Fresh Trends: Emerging Technologies for Renewable Energy Jobs

Published on 2008-08-07

The law of unintended consequences has been especially unkind of late to the biofuels industry. Two years ago, palm oil was deemed a biofuel failure when harvesting led to deforestation and increased carbon dioxide emissions from drained swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia. Most recently, record-high food prices have been attributed in part to the diversion of about 20% of U.S. corn acres to ethanol. But not all of the biofuel news is bad. Brazil's long-standing ethanol fuel program has been a laudable success. Virtually every week, the media reports of a new breakthrough in solar power or green fuel technology. And last month, Worldwatch Institute released a study which found that renewable energy jobs have blossomed in countries where government and private-sector support is well established.

Brazil is arguably the best example of the role that government and public will plays in the creation of next-generation energy jobs. After the 1973 oil crisis, the Brazilian government initiated a program to move from fossil fuels to ethanol. Most Brazilian vehicles now run on an E25 blend (25% ethanol, 75% gasoline), though millions of cars also run on 100% hydrous ethanol. Flex-fuel and bi-fuel vehicles that can run on natural gas, 100% ethanol or an ethanol-gasoline blend have also become extremely popular. Brazil's reliance on ethanol has had a big impact on energy-sector employment. As of 2003, the nation's ethanol program provided almost 700,000 energy, production and agriculture related jobs.

Brazil uses conventional ethanol made from sugarcane, but cellulosic ethanol made from bagasse, a fibrous byproduct of cane processing, is already being produced there on a small scale; it could feasibly increase ethanol production at current planting levels by 30%. Cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass has been mentioned by President Bush and others as a potential source of clean energy in the U.S. Studies have found that switchgrass ethanol burns 94% cleaner than gasoline. Switchgrass could also create new agricultural jobs, because it can be grown on marginal farmland that's unsuitable for food crops.

A company in San Diego has received a lot of attention recently for an innovation that could eventually supplant traditional oil jobs. Sapphire Energy has developed an algae-derived biofuel that is chemically identical to crude oil. When burned, its only emission is the carbon dioxide it absorbed during growth. San Diego is a principal source of California biotechnology jobs, and the more than $50 million that Sapphire Energy has raised in venture capital is likely to bring even more attention to the city's thriving biotech sector.

Solar power has already become an interesting source of science related jobs in research and development. The results hold a lot of promise for future energy production and employment. Last month, for example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that a research team had discovered a new way to power buildings using transparent dyes painted on the surface of window glass. The dyes would gather and concentrate sunlight and then direct it to the edges of the glass, where photovoltaic cells would convert it to electricity. This technology could double the efficiency of existing solar panels and, according to the MIT team, could be implemented within three years.

Though all of these technologies may be years away from threatening the hegemony that oil careers have over America's energy sector, the Worldwatch Institute report suggests that the coming decade may see a rapid growth in fuel-related biotechnology jobs - provided, of course, that there is sufficient political and economic will. The Worldwatch study found that renewable energy is directly and indirectly responsible for the employment of 2.3 million people worldwide. Renewables accounted for about 200,000 jobs in the U.S., plus another 246,000 indirect jobs (e.g. supply, installation and maintenance jobs).

Worldwatch, an environmental research organization based in D.C., praised individual states rather than the federal government for supporting the creation of biotech jobs in alternative energy. One of the best examples of this is the long history of wind-power jobs in California. The capital that California energy services company Pacific Gas & Electric has invested in wind power is a part of the reason why, according to the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. recently surpassed Germany as the world's leading producer of wind power. The growth of wind power in the U.S. will help to attract new wind-related manufacturing jobs, about 4,000 of which have been created in the U.S. since 2007.

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