Pete Altman's Blog: Green Enterprise

Leaders from the Epicenter of the Clean Energy Economy: the 2010 Green Jobs, Good Jobs Conference

2010-04-19T16:33:44Z

Want to learn more about how clean energy will strengthen the US economy by creating millions of green jobs in the US? Come join NRDC, the Blue Green Alliance and many other organizations at the Green Jobs, Good Jobs conference May 4-6 in Washington, D.C.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Colorado Governor Bill Ritter are among the many top-line speakers who will address the leaders from labor, business and the environmental communities working to transform ideas into action by building a green economy that creates good jobs and preserves our economic and environmental security.

The 2010 Conference will feature exciting plenary sessions and keynote speeches from labor, environment, business, elected and administration officials, including Speaker Pelosi, Governor Ritter, U.S. EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

The two-and-a-half-day Conference will also feature more than 100 workshops focused on topics ranging from green manufacturing to transportation to business, investment and new markets to state and local initiatives. Among the speakers at these panels include Dr. Paul Anastas, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development at the U.S. EPA; Dr. David Michaels, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health; Robert Stanton, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management and Budget; U.S. Representatives Keith Ellison and Emanuel Cleaver; and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

And, part of the package is the Green Innovation Expo, where you can see and learn about concrete examples of how companies and organizations are growing the green economy and developing clean energy jobs.

You can learn more about the conference and register at www.greenjobsconference.org.

The Race for Clean Energy Jobs

2010-02-19T02:15:12Z

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. President Obama described the gains being made:

“One year later, it is largely thanks to the Recovery Act that a second depression is no longer a possibility. It’s one of the main reasons the economy has gone from shrinking by six percent to growing at about six percent. And this morning we learned that manufacturing production posted a strong gain. So far, the Recovery Act is responsible for the jobs of about two million Americans who would otherwise be unemployed.”

We hear a lot of talk about “green energy” jobs under the stimulus, but that’s only part of the clean-energy story when it comes to America’s financial recovery.

There’s no doubt that you can see the impact of the clean-energy provision of the stimulus in headlines across America:

But what is more subtle – and, as a result, gets a lot less attention – is the clean energy investment and jobs boom that likely will have an even more profound long-term impact on our nation:

And this is just an early taste of the bright future clean energy portends, since as the Christian Science Monitor reports, there's more spending on the way:

Over the next two years, the $90 billion spent on clean energy is expected to create 720,000 job-years of employment. In addition to jobs, some 16,000 megawatts of wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy capacity propelled by the stimulus will power about 4 to 5 million homes.

What may be nearly the perfect way to capture what is going on today is captured in the “Race for American Jobs - Clean Energy Leadership”:

The Race for American Jobs - Clean Energy Leadership is a nationwide virtual campaign sponsored by We Can Lead to drive home the enormous economic benefits of comprehensive climate and energy legislation. Forward-thinking business leaders are holding a series of events from coast to coast to make the case that strong climate and energy policies will create American jobs, promote innovation and technology, boost national security and energy independence, and reduce pollution.

The “race” metaphor is perfect. We are racing to get out of a deep recession. We are racing to create the millions of urgently needed new jobs here in American. We are even racing with other nations to ensure that we are the world leader in clean energy.

And what is the one way we can trip ourselves up in this clean-energy jobs race?

By letting Washington fail to act this year on the clean energy and climate change legislation that we need.

Because to take full advantage of the potential for clean energy to power our economy, we need to make permanent changes in how our energy system works. As the Christian Science Monitor story noted:

What’s needed is a “natural demand” for clean-energy, or a “legislative demand.” And yet, a cap-and-trade climate bill that would do just that, by putting a price on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, is stalled in Congress.

Kevin Book, managing partner with energy research and consulting firm ClearView Partners, made it plain: in order to make sure that US clean-energy manufacturers can out-compete global competitors,

We have to have a price on carbon.

ACES Puts US and World On Safer Temperature Path

2009-06-26T19:16:01Z

Duke University just released an analysis of the impact that ACES will have on global temperature, factoring in the impact that US leadership will have on the rest of the world. As many recognize, the only way to get serious global efforts to cut emissions moving is for the US to make clear its own commitment.

The Duke study concludes that ACES can help drive a global policy that would stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations below 450 parts per million and limit global temperatures increases to less than 2 degrees above 1990 levels.

What will that do as far as global warming impacts go? Here's a synopsis of the escalating impacts of global warming, based on IPCC reports. You can see for yourself what global warming effects the ACES bill will help us avoid:

The bullets ACES will help us dodge: global GDP losses of up to 5%; extinction of 40% or more of the world's species; decline of global food production; and so on.

Amidst all the posts regarding the economic benefits of the ACES bill, its worth remembering that it will put us on track to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

ACES Will Help Create More Jobs and Opportunities for Low-Income Families

2009-06-26T16:26:19Z

The American Clean Energy and Security Act will help spur $150 billion in clean energy investments, which will create 1.7 million good-paying jobs throughout the United States.

Clean energy jobs are labor intensive, and clean energy investments create more jobs across all skill and education levels than comparable investments in fossil-fuel energy sources.

Clean energy investments create 3.2 times as many jobs as fossil-fuel investments overall. Among workers with few educational credentials and little work experience, clean energy investments create 5.5 times as many jobs as fossil-fuel investments. Furthermore, 75% of those clean energy jobs provide opportunities for advancement and higher salaries, enabling workers to lift their families out of poverty.

How would this job creation, and new opportunities for low-income families work out state-by-state? Based on recent reports by the Political Economy Research Institute, we mapped out job creation figures for total jobs created as well as the number of those jobs that are accessible to workers with low educational credentials or few jobs skills. On the map below, total job creation figures are in black, the low credential job figures are in white.

Total US job creation: 1,713,500 jobs. Of those, 871,000 would be accessible to those with low educational credentials and/or few job skills.

Sources:

"The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy" downloadable from http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/06/clean_energy.html. "Green Prosperity: How Clean Energy Policies Can Fight Poverty and Raise Living Standards in the United States" downloadable from http://www.nrdc.org/energy/greenjobs/.

NRDC commissioned PERI to develop state-level figures for low-credential jobs for 21 states. Figures for remaining states were estimated by NRDC based upon the PERI data. For full methodology and explanation, click here.

US Chamber Calls on Congress to Force Dirty Energy Projects Down Americans' Throats

2009-04-16T23:29:42Z

The US Chamber of Commerce has been drinking its own Kool-Aid again, and trying this time to get members of Congress to think it's green tea. The Chamber is attempting to convince policymakers that burdensome regulations are blocking clean energy development, and thus blocking green jobs.

This newest silliness from the Chamber comes in the form of something called "Project/No Project" which purports to document how "radical environmentalists" and their "Not in My Backyard Allies" are blocking new clean energy development with "green tape" (like red-tape, except when enviros are involved I guess.)

Except that the Chamber's own website actually identifies the obstructionists associated with each project, and the terms "Neighboring businesses", "Local residents", "Government officials" "Local officials" seem to show up an awful lot for a problem the Chamber blames on "radical environmentalists." NRDC's name appears as well, but "radical" isn't usually the term applied.

At any rate, the Chamber's proposed solution to this is to ask Congress to "streamline the environmental permitting process to make the promise of green projects a reality."

Wouldn't that be nice? Except for the fact that the Chamber has documented far more cases of dirty and unsafe energy (coal and nuclear plants) than renewable energy projects (wind, solar, etc.) So what kind of energy do they really want to move forward?

For example, there are 12 pages of coal and nuclear projects, but only 7 pages of renewable energy projects, including wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. What's surprising is that there aren't all that many the Chamber actually says have been "killed." For example, out of those 7 pages of renewables projects, they only describe 16 as having been "killed."

For comparison's sake, there were about 125 wind energy projects brought on-line last year according to the American Wind Energy Association. That's not even counting the number of solar, biomass, geothermal and other renewable energy projects brought on line last year.

I don't have #s for all those sources, but the Solar Energy Industries Association's Year in Review reported that "The U.S. solar energy industry grew to new heights in 2008 and many industry observers expect that growth to continue in 2009."

In fact, SEIA goes on to note that projects are becoming easier to develop: "With the easing of supply bottlenecks and the aggressive alternative-energy investments provided by 2008's EESA and 2009's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, going solar will be increasingly attractive and affordable for families, businesses and utilities across the country."

So its hard not to draw the conclusion that renewable energy projects are actually moving along quite well, and that the stalled dirty energy projects are the Chamber's real concern, and the real goal of their call for "streamlining" is to get these dirty energy projects moving again.

And frankly, I can't think of why any member of Congress would want to pass a law that enables energy developers - clean or dirty - to shove projects down the throats of "Neighboring businesses," "Local residents," "Government officials" and "Local officials."

The Green in the Stimulus is Creating Serious Clean Energy Jobs

2009-03-19T16:02:38Z

The clean energy money in the stimulus package is already putting people to work, or back to work, in the case of a window factory in western Pennsylvania.

Six months ago, Kensington Windows shut its doors when its parent company - Jancor - lost its financing and filed for bankruptcy protection. 150 people were employed at the factory.

But with the clean energy provisions in the stimulus bill and growing interest in energy-efficiency, the market for energy efficiency windows is expected to heat up.

So earlier this year, Serious Materials - a national manufacturer of energy efficient windows - bought the Kensington plant and equipment, and earlier this week, officially re-opened the plant, where they have already started putting people back to work.

You may recall that Serious Materials is the company that bought the shut-down Republic Windows in Chicago, and is now putting those laid-off employees back to work as well.

Obviously we need a lot more cases like this to turn the country around, but while we wait on official government figures to document how well the stimulus is working, its useful to know that real people are being put back to work in the clean energy economy.

The U.S. Chamber of Chicken Littles

2008-11-17T22:07:10Z

Over the last several months, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been holding "State Climate Dialogues" out in the states, ostensibly to "stimulate a national discussion on key climate change issues." These are much more monologue than dialogue though, and the punch line is pretty consistently a prediction of economic disaster if the US Congress creates a serious climate policy.

If the Chamber's Chicken Littles stay on message, anyone attending this week's event in Detroit, Michigan is likely to hear the same old message. But many experts disagree with this view of gloom and doom.

For instance, Dr. Martin Kushler, director of the Utilities Program at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, says:

"The claim that taking steps to address climate change would be bad for the economy is simply not true. We know from proven experience that we can save electricity through energy efficiency programs at one-third the cost of a new power plant. With a strong energy efficiency policy we can save money and reduce carbon emissions at the same time."

Dr. Andrew Hoffman, associate professor of management & organizations, associate professor of natural resources and associate director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan, said:

"Think of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as a market shift, one driven by regulations at the city, state, national and international levels. But one also driven by consumer, investor, insurance and energy markets. Any company executive who ignores these shifts does so at their peril."

You can listen to a presentation by Drs. Kushler and Hoffman, as well as Nancy Jacobs of United Solar Ovonics and me, here.

This week's event in Detroit is just the latest stop in the Chamber of Commerce's Chicken Little Roadshow to gin up worries about efforts to solve our energy and climate problems. Speakers at these events rely on questionable assumptions and even more questionable results to make their case.

Case in point: David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation will be discussing the potential costs of future legislative action. Earlier this year, Dr. Kreutzer co-authored the study "The economic costs of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Legislation" which is a curious title because, contrary to its apparent meaning, the study didn't actually model the Lieberman-Warner bill.

Sure, I know this might cause some skepticism. After all, claiming to have analyzed a particular bill when one actually hasn't, would be pretty poor scholarship. But that's what Kreutzer and his team trotted out. Their product includes some obvious clues, if you know where to look. Turns out that Kreutzer's team apparently:

Only modeled limits on carbon dioxide, and ignored other gases the L-W bill would have regulated.
Ignored the provisions for offsets in the bill, an important cost-containment mechanism.
Ignored the energy-efficiency provisions in the bill, another important cost-containment mechanism.
Ignored credit banking and borrowing, (yep, another important cost-containment mechanism.)
Ignored more than a trillion dollars in transition assistance for workers, industry and consumers (I don't need to say it, do I?)

So, maybe Kreutzer's team modeled something, but it wasn't the Lieberman-Warner bill. Remember those kids in school who wrote book reports based on Cliff's Notes? I wonder where they are now...

For that matter, I wonder whether Dr. Kruetzer will be basing his presentation on a proposal someone has actually made, or whether he will continue to rely on proposals he and his colleagues made up for the purpose of shooting down.

(By the way, Kreutzer also drew some heat for his apparently total failure to comprehend the Green Recovery Report about which I've previously written.)

At any rate, the U.S. and Detroit Chambers of Commerce are trotting Kreutzer out to their audience this week. We don't know who his audience will be, but I think their hosts are betting that they like chicken.

After the election: What clean energy can do for America

2008-11-03T17:48:21Z

You can't miss the fact that both Time and Newsweek chose the week of the Presidential election to run pieces on how the economic downturn will affect efforts to solve global warming.

Yes, most eyes are on the election through Tuesday night (cross your fingers it's only through Tuesday night) but both magazines recognize that - come Wednesday morning - the questions will start focusing on how the new Administration and Congress will deal with the limping economy and energy prices, and what this means for investing in clean energy and solving global warming.

Both magazines offer compelling reasons why clean energy investments should be a priority even during rough economic times, and both balance this by pointing out that tighter credit markets make it harder to invest in clean energy.

Unfortunately, this framework misses the question we should be asking: What can investments in clean energy and global warming solutions do for the ailing U.S. and world economies?

In Will Green Progress Be Stalled by the Bad Economy?, Time Magazine looks largely at how the economic crisis could cloud the outlook for clean energy. But the article also notes that the commitment to push for policies to limit global warming pollution remains a priority for many European leaders and the US presidential candidates. Given this, Time reports

"'The stage is set for a wholesale change in the way the U.S. approaches climate change,' says Terry Tamminem, the former environmental advisor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger..."

Newsweek's "Why It's Time for a 'Green New Deal" looks more closely at the "green" investments question in making the case that clean energy is the right antidote for an anemic global economy, saying that there are

"...powerful voices being raised amid the din of despair, saying that now is precisely the time to seize the initiative and launch the "global revolution"... And not just because it will stave off disasters two or three decades away, but also because it can provide the impetus to pull the global economy out of the slump it's in now and put it on a more solid foundation than it's had in at least a generation."

If you happen to be a reporter (or anyone else who cares about getting the whole story), here are a few facts that should be part of any conversation about what to do next about our economic woes:

Clean energy jobs are already here. 750,000 Americans already have jobs tied to clean energy development, according to a recent report by the US Conference of Mayors.
Clean energy jobs are good jobs. Dollar for dollar, investing in clean energy (efficiency and renewables like windand solar) creates more jobs than investing in traditional energy sources like oil and gas, according to testimony by economist Dr. Robert Pollin, of the Political Economy Research Institute.
A common-sense national policy on global warming and energy will drive further market investments in clean energy. The U.S. could reduce a huge amount of its global warming pollution at little or no net cost, but Congress has to send the right policy signals so that markets channel more of their capital into clean energy technology and deployment than traditional energy supplies, according to an in-depth analysis by the highly respected consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
A "pay-as-you-pollute" arrangement could mean huge capital for green investments. By charging big polluters for their global warming pollution, Congress could raisearound $150 billionper year to develop and deploy clean energy systems throughout the U.S., writes our own Andy Stevenson.

So rather than asking how today's economy will affect prospects for global warming solutions, we should be asking - and acting on - how solving global warming will affect prospects for tomorrow's economy. Just remember that Wednesday morning!

Global warming solutions: Just the stimulation we need

2008-10-30T18:39:23Z

One of the most bizarre arguments made by the "let's not solve global warming" crowd is that doing so will hurt the poor (about whom, mysteriously enough, these voices seem to remain pretty unconcerned when almost any other topic is on the agenda.)

But according to one of the leading experts on macroeconomics and conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S., this thinking is outdated and wrong. Testifying at a recent hearing before the House Committee on Education and Labor, Dr. Robert Pollin, of the Political Economy Research Institute, argued that "there is no reason at all to delay taking action now to fight global warming" and went on to make the case that "green" investments would be one of the smartest economic stimulus strategies that Congress could pursue.

Exhibit 1 in Pollin's argument is the job creation potential of different kinds of investments. According to analysis using the U.S. Department of Commerce's own economic data, investments in clean energy (energy efficiency and renewable energy) create more jobs per dollar invested than tax cuts, military spending, or oil and natural gas.

Therefore, in order to get the most bang for the taxpayers' bucks, Congress should invest money in renewable energy, in education, and in retrofitting buildings and other infrastructure for maximum energy efficiency. Such a plan will benefit both the environment and American workers.

But where would the money come from? In the near-term, Congress could pay for this just like it would pay for any other stimulus package: deficit spending. Over the long-term, Pollin says, "the primary new source should be revenues generated through a carbon cap-and-trade program such as that sponsored last year in the U.S. Senate by Senators Boxer, Lieberman, and Warner. A cap-and-trade program, such as Boxer/Warner/Lieberman would set limits on carbon-dioxide emissions and require companies to obtain permits to release carbon into the air. The government would generate revenues by charging businesses to obtain the carbon-emitting permits. Credible estimates as to how much the government could raise through such a program range widely, between $75 and $200 billion."

But where does climate regulation fit in? As our Andy Stevenson notes, the "cap and trade" proposals that have been before Congress in recent years would, if passed, produce revenue which could be put into research and development of renewable energy sources as well as into retrofitting existing infrastructure. Perhaps more importantly, a cap-and-trade system would encourage the private sector to move the economy in a greener direction: to join with labor, scientists, government, and ordinary citizens in building a new, greener foundation for prosperity in America.

The Green Economy Keeps on Growing

2008-10-20T21:39:18Z

America's overall economy may be stumbling today, but the emerging green economy here and abroad seems to be going great guns. Just look at the growing evidence:

Earlier this month, I blogged about how 750,000 American workers are getting paychecks to do green jobs. That was based on a novel index from the U.S. Conference of Mayors looking at existing U.S. jobs devoted to reducing the use of fossil fuels, increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In the New York Times today, Felicity Barringer writes that "California's energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000.The study, conducted by David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, found that while the state's policies lowered employee compensation in the electric power industry by an estimated $1.6 billion over that period, it improved compensation in the state over all by $44.6 billion." So much for the doomsayers who keep telling us that doing better by the environment means killing jobs. As the California research shows, they couldn't be more wrong about that!
On a global basis, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is promoting the idea of a "Green New Deal" on a planet-wide basis to deal with unemployment and growing starvation challenges. As The Independent reported last week: "The ambitious plan - the start of which will be formally launched in London next week - will call on world leaders, including the new US President, to promote a massive redirection of investment away from the speculation that has caused the bursting "financial and housing bubbles" and into job-creating programmes to restore the natural systems that underpin the world economy."

The "Green New Deal" promoted by UNEP would use the process of tackling climate change to address a host of interrelated problems: "These range from climate change; poverty; job creation for the 1.3 billion people under or unemployed and accelerating natural resource scarcity to the need to fuel and to feed six billion, rising to nine billion people by 2050."

Why is "green" the color of a new economy? One reason is that clean energy tends to be much more labor-intensive than traditional fossil-fuel based energy. A previously discussed report by economists at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) found that investments in clean energy create nearly four times as many jobs as investments in oil production. So if we are looking to put people to work, clean energy is clearly the way to go.

So while the financial challenges facing the U.S. and the global economy are enormous, it is worth recognizing that a strong and growing green economy could be a significant source of relief.

Van Jones: Green Collar Minister for a Clean and Just Future

2008-10-08T15:06:54Z

Van Jones is the nation's leading visionary calling for a social, economic and energy revolution driven by a massive effort to repower America's outdated and broken energy systems. A long-time advocate for helping those on society's lowest rungs to climb out of poverty, Van Jones' new book, The Green Collar Economy, charts the course to reversing economic and environmental injustice through a national commitment to repower our most impoverished communities with clean energy.

This is one of the powerful reasons that Congress and the President need to consider and create comprehensive solutions that address the economy, our energy systems and the climate as a whole, as I've previously discussed, But how do we get them to do that?

The founder of Green for All, Mr. Jones makes the case that we must unite organized labor, social justice activists, environmentalists, students and people of faith in a combined and concerted advocacy effort, if we are to overcome the entrenched power of the oil, gas and coal companies and their supporters in Congress and the media. This book is an essential read and strategy guide for all advocates of a clean and just future, and I am proud that NRDC is working with Green for All to make the vision a reality.

Green Paychecks

2008-10-06T19:50:41Z

It turns out that nearly 750,000 Americans get paychecks from jobs that reduce pollution and increase the use of clean energy, according to a new report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The report creates the first index of existing jobs devoted to reducing the use of fossil fuels, increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Interestingly, that's more than the number of Americans who earn a living in the mining sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Maybe this isn't as surprising as it seems. The global market for environmental services and products is around $1.3 trillion, according to an analysis by the United Nations Environment Program and the International Labor Organization. Produced with help from the Cornell Global Labor Institute, the report projects that a significant shift to clean energy investments could create as many as 20 million new jobs by 2030.

The already significant presence of green jobs in the US and the global potential for employing tens of millions of people underscores why it makes sense for Congress to tackle economic revitalization, clean energy and global warming with a comprehensive, forward-looking strategy - as I've discussed in earlier entries.

The bottom line is that repowering America with clean energy is the work of our generation. Building wind farms, solar arrays, hybrid cars, and efficient buildings connected with a smart electricity grid will create millions of jobs and make millions of existing ones more secure. But to get there, we need to demand clean energy that doesn't create global warming pollution. We need to use smart incentives to increase our use of the clean energy solutions we already have. We need to invest in the workers and the firms that are creating the next generation of clean energy technologies. This is the challenge that the next Congress and President must choose to face.