How can shifting to a green energy and jobs revive the American economy?
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at
11:55 pm
Why would making the U.S. the opec of clean fuels make us a superpower again?
Filed under: Wind Power
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The good thing about most green jobs is they can’t be outsourced. In particular renewable energy plants are both a necessity and can only be staffed by American workers in practicality. Theoretically they could be built by foreign companies, but there’s no reason to do that when we’ve got the technological knowhow in the US.
Basically by investing in green infrastructure you’re creating American jobs because the infrastructure is being built here.
green energy can change the economy to a good era. If you believe in Ethanol, youre out of the picture..
The US is already a superpower.
But as for energy superpower, that’ll be Australia and Canada.
Anyway, green energy, which means basically anything that is useless but which the fossil fuel industry astroturf green movement likes would create a lot of jobs but the high cost and unreliability (which means they’ll probably still need fossil fuel backup) will probably cause a lot of industry to relocate as high labour costs and high energy costs just aren’t acceptable for a lot of things (one of them has to be cheap) so in the end you’ll create a lot of jobs putting up and maintaining wind turbines and solar panels, but lose many of the rest.
You’d be better to just build more PWRs and BWRs which even though they don’t employ many people create cheap, reliable (and much safer than solar) electricity that doesn’t emit CO2 thereby allowing the rest of the economy to employ a lot of people.
Only if the govt is going to stand behind it and quit giving tax subsidies to the current ones that are sticking it to everyone charging them before they even have plants built.
It is also unclear to me why Bush keeps deregulating our air and water standards, we need to write our reps and tell them to stop what changes he made. There was an article about the labor dept hurrying to change regulations on hazardous and toxic materials so companies do not have to have standards etc now they want business to do as they please no matter who they kill as long as they are profiting. I m not sure what that is supposed to be, but it is not good. It is disturbing that the media has a job to do and report this and there is hardly anything being said, I guess they will lose investment
Right now, China is the super power and is number 1 in manufacturing and is down. We also owe them trillions of dollars, I suspect it is to permit them to come here and operate as they please.
To get to the subject more, it could help get jobs, we have the technology and manpower and buildings and equipment, our manufacturing is at a 26 yrs low, I guess lower then we used to have 19=million jobs, now we have 8 which is what it was in 1942, so I m not certain what the 26 yr report is about! The truth is we could make money if they do not expect people to work for 2dollars a wk. They keep on about domestic spending to increase, well until people have jobs that pay anything, it is not happening, not in this country! It is one of the reasons other countries are prospering
Because everyone (except a few right-wing crazies in the west) realizes the need for action to mitigate GHG emissions, which means long-term increasing demand for high-value added clean energy technologies and capital goods. Plus, the US has more clean energy natural resources than just about any other country – we have a competitive advantage, in other words.
Cleaner fuels means a locally cleaner environment, which will attract worldwide talent to a healthier living, and the talent pool here will help increase the country’s competitive position in the world as the rest of the world degenerates into their pollution-ridden lands.
The greener energy will also slow our use of local natural resources, thereby increasing their future value as the world depletes the overall supply. The commodity prices of the natural resources will increase much like the oil in the middle east.
Yes, very mercenary thinking, but it’s the one that appeals to a business environment.
Why does the US need to be a superpower, isn’t it enough for the people to be happy, safe (which being a superpower has actually jeopardised) and clean??
Think about this. Currently there is the tecnhology available for a house to run on solar panels (in Europe and Australia households are actually making money from solar panels on their houses because they feed excess energy back into the grid … when was the last time your electricity bill was in the positive??).
The only reason why solar houses are not more common is because of the high cost of solar panels. To compenstate that one needs to create greater demand. So if the govt was to legislate that in 10 or 20 years no fossil fuels will be allowed for electricity purposes, they would firstly increase the number of companies investing in solar energy (consequently create jobs), with more competition prices would come down and efficiency would go up as they try to out do one another. Furthermore the govt could introduce solar houses in stages, that is all new houses and households with an income in excess of $X have to have solar panels or are fined, then in x years the next income level have to and so forth … thus the rich increase demand thus drive down prices so the not so rich can afford them later on.
Could also create jobs by establishing underground power grids (that is the power your house produces can be sold onto someone else that might need at a time, eg an office tower might source extra energy from the houses that have no home).
There would also be jobs created in the mining of the minerals needed, establishment of manufacturing and production companies, establisment of recycling plants for solar, new jobs for people to install, service and clean solar panels, new research jobs etc etc
And to think that is only looking at one aspect of green energy …
Similar govt legislation and technological advancements could be used to stimulate an alternative fossil fuel free car industry.
1, I don’t believe the US can be weaned from OPEC or oil, and #2, if we did desert OPEC, they are rich enough now, thanks to US, that they could come for us with any kind of weapon and terror that they can think of, because we have created a monster with unlimited resourses and they could keep coming until there was nothing or no one left or the end of time, which ever comes first.
We cannot become green OPEC, we can be green exxons and sell the equipment, most green sources are solar, wind,tidal and natural gas, which have to be converted,which means equipment.
About 3 years ago there was talk about a chinese nuclear power plant using graphite balls surrounding Plutonium, requiring few safety guards like western types.
the only power that will be super will be the Obama God and as long as he is in we will bow down to him in awe. in return he(God)will continue to wage war thus creating more employment so as you can buy another newer laptop to allow you to comunicate with me….