Green Jobs

It seems that everywhere I turn these days, I meet young people, concerned about finding employment. Between constant reports of lack of new jobs, additional layoffs, more experienced resources back in the job market, and off-shoring of many high-paying jobs, it is truly a hard time for fresh graduates in the U.S.A.

In the midst of all this disappointing statistics, there are some interesting statistics about the Wind Industry.

In the United States, the Wind Industry now employs more people than Coal Mining.

Wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from the previous year, according to a recent report from the American Wind Energy Association. Wind industry employment includes 13,000 manufacturing jobs concentrated in regions of the country hard hit by the deindustrialization of the past two decades.

The big spike in wind jobs was a result of a record-setting 50% increase in installed wind capacity, with additional 8,358 megawatts in 2008 (enough to power some 2 million homes). That’s a third of the nation’s total 25,170 megawatts of wind power generation. Wind farms generating more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity were completed in the last three months of 2008.

42% of all new U.S. electricity generation in 2008 came from wind farms, the equivalent of building fourteen 600-megawatt coal-fired power plants - without the environmental devastation that comes from strip-mining and releasing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That extraordinary growth in wind power was, until the recession hit, reviving abandoned factories in the industrial Midwest as European turbine makers and their suppliers set up shop close to what has become the world’s largest wind market. Texas continues to lead the country, with 7,116 megawatts of wind capacity but Iowa in 2008 overtook California for the No. 2 spot, with 2,790 megawatts of wind generation. Other new wind powers include Oregon, Minnesota, Colorado and Washington state.

Wind currently supplies 2% of the electricity in the USA, while coal supplies 49%. The U.S. does not have a national power grid and energy generation varies widely by state. (For instance, in-state coal-fired power plants supplied 86% of Ohio’s electricity in 2006, according to the Energy Department, but only 1.1% of California’s , although the Golden State does obtain about 20% of its electricity from out-of-state coal plants.

Owing to the pressing economic problems, it is not likely that we will see last year’s 2008's record number of employment in the wind industry being repeated in 2009. In fact, funding for a number of renewable energy projects has been called up, owing to the economic downturn. However, energy conservation and energy efficiency are key components of our energy future, and it is only a matter of time before these initiatives pick up steam again.