Between 1999 and November 2009, Ohio lost 418,000 manufacturing jobs. And for a long time, well before the recession, Ohio's unemployment rate was higher than the nation's. At 9.4 percent, it still is, but improvement is on the way. And green energy is one reason.
Ohio is one of the many states—targeted by Republicans for whom anything green is a red flag—that has a renewable energy standard. Three years ago, Ohio mandated that, by 2025, 12.5 percent of electricity sold in the state must come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Another 12.5 percent must come from alternatives, such as nuclear power, natural gas and so-called "clean coal." That's going to be an uphill climb since currently Ohio only has 10 megawatts of installed wind-power operations and a little more than that in solar power. A single coal-fired plant typically has a rated capacity 600 megawatts or more.
But there's movement in the right direction in Ohio thanks to operations like Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co., the maker of bolts for wind turbines visited by Barack Obama two years ago just days before his inauguration. That visit was the first of many that the President has made throughout the country—mostly in the Midwest—to tout what is the closest thing the country has to an industrial plan: public investment in green manufacturing and related projects.
In the $800 billion stimulus package, $90 billion was appropriated for this: investments in residential weatherization, public transportation, innovation and manufacturing. Since then, there have been many complaints that most of the money has arrived too slowly, and that the jobs this investment was supposed to create have been too paltry.
The reality is that fully revving up green manufacturing will require many years of public and private investment. And as much as it galls deficit hawks, it will require a great deal more than $90 billion from Washington. The Chinese government is putting $738 billion into green energy alone over the next decade. That's in addition to the vast amounts it's putting into new and rebuilt infrastructure, including modern public transportation.
The environmental benefits of green investment speak for themselves. Less carbon dioxide will be flung into the atmosphere, less toxic waste will be produced, in short, there will be reduced impacts all around. But the impact that gets too little media attention—and then, usually, it's negative—is the long-term impact on jobs.
Cardinal Fastener is one small success story. As Maria Galucci at SolveClimate relates, by adding wind-turbine manufacturers to the list of buyers it sells its hot-forged bolts to, the company has been able to double its revenue in less than four years and add 25 workers to its 40-employee payroll.
The company's bolts will be used in the 55 turbines built by Vestas, the Danish wind manufacturing giant, for a 99-megawatt wind farm in northwestern Ohio by developer Paulding Wind Farm II LLC, a subsidiary of Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy.
The fastener maker also works with nearly 15 other turbine builders, including Gamesa SA, a prominent Spanish firm, in addition to more than 100 global suppliers involved in the fabrication, transportation, construction and maintenance of the some 8,000 parts needed to build wind turbines.
Much like Cardinal Fastener, Ohio's 21,250 manufacturing companies are well positioned to add the clean energy supply chain to their traditional client base of automotive, aerospace and original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, industries. …
"We make a lot of stuff that goes into stuff—gears, transmissions, breaks, sheet metal," said Scott Miller, director of energy and environment programs at Ohio University's Voinovich School of Leadership & Public Affairs. "A lot of that always went into the automotive sector, but these days those are the exact same components that go into a wind turbine."
Miller contributed to a February report by the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) ranking Ohio as the No. 2 state for wind turbine manufacturing behind California.
ELPC spokesperson Peter Gray said: "We're trying to show in realistic terms what green jobs and renewable energy means, specifically in the Midwest ... and especially in the supply chain, which sometimes gets overlooked."
The study highlights firms such as the century-old Cincinnati Gearing System, a precision gear and transmission maker that now directs nearly 25 percent of its business to demand for wind turbine engines. Crown Battery, an 80-year-old battery manufacturing facility outside of Toledo, added storage products for wind and solar energy systems to its production line in 2009.
Except for earmarked projects they can put their names on, most Republicans (and some Democrats) view public investment in anything that doesn't have a military purpose as anathema, un-American. In fact, without government subsidies and innovation funded by public monies, the U.S. economy would never have been as successful as it was.
Politicians, both the myopic and the malicious, together with their billionaire patrons, seek to do all they can to keep us on the dead-end path set for us by Ronald Reagan 30 years ago. Unless our smarter, more progressive leaders commit to vast sums for green investment and combine this public money with green policies, the economic deterioration plaguing us now will worsen, along with the environment.
Some will argue that now is not the time because the House of Representatives is in the hands of the most anti-environment, pro-oligarchy crew in more than a century. They will say the President isn't bold enough. Funny how our enemies never stop trying to accomplish their agenda because they are told it's impossible. Do you suppose their unwillingness to surrender despite the odds is what has made them so successful?
The Green Diary Rescue, which appears every Saturday, begins below and continues in the jump.
Climate Change
Bill McKibben explained how Glenn Beck Is Coming After 350.org: "This past Friday evening, Glenn Beck spent his program explaining about a "communistic" conspiracy that included 10 groups in America. One was 350.org, a global campaign to fight climate change that I helped found three years ago. He even put our logo up on his whiteboard - and next to it a hammer and sickle. Say this for Glenn Beck, he works fast. Less than 48 hours after we launched our campaign to let businesses say that the US Chamber of Commerce didn't represent them, Beck hit back. A true friend of Chamber (here's a picture of him, broadcasting from their roof; certainly worth the $10,000 he donated from his $32 million earnings), he put little old 350.org up on his board Friday night next to a hammer and sickle."
World Bank Action—London:
Free us from fossil fuels’ demands climate chain gang
boatsie reported on Fossil Fools: World Bank Day of Action: "Today is the International Day of action against the World Bank's ongoing and increasing funding of fossil fuels, and photos are streaming in from rallies in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Johannesburg and other cities across the globe. And as the United States waits—jittery prisoners, all, of learned helplessness and collective ennui—for the vast right wing climate denial machine to shoot down funding for the EPA, with threats of a government shutdown hovering over our amygdala-heavy heads, the Sierra Club provides We, America's armchair eco ranters, with an online hyperlinked primer of tools for virtual engagement. Replete with samples you can just cut and paste and a petition right on the same page if 1 click away is just too demanding of you."
logo photo credit: Sean Dreilinger
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