When it comes to job creators of the future, the line starts at cleantech and ends … well, it doesn’t end.
According to the Ecotech Institute, job postings in the “clean jobs” sector skyrocketed almost 90 percent in the first half of 2014, bringing the grand total past the 2.5 million benchmark. Ecotech also found that over a million jobs had been created in the same period, led by the solar and utility sectors, which doubled year-over-year. Electrical engineering and wind weren’t far behind, with year-over-year job growth of 74 and 65 percent, respectively, with the most attractive states for all clean jobs being unsurprisingly led by left coasters like Oregon, Washington and California.
But there’s nowhere to go but up for all of America’s states, whose individual performance has been compiled by Ecotech in a handy interactive Clean Jobs index. “[It] really demonstrates the rapid growth of the sustainable energy industry,” Ecotech Institute dean Chris Gorrie explained in a press release. “Almost double the clean jobs were posted in the first half of 2014 compared to the first half of 2013.”
Drilling down, Ecotech pulls its data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ green jobs database — which splits its definition between an output approach identifying “establishments that produce green goods and services,” and a process approach identifying “establishments that use environmentally friendly production processes and practices and counts the associated jobs” — as well as “independent research entities” like American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, US Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy and more. These broad definitions gives the clean jobs data enough wiggle room to sneak in, say, the construction industry, which produces green jobs but also plenty of dirty ones.
But the zero-net writing is on the wall, especially when it comes to solar employment.
According to Solar Energies Industry Association’s sister organization The Solar Foundation, which annually conducts a solar jobs census, last year the sector added jobs at ten times the national average, a number which is sure to rise as adoption accelerates. And it is, according to CleanTechnica, whose infographics offer convincing support to the argument that solar is becoming the fastest-growing power sector in the nation, if not the world. As CleanTechnica notes, career paths in solar panel design, sales, installation and maintenance are blazing trails worldwide, which is helping pull us all out of a Great Recession bogged down by the 20th century’s unsustainable industries like oil, gas and coal.
The hits keep on coming. The Solar Permitting Efficiency Act in already sunny California could lower the cost of residential solar, which in turn would add even more jobs to the state, according to the Los Angeles Times. The bright idea is going viral in still-depressed regions like Michigan, where solar factories are sprouting up from the soil of desiccating carmakers. That photovoltaic momentum is hurtling around the planet: A recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water found that India’s solar market has grown a hundredfold in four short years, creating over 70,000 jobs in the process.
But the process is just beginning. Just wail until the solar windows empowered by quantum dots arrive, or better. From Main Street to Wall Street, solar has gone supernova, emphatically incinerating excuses for coal, nukes or “natural gas” along with it. About time.
This article appeared at Solar Energy