By Tracey de Morsella on Comments Off on Using Stimulus Watch to Track Energy Stimulus Appropriations
Want to track where the stimulus is being used in your community? Check out StimulusWatch. StimulusWatch.org was built to help the new administration keep its pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials to account for the taxpayer money they spend. The site accomplishes this by allowing you, citizens around the country with local knowledge about the proposed “shovel-ready” projects in your city, to find, discuss and rate those projects.
Over the past few months, numerous articles have popped up raising the alarm bell that the stimulus package, with its emphasis on green jobs and infrastructure will short-change women. I disagree. I see it as an opportunity for women to change the playing field. Additionally, I believe that these critics have overlooked the fact that stimulus funds have been allocated for education and healthcare – both fields dominated by women.
Fast Company has compiled their list of the best green jobs for the next decade. It lists the green job descriptions with the names of top hiring companies and schools for training
After a run of some years of heady double digit growth the Solar PV sector in the US has hit a period of slower growth in which some of the weaker players are being shaken out of the market. This year will be characterized by consolidation as more successful firms and better capitalized firms build their market share and absorb weaker players. This shakeout was inevitable and is natural, but it was undoubtedly triggered by the financial crash of late 2008 coupled with the bursting of the oil futures speculative bubble and the temporary collapse in prices on the oil spot markets.
Veterans Green Jobs, a nonprofit organization, has set up a national initiative designed to reengage military service veterans by training them and getting them work in the areas of reversing deteriorating environmental conditions, dealing with client climate change threats and working in the sustainable energy sectors. The centerpiece of this initiative is a training program called the Veterans Green Jobs Academy.
What is the green economy? It promises a future more harmonious with nature, more attuned to the kind of tomorrow that is lying ahead and it also projects a sense of hopefulness and prosperity. The green economy is a rapidly growing and increasingly important sector in the overall economy generating more than a trillion dollars in revenue and employing many millions of people. It embraces such diverse industries as renewable energy production and electric energy distribution, energy efficiency and storage, organic agriculture, green transportation and green building.
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) recently published an online map that identifies and profiles more than 1,200 companies in key manufacturing states that they see as poised create new jobs when Congress passes a cap on global warming pollution. The interactive map spotlights companies located in manufacturing regions, including those in communities in the rust belt and coal country.
Many believe that the green economy will be powered by the wind and by the sun. But fewer people are aware that to make this possible we need to profoundly transform the current electric grid to control and manage renewable energy supplies. Balancing load and demand is a quite a challenge with renewable supplies that are intermittent and depend on the weather. Without a robust ability to continuously balance energy supply and demand, wind or solar energy sources can have a profoundly negative impact on grid operations, reliability and power quality and force grid operators to make costly and inefficient adaptations to current spot conditions.
Tamara Giltsoff, managing director of OZOlab, called “The U.S. Stimulus Package: What’s Missing?”She feels that innovation got left out of the stimulus. She feels in does not address how to get to a sustainable economy nor does she feel that it addresses the unsustainable consumption that is ingrained in our way of doing business and our overall way of life. Her list of what she thinks should be done is summarized in this article.
