NEW YORK STATE CAPITOL: Regional climate policies are sparking new jobs.
Image: FLICKR/JIMBOWEN0306
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
BOSTON -- Scott Newman was laid off in February from his job repairing home oil heaters, a victim of the dismal economy. Today, he sits in a class with a new job, learning how to sleuth out wasted energy in homes.
Newman is in the vanguard of a green-collar corps created by the nation's first carbon cap-and-trade program, operating in 10 northeastern states. Workers are being hired for a booming expansion of energy efficiency programs, financed by money raised from power companies paying for their carbon emissions under the program.
For Newman, 32, of Holden, Ma., the salary – about $50,000 a year – is important. But the job has other attractions, he said: "Now, I'll be doing something a little more rewarding, more environmentally conscious. I'll be trying to help customers save some money; that's a good feeling. And this looks like a field that will be growing."
Call this the first fruits of the nation's new energy economy.
In a Boston suburb classroom at Conservation Services Group, a nonprofit that has been in the energy efficiency business for 25 years, Newman and 11 other men pore over a manual that dissects the structure of houses and how buildings use – and lose – energy.
Just started on their six-week training, they already are deep into dense terms: negative vent pressure, induced draft, heat exchangers, sealed combustion furnace components. Before they are done, instructor Mark Donovan will lead them through the intricacies of heating and air conditioning systems, hot water systems, venting, insulation and a host of rules, regulations and government programs offered to encourage homeowners to waste less energy. The new newly minted auditors then will fan out to make home energy inspections under a Massachusetts program administered through the utility National Grid.
"Every factor changes the dynamic of a house," Donovan, a lanky 32-year old, tells them. "When we go out to tighten up a house, we have to take everything into account."
Conservation Services Group, which operates in 22 states, has hired more than 70 people in the last few months, and expects to keep growing, according to CEO Stephen Cowell.
"The plans are in place. The demand is there from the customers. The work is being done. People are being hired," Cowell said. "For every staff person we hire, the independent contractors have to hire ten people. If we go in and spend four hours looking at a home and identify, on average, $2,500 to $3,000 worth of work people should do, that turns into four days of actual work."
The cap-and-trade program, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, is intended to force power producers in the northeastern states to cut greenhouse gas pollution by requiring them to buy allowances, which will shrink annually, to offset their emissions.
See what we're tweeting about
9 Comments
Add CommentHey! We are on the way to recovery. 70 hires? Only a few more million hires and we'll be there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, bye the way. Call me when the next round of hiring starts--I need the job!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismss712- you must report for retrainig at the soonest opp.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf cap on trade gets in it will cost every household $3760.00.
Energy will lead the way, however passed on energy cost will drive food, water, transport and many other things to many to list.
Jobs in chem steel and fabrication will be lost because other countries do not have this expensive energy TAX.
Calling CO2 a greenhouse gas is just not scientifically correct.
The people doing this are going to change your lives adversely.
The EPA will overstepp your rights job and later your freedoms, and if they do not congress will. Call your reps or you will pay many times over.
You're a republican, aren't you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't wait to pay 3x more every month for my energy! Does this "job creation" take into account the jobs that will be lost when heavy industry moves to China/Africa?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose jobs left a long time ago and the era of cheap energy is over. Accept the fact that the planet is over populated and all the "wealth" that the U.S. and to a lesser extent Europe has accumulated over the last century has been nothing more than stolen from a carbon"bank" that took millions of years to produce. The mortgage/financial collapse is just one small example of the type of mindset that we are "entitled" to cheap energy, bigger houses, cheap food, SUV's, etc. without working or sacrificing for them. Instead we kept "refinancing" and spending our "equity" without replacing it. Cap and Trade or not one way or another we will pay. The party is over. It doesn't matter whether global warming gets us or another ice age or neither. The planet can no longer tolerate us. The planet will survive as it has done since long before Man showed up so don't worry about that.--It is our extinction that we should mourn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow...I'd always imagined that this blog (and this kind of science news in general) was read and written by rational, level-headed people who are able to perceive the broader perspective, rather than the narrow, ill-informed, anthropocentric views elucidated here. I'd also imagined a more enlightened readership that could actually put two sentences together. Get a grip - quit being bitter , short-sighted and frightened that your world is going to change. True visionaries embrace this kind of challenge to forge a better society, no matter how long it takes or how ill-fated it might seem at first; those who rebel against this progress because they are too mired in superficiality to see beyond the discomfort such new measures will cause to their own lifestyles are antiquated and virtually useless. People like you are holding us back; we don't need you.What did you think? That it would be seamless and easy? The way we've been living in post-war America is aberrant and illusory and needs radical alteration. Visionless people see this way of life as not only the norm, but the way it should always be. For them, any attempt to curb it is a threat to their supposed rights and liberties, when too many of their "rights" evolved on the basis of decades-old legislation passed in a simpler world with little awareness of their broader impacts and ripple effects. Your diatribe reminds me of NYers who complain about congestion pricing as a violation of their rights, when their only justification is that previous legislation permitted them to drive wherever wanted. This is an illogical way of thinking. Just because the legislation didn't exist before doesn't mean that it is our God-given right to drive wherever we want, whenever we want. To be blunt, maybe some of what we believe to be our rights need to be reconsidered. Nor should your energy bills of the past be considered "normal" simply because they were lower than they would have been had we been managing our resources properly from the start.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are plenty examples of societies that have crumbled because of pride, myopia, and extravagant wastefulness; but no societies have crumbled because they adapted a longer view toward efficiency, sustainability or balance. One of the best gifts a scientific mindset grants us is the ability to see this larger perspective beyond ourselves. You, my friend, clearly haven't gotten that lesson. Time for you to start your freshman year core science and ethics courses over again, my friend. As it stands right now, I don't think you've yet to learn a thing.
Cap and trade creates jobs the same way Wal-Mart does. It creates them in China.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd what happens in 20 years when solar energy is more efficiently harvested and used at a cheaper rate than burning coal?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSolar and Wind prices are decreasing while coal and petroleum will naturally go up, regardless of the legislation
So much is said about socialist legislation, loosing rights, changing our lives, but take for example the tranisition into renewable energy.
Some people are paying the price now for the transition, high costs of installing PV arrays and buying recycled products, all the time fueling the industry and improving the technology. While people complaining about losing their rights and fight the transition to better technology as hard as they can. Eventually the oil will run out, but before it does the price will skyrocket. The land used for coal will be more profitable if it is used for harvesting renewable energy (depending on the location) and those prices will go up. Then, all the people that fought the transition will throw in the towel and make the switch to the cheaper energy.
Like to talk about conspiracy and loosing your rights? Then voluntarily opt out of using the new technology once it becomes convenient to use. Why should it be shared to people that fought it! Look whos paying for the future.