Clean Energy Innovations: Mitigating Climate Change, Creating Jobs

Last week I saw Daniel Kammen, a professor at UC Berkeley, speak about innovation in the clean energy and policy field. One of the things he talked about was the need to reach positive tipping points in the field of renewable energy. To do pass that tipping point, the innovation happening at the fringe needs to move towards the center.

There have been reports lately of renewable energy growing quickly. However, some perspective needs to be tied to these reports. Though energy from wind power in the US increased 39% last year, it still only accounts for less than 2% of total consumption. Solar accounts for even less, barely registering 0.1% of total US energy use. To make a meaningful impact on mitigating climate change, these technologies need to become more widespread.

As I've talked about, clean, independent energy is an issue that's a winner with the US public. Even people who don't support climate change legislation can get behind this issue. The language is one of the keys to its appeal. There are very few people who have positive associations with the word "dirty." And in our security-focused state, the idea of independent also has very powerful connotations. How about adding a third way to sell clean energy: jobs.

While there are claims that the Great Recession is waning, with consumer spending up 2%, it's still only half of where a robust economy should be. And we're still standing at 10% unemployment. Job creation is a powerful message in this environment, and it provides a positive alternative to just hammering away on how buying oil lines the pockets of foreign nations that may harbor terrorists. People want a positive message; its what spurs action and gives hope.

So how positive can we make the message of clean energy jobs? For starters while 70-80% of the money that's paid for a barrel of oil goes predominantly into the resource itself, the majority of money invested in clean energy goes straight into job creation. The resource is free, but the cost of building and monitoring solar or wind farms is mostly human capital. The big challenge is of course storing these transient sources of power. That's the billion dollar question.

By putting more financial resources towards answering that question and building the clean energy infrastructure of the future, though, we can start to move innovation more towards the center. The sooner Main Street is powered by renewable energy, the more likely we are to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The investments we make in clean energy may also just happen to have highly beneficial effects in the present: jobs that put people back to work and get our economy on track.

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