at the same time, the overall cost of providing energy to the nation, as measured in a percentage of GDP, drops relative to the existing system. Using more of the nation’s workforce to provide the nation’s energy only means that less of the nation’s productive capacity is available to perform other creative functions (go to the stars, cure cancer and aids, end intolerance and resolve long standing hatreds, etc) that would benefit the nation. A nation that has to dedicate a larger proportion of its workforce and wealth to generate the same energy will be a poorer and less secure nation.
When you tilt the energy playing field with taxes and fees the economic pie shrinks. Economic activity becomes less efficient, and the costs of everything made with or delivered to market with energy goes up. Having to devote more capital toward energy purchases leaves less capital available to stimulate economic growth.
This should be simultaneously explained at the same time the cognoscenti proclaim that the only way forward is to price up the cost of energy with a tax or fee.
Modest little men with little influence suggest that the only sustainable way you get real progress is to honestly reduce the cost of energy and expand the access of a greater number of Americans to cheap energy.
Nuclear energy is the only current form of energy that can be rapidly scaled to displace use of fossil fuels and simultaneously drive down the cost of energy. To do this on a scale that would actually result in replacing energy produced from fossil fuels within a decade would require some regulatory relief (A Regulatory FAST-TRACK program for new nuclear) and an investment in commercializing better and more manufacturable nuclear technology.