INAUGURATION 2009—NO RED STATES, NO BLUE STATES, ONLY GREEN STATES

President Barack Obama began and sustains his national political career by proclaiming that there are no red states, no blue states, only the United States. As President, he intends to answer the present difficult economic circumstances of those United States by turning them green.

Can he do it? In the spirit of his inaugural address, the answer must be “no.” But WE can.

It will take time and hard work and it will transform the nation.

President Barack Obama, last November: "A new energy economy is going to be part of what creates the millions of new jobs that we need…That's why my economic recovery plan is going to be focused on how can we make a series of down payments on things we should have done 10, 20, 30 years ago."

Will the public support the new President in this transformation? The evidence says “yes.” Awareness, though not nurtured by the outgoing administration, has been growing.

One analysis showed that voters have approved referenda calling for taxes to build mass transit 70% of the time. Another showed that purchase of gas guzzling vehicles was already falling off before the credit crunch began impeding sales. Cities all over the U.S. are instituting popular programs to reduce pollution, protect natural resources, enhance efficiency and cut ratepayer power bills. At the grassroots level, a vibrant, passionate, committed anti-coal movement is catching popular opinion up in its momentum.

President Barack Obama's inaugural address: "...The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history..."

Doubt about the workability of the Obama New Energy for America Agenda comes from the from the naysayers of Old Energy, who say New Energy is too small to do what the New President says it can.

They also said Barack Obama could never become President.

Al Gore's RePower America showed the industrial capacity is there. (click to enlarge)

The naysayers are also the ones who constantly call for energy independence. President Obama wants to create independence by building a New Energy economy and changing the way the naysayers do the energy business.

President Obama’s inaugural address: "...each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet."

Report after study after analysis after investigation from governmental, non-profit and university sources say New Energy can generate millions of jobs, billions in revenues and go to work freeing the nation from dependence on petroleum imports and tranforming the economy as fast as any other method of infrastructure investment. (Reports, studies, analyses, investigations: Energy Watch Group, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the University of California, GE Financial Services, the Apollo Alliance, the U.S. Mayors Conference and the Center for American Progress)

A report just released by the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) last week showed New Energy contributed 9 million+ jobs (95% in private industry) and added $1.045 billion in revenues to the economy in 2007 and grew 3 times as fast as the overall economy from 2006 to 2007. The ASES report also showed that with supportive planning, policy and leadership, New Energy can provide ~37 million jobs (17% of all U.S. jobs) and generate ~$4.3 TRILLION in annual revenue by 2030. (See NEW ENERGY HAS HUGE POTENTIAL)

ASES showed the potential for growth. (click to enlarge)

The ASES study also pointed out that the bulk of New Energy jobs come in types of employment also found in traditional sectors (management, personnel, IT, support, etc.) and therefore provide a bridge for workers to the New Energy economy.

This week, an announcement from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) predicted there will be one million people working in the wind industry by 2010 and the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) predicted there would be 330,000 wind energy jobs in Europe by 2020.

Nevertheless, the naysayers in the traditional power generation industries (coal, petroleum, nuclear) continue to insist New Energy is too small and cannot grow fast enough. Of course, to recognize the real potential of New Energy would be to accept a transfer of trillions of dollars in revenues.

The naysayers remember their defeat of President Carter’s efforts to develop New Energy in the 1970s and can be expected to muster their minions in Congress in fight change again. The fight will start with the debates over funding New Energy incentives, continue through a battle to establish a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) to require utilities to obtain a portion of their power from New Energy by a date certain, and culminate in the debate over the best measures to control U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs). (See GREAT DEBATE ON CLIMATE CHANGE JOINED)

There are two things the naysayers must be mindful of.

The first: What made their defeat of New Energy in the past possible were ample fossil fuel reserves, naïve faith in the safety of nuclear energy and a localized, fragmented environmental movement. Today, fossil fuel reserves are peaking, the public does not trust nuclear energy without a solution for nuclear waste storage and the environmental movement is now international, activist and inspired by the threat of global climate change.

The second is something President Barack Obama said in his inaugural address: “…there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage…What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply…”

Don't believe the naysayers. There are enough resources. (click to enlarge)

Once before, in the 1930s, the times called for action and a President chose to invest in the nation the way President Obama wants to.

Phillip Warburg, outgoing President, Conservation Law Foundation: “The last momentous federal investment in energy infrastructure…took place nearly eight decades ago…a new generation of hydro dams churned out thousands of new gigawatts of electricity while the Rural Electrification Administration brought much of that power to millions of homes without electricity. Today we need a new infusion of energy investment, this time to ease our environmentally crippling dependence on coal and oil…a reordering of federal energy investment priorities...for transmission corridors that support renewable energy projects rather than dirty coal-generated power…we need to remind ourselves that the New Deal wasn't built in a day. With smart planning, we have a rare opportunity to transform the way we move around our towns and cities, generate power, and fuel our transportation fleets...”

President Barack Obama's inaugural address: "We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

Apollo Alliance showed the impact of smart investment. (click to enlarge)

What Barack Obama's inaugaration means for green energy; In a bold departure from past US policies, Barack Obama sees clean energy and 'green jobs' as critical in stimulating the economy
Keith Schneider, 19 January 2009 (UK Guardian)
and
The new deal wasn’t built in a day
Phillip Warburg, January 19, 2009 (Boston Globe)
and
Inaugural Address, Full Text
20 January 2009 (BBC News)

WHO
President Barack Obama; Alan Durning, Founder/director, Sightline Institute and author, Green-Collar Jobs; Phillip Warburg, outgoing president, Conservation Law Foundation

WHAT
The plan is turn conventional wisdom upside down: Instead of basing the economy on fossil fuels that make environmental wisdom uneconomic, the Obama administration will drive the economy with New Energy and concern for the environment, making fossil fuels uneconomic.

WHEN
- New Energy is expected to be among the first wave of economic stimulus package-funded projects.
- The Obama program calls for a doubling of New Energy production in 3 years and as well as a 10-year investment program to create 5 million new "green-collar" jobs.
- Before the current recession, New Energy was the fastest-growing industrial sector in the U.S.
- 2004 sales of U.S. New Energy new materials and equipment: $10 billion.
- 2008 sales of U.S. New Energy new materials and equipment: $25 billion.
- 2008: U.S. wind added 7,500 megawatts of generating capacity.
- 2007 to present: Wind opened/expanded 41 new turbine and component plants, adding 9,000 new jobs.
- 2006, 07, 08: New Energy created 500,000 new jobs in the U.S.
in the past three years.

The wind industry will grow. (click to enlarge)

WHERE
- Most green-collar jobs require more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree, and pay family-supporting wages. And many will be in Michigan and other industrial states hardest hit by recent losses of manufacturing jobs.
- New Energy offers opportunities in every region of the nation. Wind is throughout the Great Plains Midwest as well as the Pacific Northwest and offshore in the Great Lakes, the Northeast, the Southeast and the Gulf Coast. There are tremendous solar industry opportunities in the Southwest. Ocean Energy can be developed off the coasts and along the nation’s rivers. The South has great biomass resources and all the cities need retrofitting for efficiency.

WHY
- The current proposal calls for $50 billion of the stimulus funds to go to new transit lines, weatherise buildings, manufacture next-generation vehicles, and create new green collar jobs. It includes $20 billion in New Energy incentives.
- Stimulus package New Energy spending includes $25 billion to make schools and other public buildings energy efficient, construct transit systems, and rebuild roads and bridges and generate 1 million jobs.
- Economists estimate efficiency programs for homes and businesses will create 100,000 on-site jobs and hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs. Weatherisation programs for 1 million low-income homes per year will expand the number of private sector workers involved from ~8,000 to 78,000. 75% of federal buildings will also be made energy-efficient.
- Also proposed: (1) $10 billion/year to develop biofuels, New Energy and new electrical grid infrastrucuture to produce jobs in skilled trades and crafts, management, maintenance, etc.; (2) An advanced New Energy manufacturing fund; (3) A doubling of loan guarantees to $50 billion for the auto industry to retool for next-generation vehicles and for manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries to produce tens of thousands of jobs and offset auto industry job losses.
- One estimate finds a federal investment of ~$8 billion/year can create $24 billion in economic stimulus from matching state funds, customer spending, and lower energy costs.
- Efficiency programs will save $2 to $4 for every $1 invested.

The solar industry will grow. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Alan Durning, founder/director, Sightline Institute and author, Green-Collar Jobs: "A sustainable economy can generate employment just as well as an unsustainable one…For every declining industry, like those that log old-growth forests, make farm chemicals, and build roads, there is an emerging one to take up the slack, like those that advise organic farmers, build windmills, and design walkable neighborhoods. A sustainable economy could be full of opportunity, and not only in these overtly green sectors."
- Phillip Warburg, outgoing President, Conservation Law Foundation: “If the federal government banks on wind today the way it invested in hydro in the 1930s, we can make a real dent in the greenhouse gas emissions that our coal- and oil-fired power plants spew into the air. And if we use part of that new power to fuel a new fleet of electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles, we will finally be able to ease our dependence on oil from the politically precarious Middle East.”
- President Barack Obama's inaugural address: "In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."