Bright Possibilities Make Obama's Green Jobs Plan Very Possible

Marla Dickerson reports in the Los Angeles Times that there is a very high probability that Barack Obama's green jobs program will be successful. Green jobs firms are popping up all over the country. One of many growing success stories can be found in Hemlock, Michigan "the home of Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. It makes a material crucial for constructing photovoltaic panels. And that has turned this snow-covered hamlet into an unlikely hotbed for solar energy... Hemlock's quartz-based polycrystalline silicon is in such demand that workers in white smocks and protective gear toil around the clock to get it to customers around the globe. Hemlock has been deluged with applications from idle factory hands such as former autoworker Don Sloboda. The 50-year-old Saginaw resident has been retraining at a local community college for what he hopes is the region's new engine of job growth. "It looks like the future to me," Sloboda said. "President-elect Barack Obama wants to spend $150 billion over the next decade to promote energy from the sun, wind and other renewable sources as well as energy conservation. Plans include raising vehicle fuel-economy standards and subsidizing consumer purchases of plug-in hybrids. Obama wants to weatherize 1 million homes annually and upgrade the nation's creaky electrical grid. His team has talked of providing tax credits and loan guarantees to clean-energy companies. His goals: create 5 million new jobs repowering America over 10 years; assert U.S. leadership on global climate change; and wean the U.S. from its dependence on imported petroleum." Obama hammered home the point throughout the presidential campaign that: "Breaking our oil addiction . . . is going to take nothing less than the complete transformation of our economy... Renewable-energy proponents such as former California Treasurer Phil Angelides ... heads the Apollo Alliance, a coalition promoting clean industries as a means of rebuilding U.S. manufacturing and lessening the nation's dependence on foreign oil." Angelides believes U.S. energy policy needs to dump dependence on oil: "It's the best path to recovery and the best chance of creating jobs that can't be outsourced," he said. "Oakland activist Van Jones, author of "The Green Collar Economy... said Obama's proposal to weatherize homes would pay for itself through energy savings while putting legions of unemployed construction workers back on the job. A $100-billion investment in a green recovery could create 2 million jobs within two years, a good chunk of them in retrofitting, according to a recent University of Massachusetts study... You can employ a lot of people very quickly with off-the-shelf technology like caulk guns," said Jones, founder of Green for All, an economic development group. "This isn't George Jetson stuff." More entrepreneurial opportunities are taking shape as costs for wind and solar power fall. "Some advocates say U.S. government support is needed to keep the sector moving forward. That strategy has worked for Germany and Japan: Neither is blessed with abundant sunshine, yet these nations boast more rooftop solar arrays than anyplace else, thanks largely to government subsidies. That has created vibrant domestic markets for solar power and tens of thousands of jobs. Asian and European solar module makers dominate the industry." Many states; dissatisfied by the lack of alternative energy focus by the Bush Administration, started their own programs to boost green jobs and became more involved with environmental issues. "Tough state mandates to cut greenhouse gases and boost the use of renewable energy have turned California into the nation's hottest market for solar energy. Installers such as SolarCity of Foster City continue to hire even as the rest of California's economy stalls. Pennsylvania used incentives to lure Spanish wind-turbine maker Gamesa Technology Corp. to set up shop in an old steel facility. The company now employs more than 1,000 workers in the state, most of them unionized. New Mexico is diversifying its mineral-based economy with green technology. Germany's Schott Solar is building a $100-million plant near Albuquerque and the state is grooming wind power technicians at Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, one of only a few such programs in the country. Trained wind workers are in such demand that General Electric Co., a maker of turbines, has promised to hire every Mesalands graduate for the next three years." In Michigan, former factory employees are being aided by the state's "Green Job Initiative... Michigan's brightest renewable stars are in solar. United Solar Ovonic, a major producer of thin-film photovoltaics, operates three manufacturing facilities in Michigan and has two more under construction in the state." The above mentioned "Hemlock Semiconductor is a joint venture of two Japanese firms and Midland, Mich.-based Dow Corning Corp., which owns a majority stake. It is expanding its rural campus not far from Saginaw and building a plant in Tennessee to produce more polycrystalline silicon -- a semiconductor that allows solar cells to convert sunlight into electricity... Rich Steudemann ... (a) mechanical engineer with more than two decades in the auto industry,.. (observes) This is like the era of Henry Ford,.. This industry is just starting to take off." Success stories such as these provide a strong compliment to the can do attitude of American employers and employees. It gives Americans hope that Obama's pledge to witness the transformation of our oil-based economy into a new, self-sufficient economic powerhouse can really happen; making the lives of all Americans that much more satisfying and beneficial.