Green Energy Future
This article brings up a point I've always tried to make about emerging technologies and small businesses - or even large businesses (BP Solar LLC, for example) is this: they're widgets. You've got to build things with metal and rivets and cogs and such. This means manufacturing jobs. This means people are employed implementing this tech, and not at WalMart or other Big Box stores, so they're much higher-paying, non part-time minimum wage stuff that we've been forced into by the progeny of Sam Walton.Green tech, whether it be in fuels (ethanol, solar) or in envoronmental remediation (better SOx and NOx scrubbers) is the next small-business wave and will only help by actually improving our manufacturing base instead of shipping it to fucking China. As a point of reference, when President Hu of China was in the US this past year, he stated in a press conference that 90% of what USED to be manufactured in the US of A is now manufactured in China. That's a huge change in the balance of power. We just dont make enough stuff here in the US. Go Green!
posted by jimboses @ 12:53 PM
1 Comments:
Thank you Jimboses. I like these thoughts. It's the 'opportunity in the crisis' perspective. The artivle is all about Solar Photo Voltaics (for zero-emmission electricity). Other imporatant green technologies also create jobs. Passive Solar Thermal (for zero-emmission hot water and radiant floor heat) employs plumbers, as does Compressed Natural Gas (for near-zero emmission driving), and GeoExchange Heat Pumps (for lower-emmission Heat, AC, hot water), which also employs HVAC, elctricians, and bedrock drillers. Wind towers (for zero-emmission electricity) mean tower builders, engineers, and electricians. The trouble with the green technology shift seems largely to be that it's usually a slow return on investment - good to great overall - but decidedly long-range, and that slows down it's adoption by the common (cash-strapped) man. Given that we as a nation hold world's biggest nuisance status on consumption and pollution, it may make sense to let federal tax money support a hefting of the nation through the transition to more sustainable systems, to improve our standing as a global neighbor, to improve our resource self reliance, and to improve our own health. We'd be investing in our own quality of life, both in the short term (jobs, economy, international standing) and in the long term (efficiency, security, carbon reduction, global stewardship) in very tangible terms.
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