CleanTechnica

A new study shows that requiring utility companies to get 25% of their power from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind (by 2025) would result in more jobs.

“A strong renewable electricity standard is crucial to create a stable investment environment and grow this highly promising sector,” says Don Furman, senior vice president for development, transmission, and policy at wind energy company Iberdrola Renewables. “Without a strong RES, the US wind industry will see no net job growth, and will likely lose jobs to overseas competitors.”

Furman’s points here are nothing new. Obama said the same thing very strongly in his State of the Union address and, everyday, I read articles on this matter and on the “clean energy race“.

Nonetheless, this new study puts some numbers into the issue and helps to back up Furman and Obama’s claims. This study found that “the industry would create 274,000 more jobs under a 25 percent renewable power standard than it would create without a mandate.” (emphasis mine)

This is much more than what would be created from the proposed mandate put forth by the House of Representatives as part of a comprehensive climate and energy bill that is now being worked on in the Senate.

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That’s right, the US government is “the single largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy.” In 2008 alone, it spent $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel.

This 28% reduction target Obama is ordering is equivalent to $8-11 billion in avoided energy costs. Additionally, it is far beyond the 17% reduction Obama has pledged to the international community for the US as whole, making the US government a leader by example on this issue.

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Hollywood, as a whole, is one of the most powerful entities (can I call it that?) in the world. Some of its biggest stars are getting involved in the politics of climate and clean energy now.

A great new video on the web featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Felicity Huffman, Forest Whitaker, Ed Norton, Justin Long, and others nails the key points of climate and energy legislation with the most popular language.

One of the stars even decides to drop his pants because of the heat (climate change).

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That takes my breath away. In one of the biggest renewable energy deals in the history of the world, a Korean consortium led by Samsung* has agreed to build 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power capacity in the Canadian province of Ontario.

Samsung C&T and the Ontario government signed the deal on Thursday, January 21^st. The agreement will bring thousands of jobs and clean energy for more than half a million homes to Ontario.

Building off of this new deal, Korean trade officials plan to make Ontario their base of operations for all of North American.

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Transportation is one of the biggest parts of our lives, whether we think about it or not. How will 2010 help shape the future of transportation in the US? How should it do so?

And, more specifically, what is going on in government on this matter? With an expired (in September of 2009) and extended and extended and extended and extended (yes, four times) 6-year transportation bill, what is coming in 2010?

The following discussion goes into my own thoughts on some of the major issues with the help of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO’s) “Top Ten Transportation Topics” list and other stories.

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People in North Carolina and Virginia must have seen what’s going on in China with high-speed rail and decided they wanted some of that. They are now requesting over $5 billion in funding for high-speed rail.

Actually, as a former resident of both North Carolina and Virginia professionally and personally involved in this topic, I can say they have been working on this topic and wanting better rail for quite a long time.

Now, though, with the federal government pledging $8 billion in stimulus funding for high-speed rail, they may have their chance.

However, they are not the only ones who want this money!

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In the midst of the Copenhagen negotiations last week, the White House announced a proposal to give a huge increase in tax breaks to manufacturers who produce wind, solar, geothermal, or other clean energy technologies. The goal of the tax breaks is to stimulate more job growth and promote clean energy technology more in the US.

With clean energy technology poised to become the third largest sales sector in the world, Obama and Biden realize that they must stimulate this field in the US a bit more to get the jobs that go with that growth.

In the proposal set forth by the White House on Thursday, new or expanded factories making clean energy technology (i.e. electric vehicles, solar panels, high-speed trains, and wind turbines) can get a 30% tax credit. This raises the current cap on these tax credits from $2.3 billion to $7.3 billion.

In addition to the tax credit, Obama’s proposed ‘jobs plan’ includes “increased investment in public works, small business tax cuts and incentives for homeowners who retrofit their houses to be more energy efficient.”

Congress will need to approve this jobs plan for it to go through.

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Asia is investing hundreds of billions of dollars more than the US in clean technology, according to a new report by two research institutions. In the future, the US may be importing trillions of dollars of needed clean technology (and losing countless jobs to Asia) as a result.

In total, the report showed that China, Japan, and South Korea will invest about $509 billion in clean tech over the next 5 years, whereas the US (with our greenest President in decades, maybe ever) is only expected to invest $172 billion (about 3 times less) — this is assuming the climate and energy legislation in Congress passes.

If the US were to invest the same percentage of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as South Korea, it would invest almost $140 billion per year ($700 billion over this five year period)! Compared to China, the anticipated per-GDP investment ratio is 1:4 (US to China).

In 2008, Japan almost matched US R&D spending on energy and achieved almost the same number of international clean energy patents despite having dramatically lower GDP.

The financial investment is not the only thing giving these countries a major advantage in this field, though.

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A new report by Environment North Carolina’s Research and Policy Center, “Growing Solar in North Carolina,” found that North Carolina (home of my UNC Tar Heels) could be a solar power giant soon.

The new report found that North Carolina has a lot of solar energy potential due to its “vast” solar energy intensity (which is nearly as much as Florida’s) combined with other economic, policy and technological factors.

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A couple weeks ago, I wrote about China’s new policy to focus on buying (almost entirely) “China-grown” wind turbines and wind turbine technologies with Chinese patents. That policy wasn’t a big hit internationally and China is back-tracking.

However, is it changing its stance out of international moral pressure or a major financial incentive (recent deal) in the US? And who is to benefit the most from this shift?
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