Really? Yes. Indeed.
Four million direct and indirect jobs can be created in the next six years or soon if U.S. is willing to change its current direction and its dependence on old technology.
Why are our political leaders silent when Americans are dreaming for a better future? Lobbyists.
Let's start from the basics.
Jobs are created when businesses, companies, organizations, government departments, and institutions need people to work in order to build and deliver their products and services.
These employers need revenue from sales to pay salaries and other expenses. They also need investments to be able to develop products and services that there is demand for.
Additionally, they need part of the investment to be capital in-hand in order to recruit and employ people, to provide the products and services, and to pay for overheads and expenses. Now this is a simple model and a everyone would agree that it is very straight forward model of operating a business.
The important part of all of this is that the company needs to make profit to stay in business.
A business needs to generate revenue by selling, and after deducting its expense, it should have a profit in order to continue its operation.
Profitability depends heavily on two things: 1) Sales; and, 2) Expenses.
If you can keep expenses down, then you are more likely to have profitability with the same level of sales.
The main advantage of investing in renewable sources of energy is that the cost of energy can be reduce and hence the overhead costs (expenses) are reduced resulting in higher profitability.
Investing in renewable energy such as solar, wind and the use of municipal and agricultural waste for fuel can produce four million lasting jobs in America simply because it results in overall reduction of expenses (reducing cost of doing business and improving profitability and allowing expansion of operations).
Energy resources are among the most important resources to mankind today because business operation depends heavily on the cost of energy.
Your current employer needs to pay for energy for office/plant energy or electricity costs as well as the products/services/parts your employer purchases from vendors.
Vendors have incorporated their cost of energy, electricity, shipping, trucking, etc. for production and manufacturing into their pricing.
When you drive to work you have to pay for energy (gasoline) and when you are at home, you have to pay for energy for heating and cooling (gas or electric bills).
All the offices and factories in America use energy and pass their expenses on their customers through the price of products and services they provide.
Restaurants need electricity (or gas) to cook food, have lighting in the restaurant, and pay for fuel costs for delivery of fresh produce and meet each day. Reducing cost of energy increases profitability and reduces expenses for everyone.
This much is obvious to everybody.
Now let's consider the cost of energy, in terms of transportation and the unit price of energy itself.
What do you think is cheaper, bringing a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf to Denver, Colorado nearly 8,000 miles, or building a solar panel in Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, or Washington that can produce the same amount of energy as a barrel of oil?
A solar panel array (consisting of solar modules) can continually produce electricity for about 10 years (or more with new designs) before being replaced. There are even more advanced designs for thermal collectors that last as long as 20 years and they are cheap and easy to build and maintain.
Let's compare this to the price for each barrel of oil shipped from Saudi Arabia and then calculate the cost associated to transportation.
1 barrel of oil = 5,800,000 BTUs = 1,706 KWH ( since 3,400 BTUs = 1 KWH)
Source: Department of Energy
A standard panel of Polycrystalline PV cell Solar Panel module will produce and average of 4.8 KWH.
To equate the energy production of one barrel of oil (for comparison purposes) we would need 355 modules in an array, and at a (higher end) cost of $11 per module, we would need $3,900 investment to produce the equivalent of one barrel of oil - one time.
But when you have the solar array (with all the modules), you could produce the equivalent of that barrel of oil for 10 years, at little or no additional cost.
10 year cost of producing 1,706 KWH (1 barrel) with Solar Array = $1.06 per day
Now transportation cost of 1 barrel of oil from the Persian Gulf to a port in U.S. is $3.50 and if you add the cost for transporting of 1 barrel of oil per day for 10 years (to compare with a solar array), it would equate to $12,775 - just for transportation costs.
The oil for 10 years on average price of only $50 per barrel would amount to $182,500 with a total (inclusive of transportation cost) 10 year cost reaching $195,275.
10 year cost of 1 barrel of oil per day= aprox. $200,000 ; 10 year cost of solar array= aprox. $5,000
10 year cost of heating/cooling a house in U.S. = aprox. $11K with oil ; aprox. $710 with solar
The numbers speak for themselves. The problem is that the initial cost of conversion.
Whether you pay for your house to be converted or, on a larger scale, a company invests in developing a plant for manufacturing solar modules at a cost of $30 million, it is quite clear the investment is absolutely viable and the world is not going to stop needing energy.
Now you are probably thinking, why have we not done this already on a large scale?
Who would prefer to see the renewable sources marginalized?
The answer is, all those that have vested interest in the oil infrastructure, such as: oil shipping transportation companies, oil companies, oil storage companies, transportation port authorities that receive shipping fees, oil shipping insurance companies, exploration companies, shipping manufacturers, fossil fuel power plants, trucking companies, power plants, steam turbine designers and manufacturers, institutional investors in the oil industry, gas station owners, and the huge lobby groups supporting the entire industry.
They are all very powerful organizations who have invested in the oil economy and want to first receive return on their investments before seeing a transition to renewable resources that would cut through their profits.
Now I am not proposing to stop oil consumption overnight. What I am suggesting is to invest in the renewable energy to compensate for the global energy increase (about 3% annually now) that is needed instead of relying on fossil fuels only as a major source of our energy.
2011 Figures:
U.S. Petroleum Consumption 19,750,000 barrels/day
U.S. Motor Gasoline Consumption 9,750,000 barrels/day (~400 million gallons/day)
Share of US Oil Consumption for Transportation 70%
U.S. Total Petroleum Exports 1,500,000 barrels/day (most of this goes to Israel as financial Aid - i.e. free)
U.S. Crude Oil Production 4,950,000 barrels/day
U.S. Crude Oil Imports 10,031,000 barrels/day
U.S. Petroleum Product Imports 3,637,000 barrels/day
U.S. Net Petroleum Imports 12,036,000 barrels/day
Dependence on Net Petroleum Imports 60.4%
Top U.S. Crude Oil Supplier Canada - 2,925,000 barrels/day
Top U.S. Total Petroleum Supplier Canada - 2,650,000 barrels/day
U.S. Crude Oil Imports from OPEC 6,150,000 barrels/day
U.S. Petroleum Product Imports from OPEC 640,000 barrels/day
State Ranking of Crude Oil Production Texas - 1,125,000 barrels/day
Top U.S. Producing Companies (2009) BP - 715,000 barrels/day
Top U.S. Oil Fields by Production (2009) Prudhoe Bay, AK
Top Oil Producing Countries & Exporters #1 - Saudi Arabia (12,200 bbls/day in 2006)
Top Oil Consuming Countries & Importers #1 - United States (19,500,000 bbls/day)
At $75/barrel, U.S. spends = $560 billion for crude oil per year ($5.6 trillion in 10 years)
At $100/barrel, U.S. spends = $750 billion for crude oil per year ($7.5 trillion in 10 years)
Many organizations including, The Berkeley Research Center, The Kato Institute, National Organization for Science and Environment, High Technology Management Research, and others have conducted detailed research analysis and universally agree that investing between $75-$300 billion (combined figure from all the research findings) in the renewable resources industry will create 4 million jobs in 6 years.
These are mostly high paying jobs that cannot be shipped away to china, or India, or Philippines.
The researchers suggest that increasing renewable energy use alone in the next 2 years can create 240,000 in agricultural biomass burning and more than double this many jobs by 2020. Solar power can be used in only 5% of the massive non-usable desert land in California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada and replace 40% of our nation's heating oil consumption with an investment of $160 billion which saves our country more than $830 billion ($50/barrel parity) over the next 10 years.
As we develop our renewable energy infrastructure, plants, technology, and expertise, U.S. can once again become an exporter of high-end skills and technology and received premium for its intellectual property.
We certainly cannot complete with cheap labor force, not with Asian, South American, or African countries. Most importantly we can increase value of output per unit value of labor.
This is the way to compete in the future global economy.
By investing in all of our current renewable technology and existing infrastructure we can double the number of jobs in a single year and improve efficiencies that reduce business expenses and in a short period of time fund the project itself.
And at the same time protect future jobs by building skills and expertise in solar energy, wind power, hydrogen and fuel cells, bioenergy, geothermal energy, ocean thermal and wave energy.
Jerry Steiner is an American Author and a manufacturing consultant. Jerry grew up in the Westminster neighborhood near Huntington Beach in Southern California and attended Edison High School. He obtained his engineering degree from Stanford University and his post graduate from Oxford University in England. He has worked for a half dozen manufacturing companies providing quality management consulting and has introduced constant quality improvement in every aspect of manufacturing cycle. He has been a WritersViews.com member since 2008 and can be reached via our contact page, writer ID 6294.
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posted by: Carol Pavel - May 19th, 2012 at 7:32pm |
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| I read a lot of news out of Europe and I find it disturbing that they are so far ahead of us and they take renewable energy very seriously. They invest so heavily and produce so many jobs from their forward thinking approach. In Geneva Auto show they had 14 cars (most in production) that are green (or greener) cars. Yet in U.S. we , ... More >> | ||||
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posted by: Andrea Bay - May 19th, 2012 at 5:57pm |
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| Actually, GN is using Lithium-ion batteries with its hybrid cars and these will improve mileage by %12-%15. The cars include, Saturn Aura, And Chevrolet Malibu. Cellulosic biorefinery can create 2,200 jobs and increase local economy by $1 billion , ... More >> | ||||
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posted by: Gene Henson - May 19th, 2012 at 3:10pm |
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| First 'hydrokinetic' power project was approved by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is good news. But I read that Toyota and GM both severely dislike the fuel cells saying that they are way too expensive for mass-market and it will not make hybrids affordable for a long time. , ... More >> | ||||
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posted by: Kevin Bossco - May 19th, 2012 at 11:48am |
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| India's annual renewable energy market is US $7 billion. Australia, Britain, France, and Italy are on fast-track renewable energy funding. But in U.S. we are falling behind and have to pay Spain $103 million for concentrated photovoltaics products, technology, and installation fees , ... More >> | ||||
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posted by: Tim Smith - May 19th, 2012 at 9:28am |
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| MIT has a new multicrystalline solar cell that is 27% more efficient than conventional cells while keeping costs about the same. Current solar cells cost about $2.10 per watt generated. New cells incorporating this technology will cost $1.65 per watt and once expected improvements are complete, they will reduce the cost to about $1.30 a wat , ... More >> | ||||
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