State Green Jobs Initiatives Need Federal Legislation

Green jobs are an important part of the President's strategy to get people working all across America. Regional initiatives demonstrate the effectiveness of capitalizing on the growth of green jobs. These initiatives have created jobs in states like New York, California and Missouri.

A program called Green Jobs/Green NY has the goal of retrofitting 1 million homes to make them more energy efficient. This program offers incentives to homeowners and provides free home-performance energy audits through approved contractors, a value of around $400, and up to $13,000 in low-interest loans (3.49 percent) to finance improvements. These improvements offer projected savings of roughly $1.20 for each dollar spent.

The cleantech industry is also providing green jobs throughout California, even in places like the San Joaquin Valley which has not benefited from previous booms. According to a new study [PDF] from by UC Merced Professor Dr. Shawn Kantor, renewable energy projects could bring more than 100,000 jobs to the area in the next few years. In California employment in clean energy grew 36% from 1995 to 2008, while San Joaquin Valley employment increased by 48% over the same period.

The San Joaquin Valley is expected to produce 10% of California’s renewable energy within the next ten years. According to Tom Cotter, Central California sales manager for Real Goods Solar and member of the California Business Alliance for a Green Economy, “These jobs are coming to California because of clean energy policies that make us a leader in the nation,”

Missouri is trying to combat high unemployment rates with green jobs. Over the last few years, as the overall unemployment climbed, green jobs kept growing across Missouri.

However, states need federal action to capitalize on the growth of the green economy. A new report from the Apollo Alliance shows that green jobs could proliferate if the US implemented strong clean energy and climate change policies. The “How to Keep Creating Clean Energy Jobs in Missouri” report finds that the right energy policies could create up to 88,000 jobs in Missouri alone by 2030.

The report indicates that the federal government needs to enact the right policies. This begins with a bill called the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act, which would support domestic manufacturing of cleantech and provide good paying jobs.

An energy standard of 25 percent renewable energy by 2025 could create up to 23,000 manufacturing jobs in Missouri by 2025. The report finds that improved vehicle efficiency standards paired with investments in domestic advanced vehicle manufacturing could create up to 6,000 new jobs in Missouri by 2020.

A cap on carbon emissions combined with strong energy-efficiency standards would create more than 7,000 more jobs by 2030, including building retrofitting.

The Appollo Alliance report indicates that success stories like ABB, Lost Creek Wind and Exergonix could become even more commonplace if the US implemented strong clean energy and climate change policies.

Despite meaningful efforts on the state level, there are no substitutes for comprehensive climate and energy legislation. America's high unemployment rate could be significantly reduced if Republicans in Congress would support the President's policies.
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© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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China Powers Ahead in Green Technologies

Rare Earth Minerals Power the Green Economy and Embolden China's Bid for Dominance

China's control of rare earth minerals positions the nation as the green OPEC of the future. China controls the vast majority of the world's supply of rare earth minerals which are vital to a wide range of new technologies.

Rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, specifically the fifteen lanthanoids plus scandium and yttrium. However, because of their geochemical properties rare earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found in concentrated and economically exploitable forms known as rare earth minerals (REMs).

All other countries producing rare earth minerals are dwarfed by the scale of Chinese production. China now produces approximately 97% of the world's rare earth supply, mostly in Inner Mongolia. All of the world's heavy rare earths (such as dysprosium) come from Chinese rare earth sources such as the polymetallic Bayan Obo deposit.

REMs are a crucial part of many modern technologies, including clean technologies like hybrid car batteries and wind turbine motors. REMs are essential to modern electronic devices, rechargeable batteries, electric motors, photo optics, solar cells and strong magnets.

China has understood the strategic and technological importance of REMs for a long time. Almost 20 years ago, Communist Party Leader Deng Xiaoping said in a radio broadcast from China National Radio, "There is oil in the Middle East. There is rare earth in China."

The surging importance of cleantech is driving demand for REMs. The current generation of hybrid cars alone each require between 23 and 25 pounds of REMs. By 2015, there are likely to be over 10 million battery-powered cars on the road around the world. This translates to 250 million pounds of REMs for hybrid and fully electric vehicles in the next few years.

China is driving the green economy forward, and the green economy is driving the demand for REMs. With the vast majority the world's reserves of REMs under Chinese control, this puts China in the enviable position of controlling some of the earth's most important natural resources.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Green Market Opportunity Being Missed by Canada

Canadian business is failing to take advantage of the exploding global market for green technology, according to a study by the Conference Board of Canada. The report indicated that Canadian business could do much more to leverage its strengths in cleantech.

The report titled, Global Climate-Friendly Trade: Canada's Chance to Clean Up, said world trade in cleantech grew by an average of 10 percent annually from 2002 to 2008. But it said Canada's exports in that area didn't grow at all during that period.

"The trade data suggest that Canada is not deeply engaged in the global market for climate-friendly technologies," the report says. "To the degree that it is involved, it is more of a technology adopter than a technology maker."

The report estimates that total global imports of technologies that help to cut greenhouse gas emissions were $209 billion in 2008. Canada's share of that was $4 billion.

"Governments should eliminate domestic and international barriers to developing, trading, and investing in climate-friendly technologies," the report urges.

“Canada will not be a leader in everything, but it is not too late for this country to be a leader in some technologies, parts of technologies, or related services," said the report's author, Danielle Goldfarb, who is also associate director of the Conference Board's International Trade and Investment Centre.

According to Goldfarb, Canada's relative strengths are largely attributable to its geography and its resource base. If properly harnessed, Canada could become a world leaders in specific climate-friendly technologies and services like gas turbines, membranes for landfills, waste containers and photovoltaic system controllers.

The report makes it clear that Canadian businesses have the potential to be leaders in some of these technologies if they adopt more globally oriented business practices and get more policy support from government.

With Canada producing only one 10th of Germany's cleantech output, the country has a long way to go to catch up to the Europeans. An important part of the issue is about the direction of national policy. While Canada is doing very little, the European Union is committed to cutting emissions by up to 30 per cent on 1990 levels.


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