How to Strengthen Ohio's Economy

[irishbobcat]

Green Jobs are Good Jobs?

SEIA President & CEO Rhone Resch also said:

We expect to create 67,000 jobs in 2009 alone and a total of 119,000 jobs over the next two years, putting Americans back to work installing solar panels, manufacturing components and constructing solar power plants.
But what sorts of green jobs will the solar industry create as a result of the solar stimulus provisions? Will they be product and process research and development jobs for scientists and engineers, staff positions at company headquarters, EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) jobs or all of the above?

Earlier this month, the 2009 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference tackled the issue, and "Will Green Jobs Become the New Greenwash?" by Joel Makower reflects on the topic at his Two Steps Forward blog. The Good Jobs, Green Jobs Expo Exhibitors list tips the scale to EPC jobs as few (BP only?) solar manufacturing companies bothered to attend. "Labor Organizers, Environmental Activists Forge New Alliance" by Rosanne Skirble for the Voice of America also defines and questions the quality of certain green jobs generated to date.

Buy American

Most of the major American solar companies maintain a manufacturing base in the United States including First Solar, Energy Conversion Devices, and Evergreen Solar. Many thin film and a few crystalline silicon solar start-ups are building pilot lines or production capacity in the United States.

The significant exception is SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWRA). SunPower employed 84% of their 5450 fulltime workforce in the Philippines manufacturing solar cells and modules per the SunPower Form 10-Q Quarterly Report Filed Nov 7, 2008 for the Period Ending 09/28/08 and before "SunPower Lays Off 60 Employees" by Ucilia Wang at Greentech Media.

Perhaps by strategy or after enabling political change, "The stimulus: What's in it for Silicon Valley's tech economy?" by John Boudreau and Matt Nauman at Mercury News report:

"For some time, we've considered expanding our manufacturing footprint in the U.S. beyond our modest facility in Richmond," said Julie Blunden, a SunPower vice president. "This could certainly accelerate our thinking about where and when we could deploy."
All the talk in the "SunPower Corporation Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript" at Seeking Alpha was fixated on the progress of their 1-Gigawatt-Scale Solar-Cell Factory in Malaysia.

Contrast SunPower with the "German" company SolarWorld AG (FRA:SWV). SolarWorld USA was established after the acquisition of Shell Solar in 2006 and the Hillsboro, Oregon, Komatsu silicon wafer production facility in 2007. SolarWorld is investing over $400 million renovating the Hillsboro facility to produce up to 500 MW (MegaWatts) of silicon wafers and cells annually while employing about 1000 people by 2009.

[Rick Rowlands]

Where is the nearest 1,000 employee "green" manufacturing plant?  Are there ANY?

[Youngstownshrimp]

Bobster, I agree with you on the energy issue and may even debate you on this, but first, I have learned that unfortunately in YTown, people are not the number one resource.  No, let's be truthful, we are the cause of the way things are here and why we are last economically.  It is safe to say that over 50% of the population of YTown are on some type of subsidy (welfare and SSI).  If you add in unemployment, the percentage goes up, the point is that now we have a larger population that are not productive members of society.  So this percentage always are "taking" and not "giving" back, the private sector are the only ones who truly give, but obviously this is no where near enough as can be seen by our government now being insolvent.  It is as simple as living beyond ones means and not being productive enough to bring in more needed cash.  Ultimately in the near future, if we do not innovate the next PC or the internet, an economic collapse is around the corner, I grew up in a third world country and we are artificially buoyed. 

[ytowner]

news and views.....do conservatives have a plan to strengthen Ohio besides cut taxes and services?

I think NOT!!!!!

When green technologies actually produce jobs, then you can talk.

[irishbobcat]

news and views.....do conservatives have a plan to strengthen Ohio besides cut taxes and services?

I think NOT!!!!!

[ytowner]

yawn

[irishbobcat]

How to Strengthen Ohio's Economy
How can we strengthen Ohio's economy? We need a buildup. We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering. We need to launch an E.T.,energy technology, revolution with the same urgency as this bailout. Otherwise, all we will have done is bought ourselves a respite, but not a future. The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy — from green-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs. Our No. 1
resource is our people. Let's put people back to work-

retrofitting and repowering Ohio!