Tatyana, 21, studied international business at Baruch College in New
York City. When she started out her business education, she never would
have expected ending up in the renewable energy industry. She remembers
enjoying her high school environmental classes and recently decided,
once she had graduated, that the environmental sector was not only a
promising field, but also something she knew she was passionate about.
This drive led Tatyana to her current employment in the clean technology
industry, which she has come to realize is both a profitable and
personally rewarding field.
On June 2, 2014, The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, under President Obama's Climate Action
Plan, proposed an initial guideline to cut carbon pollution from
existing power plants, currently the biggest carbon polluters in the
United States (at roughly one-third
of all domestic greenhouse gas emissions in the country). The Clean
Power Plan is flexible and holds great potential for job creation in the
sustainable sector. This plan could be the economic push needed to help
new graduates like Tatyana or anyone else searching the job market for a
second chance.
Expanding renewable energy sources
Under
the Clean Power Plan, states must diversify their energy sources and
utilize solar (photovoltaic and solar thermal), wind, geothermal,
sustainable sourced biomass, biogas and low-impact hydrology in order to
reduce their carbon emissions. Beyond the significant benefits for our
climate and health, the potential economic benefits may also be
substantial because renewable energy technologies are typically more
labor-intensive than intensely mechanized fossil fuel technologies.
In 2011, the solar foundation
reported that the solar industry employed over 100,000 workers in jobs
that ranged from solar installation or manufacturing to sales. Solar jobs
grew by 20 percent in 2013 and 2014 is expected to witness the creation
of 22,000 jobs; these statistics were reported before the EPA plan was
released, which should provide the national encouragement needed to
boost the renewable job sector even more.
As for wind energy, the
amount of domestically manufactured equipment used in wind turbines has
jumped from 35 percent in 2006 to 70 percent in 2011 with 560 factories directly employing 75,000 full-time employees.
The
hydroelectric power industry employed 250,000 people in 2009 and if the
hydropower industry were to install a new capacity of
23,000-MW-60,000MW by 2025, the total amount of jobs required to meet
that target could generate as many as 700,000 jobs.In 2010 the geothermal industry directly employed 5,200 people. Back in 2009 The Union of Concerned Scientists
estimated that a national, renewable electricity standard that would
seek to cut 25 percent of carbon emissions by 2025 would generate
297,000 jobs, $263.4 billion in new capital investment and $95.5 billion
in lower electricity by 2030; and now we have the EPA is seeking to cut
30 percent of emissions by 2030... These numbers merely scratch
the surface of the economic benefits of an expansion of renewable energy
sources because they do not take into account the jobs that are
generated by indirect and induced employment. A few examples of the
former include architects, equipment service personnel, geologists,
business management personnel, and security guards. Induced employment
refers to jobs that are created to serve the workers, subcontractors and
others that are accounted for in direct or indirect employment.
Demand‐side energy efficiency programs
Demand-side
energy efficiency entails consuming less power to perform the same
tasks while incentivizing consumers to modify their energy usage during
off-peak hours. These programs represent one way for states to minimize
electrical power loss during transmission. Companies offering
engineering efficiency consultation services, energy audits and system
performance analysis services such as Lincus, or RHA can all benefit from this measure. Since demand side management spending reached a record $9.6 billion in 2013 in both the U.S. and Canada, it wouldn't be crazy to speculate even further growth due to the Clean Power Plan.
As
Tatyana pleasantly discovered, the parallel development of the energy
efficiency educational market expedites this growth. With online
programs facilitating access to education, many workers such as recent
graduate Tatyana, are using remote training providers to obtain energy
efficiency training or solar training to gain access to this sustainable workforce boom.
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