Manufacturing America's Clean Energy Future
President Obama and the Congress have made tremendous strides over the last four months to speed the transition to a clean energy economy. The economic recovery package enacted in February and the appropriations bill approved in March invest more than $100 billion to scale up wind, solar, clean fuels, next generation vehicles, a smart energy grid, energy efficiency, and transit. The president's budget calls for $150 billion more for clean energy development, research, and green-collar job creation.
Now comes the most critical piece: a new national energy policy that, if done right, would put a cap and a price on carbon emissions and drive demand for a whole new generation of American jobs in the clean and efficient energy sectors. The House and Senate are each working on versions of an energy bill, with the goal of reaching agreement by fall. Both houses are moving forward to adopt a renewable energy standard that has the potential to reduce emissions, generate billions of dollars in economic activity, and create a million well-paid manufacturing jobs.
Less certain is the fate of legislation to cap and reduce carbon emissions -- arguably the single most important environmental and economic decision of the century. Instituting a cap on carbon emissions sets a clear national goal that can only be met by shifting how we power the nation.
The legislative debate over cap and trade has largely focused on the economic consequences of putting a price on carbon, which is the wrong way to look at it. A carbon cap should be seen as an opportunity to set a national limit on pollution and to foster the invention and development of the clean and efficient energy systems that will help meet it. Past federal decisions to regulate air and water quality stirred political disputes similar to those on Capitol Hill today, but in every instance, the high standards we set to combat pollution led to a wave of innovation, new technologies, and measureable economic benefits.
We have a similar opportunity now. Tough new limits on pollution -- accompanied by bold investments in domestic, clean energy manufacturing -- will provide a once-in-a-generation chance to revive America's ailing industrial sector and rebuild the middle class through high-quality, family-supporting green jobs. In fact, some of the states hardest hit by manufacturing job losses in recent decades -- Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Missouri -- are the ones with the most to gain from a revitalized manufacturing sector capable of making the clean and efficient energy systems that will be the backbone of the new energy economy.
But neither the House nor the Senate bill will deliver on this economic promise without assurances that the systems and parts for the U.S. clean energy sector are made here at home. The United States currently imports more than 70 percent of its clean energy components -- even as manufacturing plants are closing across the country. Unless we invest in domestic manufacturing, we will continue to bleed jobs and depend on other nations to meet our energy needs.
Renewing our manufacturing base through clean energy -- already one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy -- isn't just a pipe dream. According to the respected clean tech website CleanEdge.com, the domestic market for solar panels, wind turbines and biofuel equipment will reach $325 billion annually by 2018. In Ohio, nearly 100 manufacturers -- including companies like Canton-based Timken, a maker of ball bearings and other steel products for wind energy equipment -- now make up the state's expanding clean energy supply chain. Even Michigan, a state whose manufacturing sector has been devastated by job losses, produced more than 3,000 new jobs -- mostly in the solar and wind industries -- over the last 20 months.
It's time to join 21st century environmental and economic goals and to embrace the aggressive, bold solutions needed to realize them. If we truly want to curb climate change and fix the economy, we need to adopt a strong carbon cap and make the investments in manufacturing that will put millions of Americans back to work in a new generation of clean energy jobs.
With our planet in peril and our economy in crisis, we can afford to do no less.
Phil Angelides is Chairman of the Board of the Directors of the Apollo Alliance. He is a Principal at Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, and is former California State Treasurer.
Follow Phil Angelides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ApolloAlliance
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So the former treasurer of an essentially bankrupt state is lecturing on the virtues of green energy? Utter and complete nonsense with virtually no facts to support the assertions. Just like most of Obama’s programs.
Renewable energy is like the ocean; massive amounts of water (energy), but try getting drinking water (energy) out of it – expensive and not easy to do. Comical aside: California, desperately needs drinking water, but the environmentalists will not let the technology (reverse osmosis) be installed.
Sitting in the Midwest, looks to me like anything the "Left Coast" attempts is the exact opposite of what should be done. By the way, I was born in California.
PS CO2 is technically not a pollutant; life on the planet would cease without it. Quite unlike SO2, NOx, etc. which do directly harm life.
Nice article. in Ohio, we needs companies like Canton Timken and green energy start ups to help rebuild our state's economic structure.
Kevin Lockett
www.hirejam.com
green jobs for Ohio
We dont need a "CARBON CAP" or a carbon tax.
We need a COAL TAX
LEGALIZE HEMP
8X more btus than corn
8X more biodiesel than soy or canola
6X more fiber than cotton
Future cars will need no fuel will emit no Carbon Dioxide and can become power plants when parked.
Revolutionary breakthroughs will make possible a Self Powered Internal Combustion Engine - SPICE.
A SPICE can be used to power a hybrid. It will need no fuel and end the need to plug-in. The engine can run when parked and wirelessly transmit and sell power to the local utility.
The SPICE is powered by hydrinos. One barrel of water can equal several hundred barrels of oil. To learn more about SPICE and hydrinos see: www.chavaenergy.com Look under the heading HOW?
A second breakthrough is the MagGen. These magnetic generators, without moving parts, will replace batteries in electric cars, trucks and buses.
Scientists and engineers will doubt these technologies are possible until they have been validated by Independent Laboratories. That is an important step on the agenda.
Until now, car ownership has been an expense. Payments to car owners driving a hybrid with a SPICE, or powered by MagGen, are likely to be substantial.
When vehicles selling power to the grid fill a parking garage, it will have become a multi-megawatt power plant.
The cost of many vehicles might be paid for by utilities, as they purchase power whenever needed.
The parked cars each become decentralized power plants - a rapid, cost-effective path to a rebirth of the automobile industry.
And as worldwide production begins to ramp up, an end to the need for fossil or nuclear power plants!
Second Law.
Now stop posting this everywhere.
Fortunately California under Schwarzenegger and the other states following California which make up most of America's population are free to move forward with their own plans.
>>>> Less certain is the fate of legislation to cap and reduce carbon emissions -- arguably the single most important environmental and economic decision of the century. Instituting a cap on carbon emissions sets a clear national goal that can only be met by shifting how we power the nation.
Clearly California's state government is a model for the entire country to emulate.
Taxing carbon in the US, either with a direct tax or creating a cap and trade system, will drive up the cost of nearly everything for the US consumer. If China and India don't do the same thing, it will have little or no effect on global warming. The net result of which will be a weaker US economy, stronger Chinese and Indian economies and the same temperature.
An effort to reduce population growth (particularly in the US) would have the dual benefits of reducing US carbon emissions (each American creates more than several others), and improving other pollution and resource issues (water, waste, over crowding etc.).
Ever hear of leading by example? If not, didn't your mother ever ask you if your friend jumps off a bridge will you do the same?
This is just a long-standing excuse by pro-profit-at-any-cost deniers to do nothing.
And the leading by example argument is a great example of the naivete of the liberal. China and India are drooling at the prospect that we'll be stupid enough to cripple our economy for the sake of the global warming hoax. They know that will just hasten their takeover of what little manufacturing we still have, as we tax production out of the country. How in the world will our business compete while we're "LEADING BY EXAMPLE" and waiting for India to follow our noble sacrifice, and while we're loaded by not only higher labor costs, but higher energy costs to boot? We've already lost GM and Chrysler, are you not going to be satisfied until you destroy Ford too?
I don't believe the CO2 issue is as great as many true believers do, so call me a heretic if one wishes, but you can count me among those who do believe that reliance on petro-fuels is dirty business in more ways than one. Never the less a rapid shift in regards to a human cultural ecology as tenuously connected and as overextened as is our world industrial economy is a perilous process so the structure needs to change with much attention to how it might crash...and collapse on those at the bottom, coincidentally for those who are all worried about the poor people who will suffer from rising sea levels, malaria or whatever other boogey man we're being threatened with.
I do hope that California and other states, as well as the feds, don't pull the carpet out from under the emerging technologies that offer more than just a respite, but an avenue for genuine advancement of our species into that place where industrial processes are best conducted...200 miles from Sacramento, straight up. Space based solar and fusion (the non-Tokamak variety seems like the best at this point)...and the Nat'l Ignition Facility is poised to explore at least on vairety now. Space is the place and Solar Power in the form of fusion energy is the ladder that will get us there.
"President Obama and the Congress have made tremendous strides over the last four months to speed the transition to a clean energy economy."
What?
"biofuel equipment"
Without hemp being legal they cant invest in the right technology.
Our trains running 100% hemp diesel...
Our big-rigs running 20% hemp diesel
we can do this in 5 years!
Hemp
8X more btus than corn
8X more biodiesel tahn soy or canola
6X more fiber than cotton
best chicken and turkey feed on the planet.
There are at least 10 sources of biomass other than hemp that are superior for conversion to biofuels. Your one note song regarding hemp is incorrect, myopic and irritating. Please do not use biofuels to push your pet project.
And, while biofuels are indeed renewable, burning them still releases carbon into the atmosphere. This can only be a bridge technology at best.
We need to agree a clear value for an avoided ton of CO2 equivalent and then ALL pay for that value (we cannot get there by having 5 percent of us pay it while WE ALL buy and using the electricity, gasoline, etc. that create CO2). Some call this a "carbon tax" but it's really an "avoided carbon value". And some will say it is regressive but we must affect the bahaviors of all global citizens or we're just blowing smoke. Nukes, with no carbon footprint can help (Yucca Mountain/Reid?). And a carbon value can give alternative energy forms economic running room without the need to for endless, complex government subsidies.
One other question - what is the right number in terms of per capita CO2 equivalent emissions for every person on the planet, and would Phil clearly endorse moving the US to that number? Negotiations with China about US and Chinese GHG emissions are underway and much will be made of the fact that China has now passed the US in terms of CO2 emissions. But China has 4 times the number of people. What's the right answer? Stop Chinese development so they stay at 25% of the US on a per person basis. Or move the US back to the Chinese per person number with a big impact on American lifestyles?
Bloggers love to skip these questions in their aspirational musings with green job daydreams. Without answers, it's all empty talk.
Couldn't agree with you more, Desert Dog. We're going to tell China that they have to shut their economy down? NOT. So we cripple ours to lower GHG's, as India and China are building theirs up?
Even the proponents of renewables don't see them as providing more than 25% of energy needs by 2020.... so what do we do in the meantime?
Cap and trade is a revenue generator for the government, creating more bureacracy, more regulations, and higher costs for every product and service being produced or offered here in the U.S. Energy costs are slated to go up at least 25%. Manufacturing costs will soar, leading more companies to move their operations elsewhere. People who are already having trouble paying their utility bills will have an even harder time. The Feds will increase taxes to help those unable to pay their utility bills. Income redistribution anybody? Increasing taxes and increasing costs of everything we purchase will cause more people to be unable to pay their utility bills, increasing the taxes needed to be collected to help those people.
It's all a house of cards. Let's spend billions and billions on something that will have no recognizable affect on climate change.
If you liked ethanol then you'll love cap and trade paired with government-dominated industrial policy to pick winners and losers via the "wonderful" green jobs. Of course, the ethanol companies are now in bankruptcy and Exxon is thriving.
Recall that the wind power industry is on the record in government testimony in the early 1980s saying that if only they got a spare few years of government help they'd take off and rule the power sector to everyone's benefit. 29 years later they still haven't been weaned from the dole. Nor shall they be during any of our lifetimes, I'd be willing to bet.
Global Warming whether REAL or just another STATIST scam ,is all about money...The American population as a whole is Economically challenged..They don't understand how the Free Market with very little input of cash(actually you only need incentive) will supply you with the best alternatives,with the lowest cost possible..We are going the wrong way with Obama..Obama is not concerned with the Environment..he is concerned with control..This is a tool to redistribute money and power from the people to the Government and Business of his choice
Oh, look how well the free market is doing moving us away from non-renewables and non-polluting energy sources.
Keep your invisible hand to yourself.
Renewing our manufacturing base through clean energy -- already one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy -- isn't just a pipe dream.
But best not allow a zero carbon emission “pipe” dream, to develop into tunnel vision. What price the quest for climate control, if a damn great rock should chance to flatten us?
A potential consequence of confining all our eggs to one planet.
why big oil lobby for carbon tax?
may be its not about the environment but about making money
Why do GE and Wall St. traders lobby for a cap and trade carbon market? Something that would have been loved by Bear Stern.
Why aren't their smog requirements for diesel vehicles?
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