|
In October, Progressive Insurance announced the winner of its $10 million Automotive X Prize, a competition to encourage students to develop designs for safe, low-emission, "production capable" cars. Among the finalists were engineering students from West Philadelphia High School.
"Our team has built four cars, including a hybrid Jeep that gets double the mileage it's supposed to get," said Lawrence Jones-Mahoney, 18. "If we can do it as high school students, why can't the major auto companies?"
Amid the nation's current economic doldrums, many people see green manufacturing projects as a hopeful sign. Investment in alternative energy and more efficient automobiles and buildings was high and growing rapidly over the past year, at least until the price of oil began to drop.
Many still are counting on "green collar" jobs to revive the economy, restoring the manufacturing sector in places where it's long been in decline. "American cities have suffered more than anyone from the loss of manufacturing jobs," says Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak. "Cities have become the green incubators for America."
Every month seems to see another study released suggesting that there will be an explosion of investment and job creation in the green sector. The Center for American Progress estimates that a government-funded $100 billion green stimulus package would create 2 million jobs in the next two years for engineers, machinists, construction workers and others.
The Apollo Alliance, a coalition of business, labor and environmental groups, estimates that a $300 billion investment over 10 years will create 3.3 million jobs in renewable energy, hybrid cars and infrastructure replacement. The U.S. Conference of Mayors forecasts 4.2 million green jobs by 2038 and suggests that cities and towns prepare to compete for them.
"Everything that is good for global warming is good for jobs," says Van Jones, author of the 2008 book The Green Collar Economy. "Buildings do not weatherize themselves, wind turbines do not construct themselves, solar panels do not install themselves. Real people are going to have to get up in the morning and do these things."
This is one of the central premises of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's 2008 bestselling book, Hot, Flat and Crowded — that energy-technology jobs will serve as a cornerstone of economic revival in this country, in large part because they mostly cannot be done by workers overseas.
President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to make green jobs and manufacturing a centerpiece of any economic-stimulus package. "President-elect Obama did a great job on the campaign trail [communicating] that this is an opportunity, an economic opportunity for America, and that if we miss it, other countries in the world will be way ahead of us," Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, said at a November climate-change summit in California. "Jobs are clearly part of this."
For all the apparent promise, however, the interest in green technology has not yet translated either into mass employment or a huge economic windfall. "People are talking about this in the future, but it's not happening today," says Eric Crawford, president of Greenman Alliance, a Milwaukee-based recruiting firm. "Everyone wants a green job," but the demand for such jobs totally outstrips the supply.
And government investment in clean technology has not always reaped large dividends. Under New Jersey's energy master plan, solar power should account for more than 2 percent of the Garden State's electricity by 2020. But solar systems now generate only 0.07 percent of current energy needs.
That's despite the fact that the state has already handed out more than $170 million in rebates to encourage their installation. To meet its 2020 goal, the state would have to spend $11 billion more. "We need to do things differently because ratepayers can't keep paying for rebates indefinitely," says Jeanne M. Fox, president of New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities.
About half the states require utilities to generate a portion of their power from renewable sources, such as wind and solar. Above, wind turbines near Palm Springs, Calif. (Getty Images/David McNew)
|
"This idea that we're going to have a massive environmental WPA — it's not going to help the economy, it's going to hurt the economy," says Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, referring to the Depression-era jobs program, the Works Progress Administration.
Putting government money into green energy would not create great economic returns, Ebell suggests, because — at least so far — renewable energy is more expensive than dirty fuels such as coal. It also means directing dollars away from other fields entirely, he says.
"I believe just on a very simple analysis that there is no question it will take net jobs out of the economy and it will be a net economic harm," Ebell says.
Even if Ebell's right, however, the goal of green investment is not only to stimulate the economy but also to help clean up the environment. In a column published in The New York Times just after the November election, former Vice President Al Gore called for large governmental investments in clean energy as the optimum way to address climate change — a shift from his traditional focus on increased regulation of carbon pollution.
"With his op-ed, Gore has reversed the longstanding green-lobby prioritization of regulation first and investment second," wrote Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus for The New Republic Online.
|
Read the Full Report (Subscription Required)
