RENEWAL THROUGH NEW ENERGY - ADVANTAGE OBAMA

Many say what is wrong with the U.S. is the result of what went right. Globalization worked. The U.S. economic base is shifting – and the work force is hurting as the work place changes.

But, as President Clinton said, there is nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what is right with America.

Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden recently demonstrated why he is both one of the smartest men in Washington, D.C., and one of the easiest to make comedy about when he reportedly said the most important word in the present election campaign is "the 3-letter word jobs, J-O-B-S."

But the subject of jobs is no laughing matter. Jobs is something wrong with this country that something right about this country can fix. Dan Kammen, director of the University of California's Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory and adviser to the Democratic Presidential campaign, says New Energy will likely create 5 million new jobs in the coming quarter century.

This is why the specific point in the Obama energy plan that calls for a huge investment in green collar New Energy jobs is so much more valuable to U.S. energy policy than the vague call for "all of the above" in the McCain energy plan.

New Energy jobs are the specific answer to the ponderous question the country is asking about its economic future right now.

Advantage Obama.

Example: The Maytag factory in Newton, Iowa, was closed because Whirlpool bought Maytag and moved manufacturing someplace cheaper. Newton’s leaders would not stay down. The sent a delegation to the American Wind Energy Industry’s 2007 annual convention and convinced TPI Composites that Newton’s Midwestern location (along Interstate 80 and amid a network of rail lines) and the town’s hungry workforce were the raw materials of a wind turbine blade manufacturing center.

Newton also promised TPI Composites a piece of land big enough for a blade factory and some powerful local tax breaks.

Was it worth it to Newton?

Chaz Allen, Newton Mayor: “Getting 500 jobs in one swoop is like winning the lottery…We don’t have to just roll over and die.”

Larry Crady, turbine blade plant worker, TPI: “I like this job more than I did Maytag…I feel I’m doing something to improve our country, rather than just building a washing machine…This is going to be the future. This company is going to grow huge.”

Terri Rock, human resources office, Maytag and TPI: “There was a lot of heartache…[But now]…We’re not stuck with the mentality of ‘this is how we’ve done it for the last 35 years…’ ”

Crugar Tuttle, general manager, TPI plant: “These are American jobs that are hard to export…Everybody involved in the wind industry is in a massive hurry to build out capacity…It will feed into a whole local industry of people making stuff, driving trucks. Manufacturing has been in decline for decades. This is our greatest chance to turn it around. It’s the biggest ray of hope that we’ve got.”

More than $5 billion in venture capital went into New Energy in 2007. The financial meltdown will probably slow such activity down for 2008-09, but not for much longer.

Randy Udall, energy consultant: “You have to reinvest in industrial capacity…You use wind to revitalize the Rust Belt. You make steel again. You bring it home. We ought to be planting wind turbines as if they were trees.”

Newton is just one example of what New Energy means to the flagging U.S. economy.

Norman W. Johnston, founder, Solar Fields of Toledo, Ohio: “The green we’re interested in is cash…”

VOTE!

New Energy (NE) will bring the jobs and revive the economy. (click to enlarge)

>A Splash of Green for the Rust Belt
Peter S. Goodman, November 1, 2008 (NY Times)

WHO
Rust belt workers; former Maytag employees in Newton, Iowa; TPI Composites; Acciona; Xunlight

WHAT
The old U.S. manufacturing base is slowly being replaced by the New Energy manufacturing base.

The jobs need to be where the installations are, all over the country. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- 2007: Maytag moved out and TPI Composites moved into Newton, Iowa.
- 2008: Wind provides ~ 2% of U.S. electricity.
- 2010: TPI Composites will hire 500 Newtonians as its plant there reaches full capapcity.
- 2030: Wind aims to provide ~ 20% of U.S. electricity, $500 billion in new construction and 3 million new jobs

WHERE
- Newton, Iowa: The Maytag factory replaced by a TPI factory
- From steel manufacturing in Pennsylvania to auto manufacturing in Michigan: It’s a similar story.
- West Branch, Iowa: Acciona’s wind turbine manufacturing plant replaced a pump factory.
- Toledo, Ohio: Solar panel production is replacing auto industry glass manufacturing.
- Great Lakes region: Wind’s biggest region of expansion

WHY
- Wind, solar and biofuels require manufacturing jobs.
- Growth may have less to do with environmental green and more to do with money green.
- New Energy manufacturing is not yet as big nor does it pay as much but it has the possibility of replacing blue collar jobs for Middle America’s non-college educated middle class.
- Maytag paid $20/hr. TPI pays $13/hr.
- Reasons new Energy is here to stay: (1) Infrastructure like big wind farms are under construction (Examples: Boone Pickens 4,000 megawattt installation in Texas and a 5,000 megawatt project in South Dakota); More than half the U.S. states have Renewable Electricity Standards RESs) requiring utilities to buy New Energy; (3) a U.S. greenhouse gas cutting law, probably in the form of a cap-and-trade system as advocated by both presidential candidates, is coming.
- The West Branch pump factory closing ended 130 jobs; Acciona’s wind plant already employs 120. The plant will build 200 turbines in 2008 and double its output in 2009.
- Toledo spawned First Solar, the most successful solar energy company in the U.S. The University of Toledo has built a strong solar energy brain trust and wants to facilitate solar industry success the way Stanford facilitated IT in the 1990s.
- Xunlight, a solar company started by a University of Toledo professor, makes thin film solar cells. It employs 65 employees and expects employ 150 by mid-2009.

After the manufacturing comes the maintenance. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Arie Versendaal, former Maytag employee, now working for TPI: “Life’s not over…For 35 years, I pounded my body to the ground. Now, I feel like I’m doing something beneficial for mankind and the United States. We’ve got to get used to depending on ourselves instead of something else, and wind is free. The wind is blowing out there for anybody to use.”
- Adrian LaTrace, general manager, Acciona plant: “Michigan, Ohio — that’s the Rust Belt…We could be purchasing these components from those states. We’ve got the attention of the folks in the auto industry. This thing has critical mass.”
- Matt McGilvery, assembly supervisor, Xunlight: “It’s a second opportunity…The money that people are dumping into this tells me it’s a huge market.”
- Kimberly M. Didier, head, Newton Development Corporation: “This is in its infancy…Automobiles, washer-dryers and other appliances have become commodities in their retirement phase. We’re in the beginning of this. How our economy functions is changing. We built this whole thing around oil, and now we’ve got to replace that.”