NEW ENERGY WILL BRING BLUE COLLAR JOBS BACK TO THE U.S. MIDDLE CLASS - STUDY

Clean energy to boost US manufacturing jobs-study
November 4, 2009 (Reuters)
and
Report Shows Green Technologies Will Revitalize U.S. Manufacturing
November 4, 2009 (Blue Green Alliance)

SUMMARY
The answer to the lingering malady of today’s jobless recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09 is the New Energy economy. By making a commitment to the New Energy economy, policy makers and private enterprise will stimulate the flagging national fortunes in ways that haven't been seen since the post-World War II expansion.

Building a Clean Energy Assembly Line: How Renewable Energy Can Revitalize U.S. Manufacturing and the American Middle Class, from the Blue Green Alliance, documents the many ways that the New Energy economy will jumpstart U.S. business activity by reinvigorating its core strength, the hardworking middle class.

Since December 2007, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost two million jobs, 14.6% of the workforce, and ~90,000 U.S. manufacturers, more than 25%, are considered “at risk.”

The New Energies provide 3-to-6 times as may jobs, per dollar of investment, as the Old Energies. These are jobs that are un-outsource-able and invest in people instead of pollution. Because the power the New Energies generate does not include the cost of fuel, the jobs can pay well and have good benefits. Because the fuel the New Energies use is infinitely renewable, the jobs can last for the working life of the people who do them and generations beyond.

The Blue Green Alliance, launched by the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers in 2006, is a partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations seeking to further the common ground between them. The new report is based on research by the Renewable Energy Policy Project (REPP).

Pew Research showed New Energy opportunities aleady growing. (click to enlarge)

COMMENTARY
The calculation that the New Energies provide 3-to-6 times as may jobs, per dollar of investment, as the Old Energies, includes manufacturing, installation, operation and maintenance jobs in the count.

In addition to that impressive statistic, the report includes many other vital key findings:
1-A national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring regulated utilities to obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025, in conjunction with other proposed policies, would result in enough demand for the wind turbines, solar panels and the range of New Energy hardware to create 850,000 jobs in existing U.S. manufacturing companies.
2-The industrially aching Midwest will especially benefit from such a scale-up in the New Energies. Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan would be among the top 10 New Energy job-creating states.
3-Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana would be among the top 5 states to generate jobs in wind turbine component manufacturing.
4-The 2 states of California and Texas would create 155,000+ New Energy jobs.
5-With a jump in demand for New Energy hardware, there are 42,000+ existing manufacturing companies that would see growth.

Pew Research showed New Energy opportunities aleady growing. (click to enlarge)

The report lists specific policy recommendations needed to build a U.S. New Energy assembly line and create hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs with long-term stability and good benefits:
1- A national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring regulated utilities to obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025 would build markets.
2-A national cap&trade system with an effective allocation of emissions allowances would also build markets by putting a price on the generation of emissions and making investment in New Energy a better economic choice for big power consumers.
3-Feed-in tariffs at the state level would generate demand for New Energy.
4-Federal investment and production tax credits (ITCs and PTCs), national net metering and improved interconnection standards would all encourage New Energy developers and other entrepreneurs to build New Energy infrastructure.
5-A national Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS) would generate assembly line jobs in the manufacture of Energy Efficient appliances, windows and other efficiency hardware from Smart meters to caulking guns.

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6-The cap&trade system, by capping emissions and upping the demand for New Energy, will increase the value of New Energy in electricity markets.
7-Improved revolving loan programs, loan guarantees and other benefits support New Energy developers in obtaining the financing they need.
8-Zero-interest Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) would help municipalities, state agencies and other public entities provide financing for New Energy development.
9-Supply chains can be built through an expansion of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).
10-Innovation can be spurred through federal investment in Research, Development and Deployment (RD&D) to fund early-stage basic and applied research until it is ready to attract private-sector capital.

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The report only mentions in passing the hundreds of thousands of jobs that would come from the construction and maintenance of New Energy projects. A solar photovoltaic (PV) installation creates at least 7 times as many jobs as the building of natural gas power plants and one study suggested it could be as high as 33 times as many jobs. One leading wind contractor already has ~400 construction jobs running on a daily basis.

Existing U.S. manufacturers of steel towers, control systems, ball bearings and other such New energy equipment components will boom if the nation’s leaders face up to their responsibility to fight global climate change by passing a 25% by 2025 RES to drive the building of New Energy infrastructure.

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In places where public policies have supported the development of New Energy such as Europe, Japan and China, New Energy has flourished and the New Energy assembly line has grown. This is also true for states in the U.S. that have instituted supports for New Energy, like the 29 states with their own RESs. Recently built New Energy projects such as the 230 megawatt Wild Horse wind installation near Ellensburg, Washington, show in concrete terms the potential for permanent jobs in New Energy. Where policies do not support New Energy, job force growth the New Energy assembly line is behind the curve and falling out of the competition.

A wind turbine has ~8,000 parts, from steel towers, to blades, to high precision gearboxes, to state-of-the-art software control systems. Turbine blades require special carbon fiber materials and electronic computerized control systems to adjust them to wind speed and direction changes. A huge supply chain is necessary for companies like GE and Siemens with their names on the nacelles. Growth will follow their expansion just like Detroit car brands grew huge supply chains to make their cars go.

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Reversing a long period of outsourcing and job loss, foreign wind manufacturers are already building facilities in states like Colorado, Minnesota, Indiana, North Dakota and Pennsylvania where public policies suggest there will continue to be big wind installation activity. These new facilities are adding significant numbers to the U.S. employment roles.

As recently as 2005, U.S. suppliers filled less than 30% of the domestic wind industry supply chain. 2007 and 2008 saw the construction of 20 new facilities and 17 expanded facilities by foreign manufacturers. In 2008, with this growing manufacturing base driving demand and new business investment, U.S. suppliers filled ~50% of the supply chain. Another 30 new manufacturing facilities were announced in 2008, suggesting the New Energy assembly line is in for still greater growth in the immediate future.

Total direct jobs added in the U.S. wind industry in 2008: 35,000. Total direct jobs in the U.S. wind industry in 2008: 85,000. The wind industry numbers include turbine manufacturing jobs as well as jobs in project development, operations and maintenance, legal and marketing services.

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Every megawatt of wind power, which is enough electricity for ~300 homes, creates 4.85 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) jobs in manufacturing, installation and operation and maintenance. Existing U.S. companies and businesses could manufacture 70-to-75% of the component parts for the burgeoning New Energy industries. That's a lot of FTEs.

In the absence of policies that support the New Energies, those FTEs (jobs!) will go to Europe, China, Japan and India.

WITH those policies, the REPP supply chain analysis (using categories established in the National American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) to track manufacturing activity) showed that a 25% by 2025 RES requiring 18,500 megawatts of New Energy every year for 15 years would generate 850,000+ New Energy jobs that would pay well, be long-term, provide high-quality benefits and serve a secure, domestic, emissions-free energy supply.

An ASES study shows New Energy opportunities emerging across a wide spectrum in the next 2 decades. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- From the report: “For a generation following World War II, America’s factories were humming at full capacity while workers built a vibrant middle class. Thirty-five years later, our industrial heartland is fading in the face of global competition. And since the current recession began in December 2007, the manufacturing sector has lost two million jobs, or 14.6 percent of the workforce…In fact, more than a quarter of American manufacturers — some 90,000 — are now deemed “at risk” due to their inability to keep pace with global competitors…Today, we need a comprehensive industrial policy to rebuild manufacturing — and by extension, “Main Street” — across the United States. A critical component of a new industrial policy will be a program to make the U.S. the world’s leading manufacturer of new, green technologies and components. This is not a pie-in-the-sky goal. It makes good economic sense and we have the capacity to do it.”

An ASES study shows New Energy opportunities emerging across a wide spectrum in the next 2 decades. (click to enlarge)

- From the report: “The new, clean energy economy is fundamentally different than the 20th century economy and its reliance on polluting fossil fuels imported from distant regions of the world. Whether wind or solar, biomass or geothermal, clean energy is home-grown. What’s more, it can be cheap — it just needs to be captured efficiently and transformed into electricity, hydrogen or clean transportation fuels. This process of capture and transformation can jumpstart our struggling economy by lowering energy costs and creating millions of jobs, including hundreds of thousands of family-supporting manufacturing jobs. Development of clean energy invests directly in people, substituting labor for fuel expenses…”

An ASES study shows New Energy opportunities emerging across a wide spectrum in the next 2 decades. (click to enlarge)

- From the report: “Strong and consistent federal policy support, including passage of comprehensive climate and energy legislation, would greatly accelerate growth in wind-turbine manufacturing, and extend economic opportunity to smaller and less mature industries in the solar, geothermal and biomass sectors. We need robust supports for manufacturing in such legislation to ensure that strengthening and revitalizing America’s manufacturing base is a national priority. There is no reason why America and its workers should not lead the world in green manufacturing. Failure to support a world-class domestic renewable manufacturing sector in the U.S. in the face of greatly expanded demand for renewable energy will likely have negative consequences for job creation in the U.S. Foreign competitors will capture most of the new manufacturing sector jobs and revenues.”