By Judith Ferster, OCG Conservation Chair

On May 20, the Orange-Chatham Group heard speakers on two topics: first, a proposed light rail system, and then green jobs.

Light rail

A team from GoTriangle presented plans for electrically-powered Light Rail Transit in the Durham-Orange corridor, a seventeen-mile track serving 17 stations between UNC Hospitals and Alston Avenue. It will run seven days/week, every ten minutes during peak times and every twenty minutes off-peak and weekends. See a virtual tour of the route (including some actual current conditions) below.

Funded by the ½-cent sales tax passed in 2011 and 2012, it will displace some people and roads, have several environmental reviews, and be operational by 2025-26.

Green jobs

Kathy Kaufman, EPA air quality policy analyst, spoke about green jobs. (She made clear that she was speaking for herself and not for the EPA.) The subject is complex and fraught because like many things these days, it has become very partisan. Environmentalists promise less pollution, more employment, and slowed global warming. Voicing such a promise, President Obama dedicated part of the stimulus to creating green jobs. Conservative economists predict less consumer choice, lowered consumer income, wasted taxes, and a slowed economy (if you want to see their case for this view, just search “cost of green jobs”). 

Kaufman started by generally defining jobs as green if they produce, store, and transmit renewable energy; increase the energy efficiency of buildings and transportation; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; recycle; conserve natural resources; or educate about environmental issues.

An important sector to study is energy efficiency. A large and dramatic example is the rehab of the Empire State building in New York City. The owners spent $13.2 million to raise the building to LEED Gold standards, with a payback period of 3.1 years to recoup their investment, saving $4.4 million in energy costs per year. A small example in North Carolina was the conversion of lights in an eleven-block area of Raleigh to LED lighting made by local company Cree. Growth of green energy jobs in Raleigh exceeds the national rate. 

Different studies have indicated that $1 million spent on energy efficiency directly generates jobs for between two and eleven people. In North Carolina, $4.8 billion generated by 1,208 firms in green sectors created 22,995 jobs. Both of these figures may make the jobs sound expensive, but the economic stimulation from those jobs in turn helps local economies and studies including that effect show greater job creation per dollar spent.

One academic study found that “the renewable energy and low carbon sector generates more jobs than the fossil fuel-based sector per unit of energy delivered (i.e. per GWh generated).”

A report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy explains:  “This job creation results from shifting consumer spending away from energy utilities, an industry sector with relatively few jobs per dollar of revenue, and into other sectors that have higher job intensity.”

Another important sector, solar, has grown nationally by 86% in four years. North Carolina currently ranks third in solar energy investment. Some of the growth includes military bases, which have lots of solar, partly because the Quadrennial Defense Review of 2014 ranks deployment of clean energy and energy efficiency a matter of national security. 

There are bills in the legislature (unresolved at this writing) that could both promote and stifle that growth. Whether third party solar will be legal, whether tax rebates for solar will be extended or expire, whether the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (one of the strongest drivers of wind, solar, geothermal, etc. growth) will be capped or required to increase, and how big or small utility scale solar installations must be to earn favorable treatment from utilities are all under review and will have an effect on green jobs in this state. 

Ideologies affect one’s view of green jobs, including governments’ proper role in the economy and in reducing human-caused global warming. If the externality of fossil fuel job loss weighs heavily, green jobs might be a low priority. If the externality of disastrous climate disruption weighs more heavily, different priorities would prevail. It is surely of interest that an alliance between the Green Tea Party and the Sierra Club is supporting solar energy in Georgia and Florida. Green jobs do not have to be a partisan issue.