Clean Energy Jobs to Power America

Obama pushes for green jobs program

WASHINGTON — After a disappointing new unemployment report, President Obama on Friday pushed for an expanded government program that he said would help create tens of thousands of new clean-technology jobs.

“It’s clear why such an effort is so important. Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future, jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced,” Obama said at the White House.

Obama announced the awarding of $2.3 billion in tax credits — to be paid for from last year’s $787 stimulus package — that he said would create some 17,000 “green” jobs. The money will go to projects including solar, wind and energy management.

The president also called for an additional $5 billion in spending for clean energy manufacturing, an idea being promoted by Vice President Biden.

Such initiatives are “an important step toward meeting the goal I’ve set of doubling the amount of renewable power we use in the next three years with wind turbines and solar panels built right here in the U. S. of A.,” Obama said.

He said more than 180 projects in more than 40 states would receive the tax credits.

“Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future,” Obama said.

Read the full AP report here.


183 projects, 43 states, Tens of Thousands of High Quality Clean Energy Jobs
- by Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate

As the President has stated before, the country that leads the way in harnessing clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. It’s no surprise that countries around the world are taking charge in this effort. China is making record investments in energy efficiency. American innovation pioneered solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it.

Check out the map below to see where many of the tomorrow’s clean energy jobs will be created and read the full blog post here. Report Predicts Offshore Wind Boom

A report published earlier this month by Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm tracking emerging technologies in global energy markets, predicts that the $10 billion offshore wind energy market will surge to $30 billion over the next decade.

The report predicts that in the next five years, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium will be prime markets. Then, from 2014 to 2020, the United States, China and Korea will follow.

In the United States, offshore wind energy will be embraced once policy makers realize how powerful it is, said Keith Hays, the research director of wind energy at Emerging Energy Research.

Read the full report here.


As Panels Get Better and Cheaper, PVs are Poised for Their Day in the Sun

For years, it was assumed that a typical PV [photovoltaic] lasted 20 years, and financing programs and payback calculations for PV-generated electricity were based on the two-decade lifespan. But recent tests conducted by the Energy Institute -- where PVs are put through a speeded-up aging process via exposure to extremes of heat, cold, and humidity -- have shown that the panels can last much longer.

The tests indicated that over 90 percent of the panels on the market 10 years ago still performed well after 30 years, despite a small drop in performance. And, as Heinz Ossenbrink of the EU Energy Institute noted, 40-year panels are on the way.

So is PV making a big move, so to speak, and will it only be in Europe?

Read the full report here.

Van Jones leaves White House

White House Adviser Van Jones Resigns Amid Controversy Over Past Activism

Washington Post (Sept. 6, 2009 ) -- White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned Saturday after weeks of controversy stemming from his past activism.

"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement announcing his resignation just after midnight Saturday. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."

He continued: "I have been inundated with calls -- from across the political spectrum -- urging me to 'stay and fight.' But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future."

Jones issued two public apologies in recent days, one for signing a petition that questioned whether Bush administration officials "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war" and the other for using a crude term to describe Republicans in a speech he gave before joining the administration.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) called on Jones to resign Friday, saying in a statement, "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate."

Senator Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) urged Congress to investigate Jones's "fitness" for the position, writing in an open letter, "Can the American people trust a senior White House official that is so cavalier in his association with such radical and repugnant sentiments?" On Saturday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote on his Twitter account, "Van Jones has to go."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday that Jones "continues to work for the administration" -- but he did not state that the adviser enjoys the full support of President Obama, instead referring questions to the environmental council where he worked.

Jones, a towering figure in the environmental movement, had worked for the White House Council on Environmental Quality since March. He was a civil-rights activist in California before turning his focus to environmental and energy issues, and he won wide praise before joining the Obama administration for articulating a broad vision of a green economy Democrats could embrace.

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Van Jones has left the White House and will be back in action amongst the people. This will only create new and better opportunities for this great American and marvelous human being. Watch, listen and learn as he speaks about the climate crisis, the economic crisis, environmental justice, and Green jobs.

Liberty, Justice & Clean Energy for All

The Capitol Climate Action, a protest held in Washington DC at the U.S. Capitol Power Plant on March 2nd, was a huge success. This was a non-violent protest and no one was arrested. Around 2,000 people showed up, despite a freak snow storm and cold weather in DC.

The protest was about generating energy by burning coal, the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change. We heard from NASA's Dr. James Hansen, climate change guru. We also heard from Bill McKibben, environmentalist author of The End of Nature (1989), the first book on global warming for a general audience. But the protest was about more than global warming. Young people, whose futures are on the line, were shouting exuberant chants such as:

Tell me what Democracy looks like,
THIS is what Democracy looks like!

Many of these young adults had attended the PowerShift '09 conference, and were in DC to lobby Congress for a clean energy future with green jobs and environmental justice.

We saw all sorts of placards: Coal stinks! Coal is dirty! Coal makes us sick! Stop Coal!

We heard from indigenous peoples speaking with the utmost respect for the environment and "Mother Earth", and who view the seams of underground coal as her "liver". These people are being pushed off their land in the southwest to make way for coal strip mines. Others can't eat the fish from their waterways because of mercury contamination from burning coal.

We heard from a local resident who lives one block from the Capitol Power Plant who told of getting "rained on" by power plant emissions that later had to be removed her car windshield with an ice scrapper. She also told of a high cancer incidence on her street, in people and in dogs.

A woman from Australia where coal and uranium are mined for export said, "We are dying to give the world energy!"

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gave a rousing speech, saying that coal companies could not survive in the marketplace if they had to pay their own freight, referring to the heavy government subsidies that taxpayers provide to keep coal "cheap". He also talked about the negative impact on public health of mercury pollution and particulates from coal-fired power plants, and the environmental devastation of coal mining by mountaintop removal.
Below is a brief video interview about the protest with R.F.K.Jr. just before the march to the power plant:



There were many other luminaries, celebrities and concerned citizens who spoke. Here's a sampling of the Capitol Power Plant protest NEWS:

• ENS: Anti-Coal Protesters Block Gates to Capitol Power Plant
• AP: Thousands rally for legislation on climate change
• TIME: Despite Snow — and Irony — a Climate Protest Persists
• USA TODAY: Thousands gather in D.C. cold for rally about global warming

UPDATE, March 4th: Protest video from Capitol Climate Action:

Obama Promises Climate Leadership

Calling climate change an urgent challenge, President-elect Barack Obama promised Tuesday that Washington would take a leading role in combating it in the United States and throughout the world. "My presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change," Obama said in a video message to governors and others attending a Los Angeles summit on the issue.

Said Obama: "I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America." Read more Here.

In the video message addressed to the Summit's attendees, Obama emphasized his enthusiasm for the upcoming Climate Conference in Poland, acknowledging he wouldn't attend since he won't be president at the time of the meeting and the U.S. has only one president at a time.

Through a cap and trade system, he pledged to reduce carbon emissions and to make investments that would "help us transform our industries and steer our country out of this economic crisis by generating five million new green jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced." The video is below.

Green Jobs: Stabilizing the Economy

Facing the challenges of global warming and climate change will create new economic opportunities, as the nation shifts from burning fossil fuels that generate global warming pollution, to clean, renewable energy sources. The shift to clean energy, and a rising awareness of the need to conserve energy and use it efficiently, are creating new jobs: green-collar jobs, or simply, Green Jobs.

­Investment in energy efficiency and in clean energy can create new businesses and Green Jobs, and at the same time curb climate change. A program to retrofit offices, manufacturing plants and homes with energy-efficient technologies will create a large demand for electricians, carpenters, and many other workers, skilled and unskilled. Expanding mass transit and improving freight rail will save energy and spark the demand for civil engineers, bus drivers, rail track layers, welders, locomotive engineers, conductors, and dispatchers. Incentives to develop wind, solar, geothermal power, next-generation biofuels, smart electrical grid transmission systems, and hybrid-electric vehicles will have enormous job-creation potential. One study showed that a $100 billion investment in these areas over two years would result in 2 Million new jobs across the nation, as illustrated in the US Map from a Green Jobs report by 1Sky.org.

[click image to enlarge]

This energy saving investment program will benefit both rural and urban America. An independent study concluded that 5 Million jobs would be created in rural areas alone by 2030 with the right incentives.

A business as usual approach to generating energy will only negatively affect the environment and the economy. Replacing old coal plants with new ones creates no new job opportunities and does nothing to address climate change, and neither does relying on oil. By capping global warming pollution and providing incentives for clean energy sources and energy efficiency, a fast-growing Green Job sector will more than make up for the fossil fuel jobs lost by phasing out coal and oil, and will stabilize the economy.

VOTE FOR THE PLANET !

Vote for RENEWABLE ENERGY and GREEN JOBS

Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike are interested in how renewable energy and energy efficiency measures can bring us 'green-collar' jobs and stimulate our ailing economy. For reports from the primaries by 1Sky.org, click here and here.

VIDEOS:
- Exit poll on clean energy and energy efficiency in SC, click here.
- Climate activists flipped out over 'clean coal' lobby, click here.