Green Collar Jobs

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by AlternativeEnergy.com on January 20, 2008 at 2:29pm

GREEN JOBS NOT JAILS - The Third Wave of Environmentalism

Van Jones, Founder/Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights ( http://ellabakercenter.org/ ) talks about his compelling moral vision for California to abandon its 'incarceration economy' for an 'innovation economy' and do an ecolgical U-turn on the four wheels of labor, progressive business, environmentalism and social justice. As he puts it, "a rainbow city in a rainbow state in a rainbow country leading the way to a rainbow planet."

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by AlternativeEnergy.com on January 23, 2008 at 12:46pm

WSJ Reports up to 1500 jobs to be created by German company in New Mexico to pursue $500 million solar investment.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Morris Draze on January 23, 2008 at 10:52pm

See Michigan Jobs Video

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Morris Draze on January 28, 2008 at 12:08pm

‘Green-collar' slips into popular usage
By Sridhar Pappu
Washington...

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by AlternativeEnergy.com on February 2, 2008 at 7:37pm

New green jobs earning more per hour than regular jobs. Read Wind farm growth ... story

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Arnold L. Johnson on October 24, 2008 at 3:02pm

The main thing to see is that each energy stream has a potential to produce jobs all along the supply chain. Who makes the parts, assembles, installs and maintains.

Then there is a big retrofit market for existing buildings and homes. Low power appliances and multi-fuel home furnaces.

I think the petrol-free products and material market might take off. Electric motors and generators will boom. Control systems will boom.

I also think that material recycling, waste recycling will be huge job resources. Too many cars to grind and smelt.

These will all be local jobs. The transition to clean energy will push a vibrant economy, if we let it.

For a while everything should be local, only import the things you need, trade for stuff that benefits you. duh!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robert Steinhaus on March 26, 2009 at 1:30am

GREEN JOBS alone are not enough!

Creating 1000s of green jobs is spurious unless, at the same time, the overall cost of providing energy to the nation, as measured as a percentage of GDP, drops relative to the existing system. Using more of the nation’s workforce to provide the nation’s energy only means that less of the nation’s productive capacity is available to perform other creative functions (go to the stars, eliminate poverty, end intolerance and resolve long standing hatreds, etc) that would benefit the nation. A nation that has to dedicate a larger proportion of its workforce and wealth to generate the same energy will be a poorer and less secure nation.

Insisting on a renewable sources only energy solution will only benefit the nation if the final costs to the nation of supplying energy is lower than the energy systems that are used by your industrial competition in Asia (Chinese coal and nuclear). Directing so large a proportion of the nation’s resources into development of low energy density renewable energy while not including parallel development of the most energy intensive energy source, nuclear energy, is a mistake and the result will be that America will have to use a higher proportion of its workers and devote and higher proportion of the nation’s GDP to provide the energy needed by the nation. The impact of these choices is that the quality of American life will be less and the security of freedom for our children will be more threatened.

It would be wise to invest in and commercialize significantly less waste generating nuclear in parallel with our heavy investment in renewable energy solutions and the “smart grid” to support them.

Nuclear energy produces 70% of America’s non-GHG generating energy. Parallel investment in less waste generating nuclear technology alongside the heavy investment in renewable and “smart grid” power distribution is needed to reduce long term technology risks to the nation. I would like to suggest that Thorium Molten Salt Reactors (TMSR) are a significantly less ,1 part in 100, waste generating[1] nuclear technology that performed very well in two Oak Ridge National Laboratory experiments but this technology was never commercially developed. TMSR fission can be commercialized in ~ 5 years at moderate costs and low technical risk (ORNL demonstrated the technology stably running for 4 years in the late 1960s including 2 years operating on Thorium fuel). TMSRs have a very valuable characteristic in being able to be quickly and safely adjusted in power output (the original ORNL Molten Salt Reactor experiment was an aircraft reactor requiring quick throttling of power). TMSRs would be ideal power fill in or energy peeking – load balancing components in a larger energy system providing needed power to the grid while renewable sources were temporarily unavailable because of weather.

For a cost of approximately one tenth the projected 2010 budget of NASA per year for five years the US could have Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an industrial partner prepare plans for a commercial 1000 MW Thorium Molten Salt Reactor that would, in the future, greatly reduce the amount of toxic high level waste that would have to be placed in the Replacement Yucca Mountain Repository. Approximately 1.8 billion dollars a year for five years could fund a complete NRC certifiable approved reactor design that could be quickly adopted and built by utilities wanting to provide improved nuclear power. Ongoing design efforts at the Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie in Grenoble, France and in Japan are underway to produce new, updated, Thorium Molten Salt Reactor designs. It might be possible to bootstrap design efforts by joining with the French and Japanese on a combined, updated, NRC reviewable commercial TMSR reactor design and share the costs of development.

Respectfully, Robert Steinhaus Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Retired)


[1] Le Brun, C., "Impact of the MSBR concept technology on long-lived radio toxicity and
proliferation resistance", Technical Meeting on Fissile Material Management Strategies for
Sustainable Nuclear Energy, Vienna 2005

http://hal.archives ouvertes.fr/docs/00/04/14/97/PDF/document_IAEA.pdf

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Arnold L. Johnson on March 26, 2009 at 7:49am

I agree with you in many aspects. I don't mean to say we all should put all focus on energy. By emphasis I seem to imply that one sector at the expense of others might save us. We should not create a lemmings effect where all rush off the cliff like a aimless heard of cattle. Even if we discover the big bang of energy production we've got to do something about consumption. Conservation must become a culture and a product.

I think it would crazy to assume many green projects will sustain themselves on top of the present infrastructure and escalating demand. Take water for instance, we are still flushing with drinking quality water, look how much has to change before water use gets smart. Now every energy stream is trying to supply existing demand, and every energy stream is requiring more or shifted energy resources to produce continuous sustained supply. It is an illusion to think energy production of any sort is not labor or resource intensive at some point.

So you got the resource side, the human labor side, the energy production side, the energy use side and the waste steam. I remind you of the song by Sting about the promise of energy, fresh and clean, grimy faces are never seen. But to me the idea of an energy source freeing up people to do other things is a little bent. People need to work and be working. The farmers have way better humanity than insurance companies. Which is more sustainable selling food or selling risk coverage? Being free of the energy production cycle does not predispose you to fixing humanitarian/political problems around the world.

▶ Reply to This