Last week, at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas, Energy Secretary Chu called for a revolution, “a second industrial revolution.” The first industrial revolution came with a “carbon dioxide cost” but “in the next industrial revolution, we must develop technologies that will enable us to get the energy the world needs to grow and prosper but “essentially reducing and eliminating the carbon dioxide,” he said. Chu said the United States has the greatest research and development centers in the world in universities, national labs and the private sector. “Once we get this great invention machine geared and going we’d be invincible. But the only trouble is, let’s get it going.”
Retrofitting 50 million buildings in the United States, about 40 percent of the building stock, by 2020 to make them energy efficient would create 625,000 permanent jobs, John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress, told CNBC. “There’s probably a $500 billion investment that’s needed, but the vast majority has to come from the private sector,” Podesta added. “The government has a role to play in orienting policy toward getting the financing right.”
Creating green jobs is the first order of business for the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families. Led by Vice President Joe Biden, the Task Force held its inaugural meeting on Friday in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania. “At a time when good jobs and good wages are harder and harder to […]
