Open Memo to President - Elect Obama (Part 4) – 1 Green Building = 1/3 New Green Job
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
Parts 1 through 3 of EnergyTechStocks.com’s recent “Open Memo to President-elect Obama” (see story links below) added up to a giant warning to investors that the new U.S. president probably won’t be able to bolster the overall economy by following through on his campaign promise to create five million new “green” jobs for the following reasons:
1. U.S. companies don’t control most of the hiring in wind, solar and other green power industries. Foreign firms do.
2. Building more wind turbines and solar panels is nice, but without first developing electricity “storage” technology, these “intermittent” green power sources can’t be connected to a power grid that already has major reliability problems. Developing appropriate storage technology could take five years or longer.
3. The new president will be limited in the number of green jobs he can create in areas such as “clean coal” by green extremists such as Al Gore, whose agenda unrealistically calls for eliminating all coal-fired power plants within 10 years.
But a new study from the big cleantech investment firm Good Energies indicates another path the Obama administration could take to create, if not five million, maybe upwards of 500,000 new green jobs.
According to the study – entitled “Greening Buildings and Communities: Costs and Benefits” – an average size green office building creates one-third of a permanent job per building, equal to roughly $1/square foot of value in increased employment, compared to a similar non-green building.
Why are jobs created when a building goes green?
“Green buildings create jobs by shifting spending from fossil fuel-based energy to domestic energy efficiency, construction, renewable energy and other green jobs,” the study concluded.
Still, doesn’t a green building cost more to build and maintain?
“Energy and water savings alone outweigh the initial cost premium in most green buildings (which) cost, on average, less than 2% more to build than conventional non-green buildings,” the study concluded.
Given that the U.S. has upwards of one million office buildings, very few of which are green, if the Good Energies study is correct, there may be at least 300,000 and perhaps as many as 500,000 new jobs waiting to be created just by greening America’s office buildings.
November 30th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
There is a great new book out called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence NOW by Jeff Wilson. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in alternative energy. http://www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com