Green-collar jobs: latest studies

Renewable energy sector could restore economy

Suddenly, taking care of the environment has implications that reach far beyond solving global warming. Efforts to reduce carbon emissions are now also being hailed as a way to save the country's faltering economy.

Thanks to the recent presidential election where candidates U.S. Sen. John McCain and President-elect Barack Obama pegged some of their economic recovery plans on reducing independence on foreign oil and creating jobs in the renewable energy sector, the "green economy" movement has taken on new life.

No one knows this better than a group of business, education and government leaders, who are working together to position Kankakee County in the forefront of the green jobs revolution that's beginning to sweep the nation.

The Economic Alliance of Kankakee County, the Sustainability Center at Kankakee Community College, the Grundy Livingston Kankakee Workforce Board, the Kankakee Area Career Center, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and members of the Citizen's Sustainability Committee have been working together for the past few months on several aspects of the issue.

Green recovery

"Studies indicate with an economic recovery program, jobs are created in green industries," said Mike Van Mill, alliance president and CEO. "We need to position ourselves to capture that ... to aggressively go out and approach these companies."

A recent report predicts two million jobs could be created in the green jobs sector nationwide in the next two years -- and nearly 84,000 of those jobs would be in Illinois.

"Green Recovery, A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy," released in September, calls for a $100 billion investment in key areas such as retrofitting buildings, expanding mass transit and freight rail, constructing smart energy grids and expanding production of wind power, solar power and advanced biofuels.

The report was created by the Center for American Progress, a Washington D.C.-based think tank that advocates on a number of policy issues. The center is directed by John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and the head of Obama's transition team.

The plan calls for a cash infusion into the construction industry, which lost thousands of jobs between July 2006 and July 2007.

"A green infrastructure investment program would replace, at least, those 800,000 lost construction jobs over the next two years, and could result in renewed investment in the housing sector that is at the heart of the current economic slump.

"Our program would have similar, if somewhat smaller, effects in supporting U.S. manufacturing," according to the study.

In Illinois, a green economic recovery program could create 83,710 jobs, reducing the state unemployment rate to 5.9 percent, based upon July's unemployment rate of 7.1 percent, the report states.

The good news -- especially for areas like Kankakee County, which has a manufacturing and light industry base -- is that green job creation can happen in areas in which people are already employed. That's why the alliance is assessing the situation on the ground now, he said. Product assembly such as making solar panels is an area Kankakee County may be well suited to handle, Van Mill added.

Wave of the future

Producing parts for carbon-reducing technologies is the wave of the future, according to "Manufacturing Climate Solutions, Carbon-Reducing Technologies and U.S. Jobs," a study released this month by the Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness at Duke University in North Carolina.

The study identified five key green technologies: LED lighting, high-performance windows, auxiliary power units, solar power and super soil systems, or managing hog waste, and how manufacturing jobs could be created to support them.

Peter Schiel, assistant superintendent of utility operations for the city of Kankakee, who is responsible in large part for the green technologies installed in the renovated city administration building, agreed with that assessment. Increasingly more businesses and municipalities will be converting to energy efficiencies like those listed in the Duke University report and someone will have to make the products, he said.

For instance, the city of Kankakee has replaced the lightbulbs in all its traffic lights to more efficient LED lights. "We're seeing upwards of 83 percent in energy savings just by changing every single light in the city," he said.

In addition, the 33,000-acre K4 Wind Farm proposed for adjoining portions of Ford, Iroquois, Livingston and Kankakee counties will need 300 construction workers over a 12-month period and eventually will hire 30 to 40 full-time, highly trained technical employees, according to Jeff Harris, of Ohio-based Vision Energy, the wind farm developer.

Training the workforce
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