Clean Energy Generating Job Growth in Two Areas

The Pew Charitable Trusts organization issued a voluminous report in June of this year that does a good job of quantifying the economic impact of the move toward clean energy. Their analysis of growth in the field shows that jobs in the field grew at three times the rate of all job growth between 1998 and 2007. Their figure for the number of current workers in the industry reaches 770,000 workers, employed by over 68,000 businesses.

Their analysis of the types of jobs available in this economic sector ranged from professionals with engineering degrees to those who studied business and obtained a marketing degree to the type of tradesmen and skilled blue collar employees that drive the traditional energy fields by keeping oil, gas and electrical systems operating.

The Pew report paints an optimistic picture of both the impact of clean energy systems on the current environment and the opportunities it offers for the future. They point out the lack of government support for alternative energy until recently, while government backing for traditional energy projects has been longstanding.

The more interesting section of the report is the chapters devoted to the funding sources for development of clean energy programs. According to the report, entrepreneurs are seeing great opportunity in the clean energy market: “Venture capital investment in clean technology crossed the $1 billion threshold in 2005 and continued to grow substantially, reaching a total of about $12.6 billion by the end of 2008.” That is substantial exponential growth in investment. Another telling statistic: in 2008 alone $5.9 billion in venture capital dollars went into alternative energy investments, a sum that amounts to 14=5% of all venture capital dollars expended globally in that year.

What does all this mean for college students scratching for a career focus? A quick look at the report’s Company Snapshots page shows that professionals with environmental degrees will find work with companies recycling polluted real estate. Those who work as electrical technicians or HVAC technicians are going to find work retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency.

But perhaps the most intriguing career opportunity that’s written between the lines in this report is for business degree graduates who have an interest in entrepreneurship. The clean energy economic sector is made up of many small businesses. Today in Maine, entrepreneurs are investing in offshore wind farms and tidal energy projects that recently were the subject of an MOU signed by the State of Maine and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, basically stating that government regulatory red tape will be kept to a minimum.

Tidal mills were a feature of colonial Maine and they may become a fixture in the clean energy economy. These facilities are not monolithic hydroelectric plants, they are small, efficient turbines driven by the big Northern Atlantic coastal tides that will sell their power into the existing power grid. And in many cases, they are projects that are being undertaken by energetic entrepreneurs with limited backing. There are renewable energy businesses in the United States of every size and technology orientation.

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