Can Green Jobs Drive a Recovery?

a lot of creative thinkers bestowing the word "Green" to everything they deem yields an increase in perceived value.

$$$$

good answer

Well, I suppose it depends on where and how much these green jobs contribute to the overall health of the economy. Since these jobs do not do harm, that recommends them. If they increase US energy independence, that recommends them. For the US, as well, if they represent an area of growth, then that recommends them.

These factors certainly may justify government support.

What the percentage of the nations total employment is today is not what it might be tomorrow, nor is that percentage going to reflect the overall benefits that may well accrue.

Certainly if moves towards advancing US energy independence result.

Some of these technologies are of course greener than others.

I have become convinced that it will be of benefit for the US to expand its use of Natural Gas for instance. For one thing it is apparently plentiful within US borders.

For another increasing use of it for US transportation needs may help keep gasoline prices down, as it represents competition.

(How and who sets the price for NG is a matter for study, and may well call for further government regulation. Right now my own knowledge of the facts concerning what and whom actually determines the prices for NG, LP, or CNG are not complete.)

Overall however I strongly endorse US energy independence, and access to as much energy at the lowest possible costs, for this tact will help underpin whatever other industries who may attempt to compete internationally.

Green methods for energy production do represent transformational products as well, and in our past transformational products such as automobiles transformed and strengthened the US economy as they replaced horses, and computers represented a whole set of both hardware and software transformations that advanced US wealth, not to mention what trains did for the strength of the Nation, transformational products and inventions that provide green energy will help, regardless of whatever direct employment they provide.

"Since these jobs do not do harm, that recommends them."

Well, there is no set government or any agency standards (independent or otherwise) for defining "Green", so people make up whatever they think the public will buy. By no means does the word "Green" guarantee there is no harm involved.

Come on AH, you knew I didn't buy that whole hog.

I thought I made that clear enough.

Go ahead and rewrite it so you approve and see if "Does less Harm." works for you.

Several of us have been working on this for a couple of years. Me mostly. I have no degree, but from what I have read,half way down. I see no inovative thinking. Yes we are financialy in a mess from hell but, The sun and refrigerant can make way more energy than all of our power plants combined. With only the waste heat I can be rich.

www.solarthermalelectric.org On my life savings this project rides. Any constructive critisism is welcome as well as help. We need to do this for all of us and the Earth. If you are a nay sayer on climate change, open your eyes and be less selfish. This planet is for all of it's inhabitants, not just the pushy rich dudes.

Thanks for thinking, Nick Landherr

Hi Nick,

1st register

2nd start some threads

Your site is a little awkward to use on a laptop, captions would be nice on the photos.

What about parabolic trough, which could be built out of wood much like a skate board ramp & covered with mylar film. Tracking becomes much easier only seasonal adjustments [if any] needed.

I'm really sorry to hear that you have invested your life savings into your thermal storage/conversion project. I think perhaps you should have invested a little time in talking to a real thermodynamics engineer to explain to you why everyone in the world is not using a system that you have described as the answer to "no innovating thinking". I think your basic conceptual idea is to heat up a medium (water) from solar energy. from this hot water you will heat many homes in the winter, generate electricity to power these homes and refrigerate them in summer. -- All from a bucket of hot water! Please before you go any further, talk to a power conversion expert and have him crunch some numbers for you. It could save you a lot of work and years of R&D.

You will need these feasibility numbers to attract any investors to your project.

My biggest problem with the "Green" concept is that it is going to be a good excuse to run the US (and, thus the rest of the world) further into debt without providing real benefit to society. Send your unemployed out to plant trees- gets them off the streets, is definitely a "green" activity, a whole lot cheaper than most of the proposals being floated around, and, while the jury might still be out on the effects of such an effort on climate, it surely can cause no harm. Besides, trees are pretty...

I think economist Paul Krugman had it about right when he said that what we will get out of this is a 'Green Bubble'. We will throw a lot of money into this, some of it will be wasted, some will bring positive results, and after a while we will move on to the 'next big thing'. In the 'dot.com' bubble we saw people with more money than brains dive into a fledgling market that they didn't really understand, and they blew a big pile of money. In the end however, we are left with a lot of great infrastructure - the system that makes this discussion possible.

But we really don't have any realistic alternative. We cannot continue to ship $600 billion per year overseas to pay for our imported oil, nor can we continue to fund the huge military budget required to keep the trade routes open. There is already a huge global market for alternative energy systems, and it is growing. We can tool up and compete for a share of this market, or we can sit on the sidelines waiting for the lights to go out. I think it would have been better to use private capital to develop and implement these technologies, because there is a good chance the money would have been spent more wisely.

But instead we poured our money into the 'smoke and mirrors' financial and real estate markets, military spending and foreign 'adventures', and bloated spending for health care. We have well and truly messed up a good thing. Unless we learn to compete in the global economy by producing things people want to buy at reasonable prices, the lights will stay off for a long time. Green technologies offers one such market that is compatible with our skill sets: engineering and manufacturing large and hi-tech equipment.

One big difference. The dot com bubble was a private sector induced event. The green bubble is a government induced event.

Would you consider organic food part of the green bubble?

the increase in consumption of organic food is driven by the market.

You can say environmental regulations are government induced. Clean air & water are not profit centers, the private sector is only interested in ROI, unless there are regulatory incentives otherwise.

If you think that Green Jobs are going to drive recovery, check your wallet in two years. It will be empty. We are not there yet, and all the smoke and mirrors are not going to get us there. Neither will the trillions of dollars spent and the million jobs that was Saved? What did I say? Oh! or the million jobs created, but, I haven't seen them yet. I know! We can go into debt, pay wages to generate green jobs with funny money, pay ridiculous amounts for energy all go broke and live happy ever after off the government. yea, good idea!

Gee didn't the trillions of dollars of debt go toward bailing out, the lending industry after deregulation? Talk about smoke & mirrors.

The devaluation of the dollar & the continuing rise in the price of energy is going to tend to bring manufacturing back to the US.

The price of energy is being driven by demand, china & india [among others] want to live the same lifestyle we do & that requires energy & lots of it.

Money is by definition "funny" The only true & accurate medium of exchange is barter, which isn't exactly practical for everything.

As I said, it would have been better if private sector money had been used, but the private sector had other priorities: a housing bubble and the looting of our financial institutions.

And I would argue that it was largely 'government' policy that lead to the accumulation of more and more money in fewer and fewer hands, which lead inexorably to the emergence of a class of people with vastly more money than brains. These were the dollars that fed the dot.com bubble.

My goal is to use nuclear fusion to heat and cool my house.

I have done the following:

1) Insulation. If a perfectly engineered situation, if you have no heat loss (or gain), you will not have to heat or cool your house. Each individual's metabolism contributes about 70 watts towards heating (that of course is dependent on the individuals size and metabolism, but that is typical for an adult). The first dollars spent on reducing energy expenses should go towards closing air leaks, followed by improved windows, followed by ceiling insulation, then wall insulation, then floor insulation. I'm working on an insulation method based on vacuum methods (think of a glass vacuum thermos for coffee).

2) Water heating. I have designed fluid solar panels that can capture incident solar radiation for $500 for 4 square meters that provides all the hot water that you would need.

3) Space heating is more difficult to engineer. I use a combination of fluid and air panels. The air panels are used during the spring winter and fall, with the solar panels storing heat in non-pressurized plastic water tanks for use at night and during periods of no sun.

4) I use four 80 watt photovoltaic panels, three 100AHr sealed lead acid batteries to power Peltier refrigerators, the fluid panel circulators, air panel absorber fans, lights and appliances. (I use the air panels to dry clothes in a retro fitted electric clothes dryer in the fall, summer and spring when they're not needed as much for space heating). The system is all DC so an inverter isn't needed. All traditional household appliances had to be re-engineered to meet my goals.

5) 55 degree ground water is sufficient for air conditioning needs during the summer, without a heat pump. (1 BTU is the amount of heat needed to heat (or cool) one pound of water).

The nuclear fusion I mentioned in the first line is the sun, of course. I've spent 20 years doing the engineering so that the solutions are cost effective towards traditional heating and cooling expenses for the equipment, but primarily the recurring fuel costs. The designs are independent of the important CO2 issues.

Watch for the products that will be available for everyone to use next year. Everything in these systems are in test right now, component suppliers are being evaluated, patents are in work, and data is being collected. Commercial off the shelf products are currently available now but are too expensive.

I anticipate that this will create many jobs, as the products will be truly cost effective. They require low capital to construct and I know that there are many who would like to work. This could only have been possible with the Internet and international blogs, and the existence of companies would already manufacture the readily available components.