Engine of growth: clean-tech jobs

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0124/p02s04-ussc.html

Engine of growth: clean-tech jobs

Clean energy work is a rapidly growing industry, but critics say it's no panacea for unemployment.

By Ben Arnoldy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Richmond, Calif.

On the campaign trail and during Monday's debate, the Democratic presidential candidates touted "green-collar jobs" as a solution to unemployment. These are manual labor jobs within new clean-technology industries that the politicians say cannot be outsourced. Or, as former President Bill Clinton put it recently, to green a building "somebody's got to be standing on that roof."

Angela Green is that person on the roof. After losing her job within the printing industry, she finds herself atop a home in Richmond, Calif., installing solar panels.

"I saw I would be able to make a stable income for myself," says Ms. Green, "and at the same time be able to help my community and the environment."

Clean energy has become a $55-billion-a-year industry worldwide, and its rapid growth is fueling a shortage of workers in emerging hubs like California's Bay Area. Advocates for the poor say there's an opportunity here to rebuild an industrial base of well-paying, low-skilled jobs, but some critics question whether they are overstating the job potential of the sector.

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[DCKit]

1. If we listened to the critics of alternative energy...

we'd do nothing at all. Apparently, unless something is the magic bullet, the end all and be all solution to every energy issue, it's not even worth trying. Oh, and it's waaaayyyyyy too expensive, even though the payback for a solar energy system is ~twenty years - ten years with California's incredible incentives packages (and less with every increase in the cost of electricity).

Fortunately, there are hundreds of companies that have found that, while they can't solve the oil issue on their own, they can and do make money manufacturing and selling products which take the edge off for their customers while protecting them from price spikes.