However, this was the first ever survey of green goods and services jobs, so we don’t yet have something with which to compare the results. Out of the total 3.1 million jobs categorized as green, the private sector provided the most green employment opportunities. The public sector contributed 860,000 jobs.
It is still hard to define and measure green jobs, as this Washington Post article points out:

In the past, employment in this field has been hard to measure because there’s been no consensus on what constitutes a green job. For its assessment, the Labor Department counted certain jobs in manufacturing, construction, utility and other sectors in which the primary function was to contribute to a green product or service. That includes the manufacture of hybrid vehicles, the production of solar power and construction projects such as weatherization. It did not include, for example, jobs in grocery stores or restaurants that primarily sell organic food.

President Obama has been championing green jobs as a growth area for post recession recovery. These numbers should not be used to tout his policies or refute them as the report does not include any growth figures and does not show how the numbers changed over time.

Among the private sector, manufacturing accounted for the greatest number of green jobs. Construction also contributed significantly with 372,100 jobs and professional, scientific and technical services added 349,000 jobs.
Perhaps not surprisingly, California had 340,000 green jobs in 2010, more than in any other state and the District of Columbia, equalling 2.3 percent of total employment.

[Image]

The timetable for producing cheap electric vehicles is relatively short. By 2022, the initiative aims to “enable companies in the United States to be the first in the world to produce a 5-passenger affordable American electric vehicle with a payback time of less than 5 years and sufficient range and fast-charging ability to enable average Americans everywhere to meet their daily transportation needs more conveniently and at lower cost.”

Many of the benefits of EVs include zero tail pipe emissions, higher equivalent gas mileage, cheaper fuel costs, and lower maintenance demands. Whether EVs can penetrate the market will depend on the success of this program, along with steady electricity prices, increased range for batteries, and a greater network of charging stations, among other issues. Monday’s article about the installation of 200 charging stations in California is a start. However, the specter of competition from natural gas vehicles, which have their own infrastructure needs, could also derail electric vehicle adoption due to currently low prices of domestically produced natural gas.

The Department of Energy’s first “Clean Energy Grand Challenge,” the SunShot Initiative, was profiled last month. More grand challenges are coming, so check back.

[Image source]

I suppose the first question one ought to ask is whether energy is a political or scientific issue. Policy is set by the government, which plays a role in determining the direction of research, but listening to Republican candidates ahead of the recent primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, one would think that the current focus on clean energy is detrimental to our future. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said ”The biggest issue this fall is going to be drilling versus algae. It’s going to be 2.50 a gallon versus $10 a gallon,” placing himself in opposition to what he believes is the current administration’s disregard for the price of gasoline and asking which future “we want for our children.” Former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney stated that gasoline prices have doubled since the current administration came into office, failing to acknowledge that they were even higher before the recession, hitting more than $4 per gallon in the summer of 2008. While gas prices have risen, especially in the past few months, this may have less to do with policy than world events. Just yesterday, the New York Times reported that Romney has taken the position that the current administration actively pushes prices at the pump higher. The article goes on to connect Romney’s position to an interview by then Senator Obama who said, while campaigning in 2008, “given the global price of oil right now . . . we can’t artificially lower gas prices.”

A  comment from former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum also caught me by surprise. In a speech he stated “We’ve seen that the president has a two-letter energy policy: N-O. And we need a policy that says – doesn’t say no to the development of energy.” Yet, the president’s policy has been an all of the above approach, with imports at the lowest levels since the mid-1990s. Oddly enough, the same report stated that both Gingrich and Santorum support such an approach, “Gingrich, called for an all-of-the-above domestic energy policy, as did his rival, Rick Santorum.”

With all of this in mind, the question truly is, what kind of energy economy do we want? The future will contain shrinking supplies of conventional oil. It is a limited resource after all, unless it is derived from living organisms like algae. Depending on how you answer the first question (whether or not one thinks energy is political or not) goes a long way to how one views the future of energy. Here’s for making the case that energy is a science concern, not an inherently political one.

[Image source]

Along with the incredible boom in natural gas production over the last several years in the United States, North America has been the place for booming oil sands production, with our neighbor to the north now ranked number 3 in the world in oil reserves. There are environmental impacts and risks in extracting both of these resources. However, not taking advantage of these local energy sources would be foolish.

Consider the ramifications of importing oil and natural gas from abroad. Extraction has to often be done in unfriendly countries or countries that don’t have the same environmental regulations, safeguards, and oversight in place as the U.S. and Canada. The fuel also has to be shipped across the world, causing pollution and using enormous amounts of fuel and energy just to bring the resources across the oceans to our shores. This says nothing of the political risks – that we are all too well aware of – in needing to keep countries from Venezuela to Nigeria to Iraq politically stable so that our supply of fuel is not disrupted. Vital sea lanes, or oil transit chokepoints, from the Persian Gulf to the Malacca Strait are also constantly patrolled by U.S. vessels in order to keep these supply routes free of pirates and unilateral disruptions caused by countries such as Iran. 14 million barrels per day, or a quarter of all oil carried by sea, passes through the Malacca Strait alone. Most of that goes to China and other countries in Asia and as long as the U.S. remains a superpower, it will be needed to patrol these sea lanes for the sake of world-wide stability. However, the point is to reduce the direct impact on the U.S. from events happening in far-off lands.

9 years of war in Iraq and decades of various entanglements overseas caused mainly or in part by our reliance on foreign oil should have taught us to reduce that dependence where and when we can. Well, we now have the chance.

While total energy independence is still an ideal not to be reached in the near future, the potential to bring in oil from our friendly Canadian neighbors is really a no-brainer. Canada will sell it to someone, and Prime Minister Harper was just in China to talk about exactly that. Would you rather have that oil be transported (causing pollution) half way around the world to a country that has less stringent environmental regulations and is an economic rival? Or extend and expand the pipeline infrastructure already in place to bring oil to our refineries here at home? Would you rather read about how rebels in Nigeria and Iraq have blown up another pipeline that carries oil eventually destined for U.S. cars and trucks, or see an article about the jobs created in a politically stable, human rights protecting Canada?

We will not be able to insulate ourselves from the whims of world oil market price fluctuations or the political ramifications of rogue countries and rebellious factions, no matter whether the Keystone Pipeline gets built or not. We also have to continue to move toward a future renewable energy based economy that is truly necessary for long-term sustainability. But, as the Prius is a bridge from the combustion engine to all-electric, natural gas, or other alternative fuel vehicles, the resources in North America should be a bridge to lead us toward an energy future less reliant on petrol dictators and energy sources from abroad. From an environmental and foreign policy angle, it just makes sense.

[Image]

A proposed $5 billion “backbone” for transmission of offshore wind energy has been the works for a few years. In the press release, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar repeated President Obama’s call for an “all of the above” energy strategy, citing offshore wind as holding “‘incredible potential for our country, and we’re moving full-steam ahead to accelerate the siting, leasing and construction of new projects.’”

This project is not related to the on-again, off-again Cape Cod offshore wind farm that received the go ahead as the nation’s first such system.

[Image source: Ashley Dace]