The tactic du jour for environmentalists trying to sell a skeptical public on tighter regulations is this: spin the thing as a job creator. Last week a Maryland-based environmental group said efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay would actually create 240,000 jobs over the next several years, mainly by employing people to upgrade sewage systems. In a recent report defending stricter mercury pollution limits on power plants, the Environmental Protection Agency said 8,000 more people would be needed to build and run the pollution control equipment than would be laid off as a result of older plants shutting down. Economists that aren’t aligned with either industry or activist groups say that, when it comes to creating or destroying jobs, environmental regulations come out somewhere near neutral — adding costs to industry but producing benefits in public health or other areas.
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Energy issues aren’t popping up much yet in election year discussions and debates, but if the American Petroleum Institute gets its way, they will be.
API President and CEO Jack Gerard told a luncheon in Washington, DC Wednesday that the oil and gas lobby is launching a nationwide “conversation with the American people” called “Vote for Energy.” Keep reading →
The Keystone pipeline project is back in play as part of the payroll-tax cut debate, and Congressional Republicans say it would create jobs. But there’s a wide range of estimates, with one forecast that Keystone could actually cost jobs. The 1,700-mile long pipeline would transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands region in Alberta to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. The Obama administration pushed back the project last month pending a review from the State Department, but Republicans want to bring it back as a sweetener to approve an extension of the payroll-tax break and federal unemployment insurance. The House passed a measure Tuesday that would tie tax cuts to Keystone approval. TransCanda (TRP), the company that wants to build the pipeline, says Keystone would create 20,000 “direct” jobs. That includes 13,000 construction jobs and 7,000 jobs making stuff like pump houses and the pipe itself. This article is a linkout.
The White House gathered the heads of 60 business, labor, municipal, and academic organizations on Friday to announce plans to invest $4 billion in building energy efficiency over the next 24 months, and none of that will be taxpayer money.
The investments will come in what’s called performance contracting, by which companies specializing in building efficiency retrofit buildings and are paid from the energy savings that result. Up-front investment is financed by banks based on contractor-guaranteed annual savings. Once the loan is repaid, the building owner gets the savings. Keep reading →
The headlines should come somewhere between December and March 2012 when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, if all goes as expected, will okay building up to four new nuclear reactors.
The licenses for two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at Southern Co.’s Plant Vogtle in Georgia, followed quickly by two more at SCANA’s Summer station in South Carolina, will be the first granted since the 1970s. Keep reading →
Siemens Builds To A Million Working Hours With New North Carolina Gas Turbine Facility
By Peter Gardett
A new gas turbine manufacturing facility in North Carolina represents a strong statement that Siemens is committed to the natural gas market, the US manufacturing sector and the modernization of US electricity infrastructure, a company executive said.
Director of operations at the newly expanded Charlotte facility Mark Pringle was brimming with facts and figures about the company’s plant when he spoke to Breaking Energy this week following the grand opening of the new plant on November 16. The plant was completed in roughly a year after a groundbreaking in October 2010. Keep reading →
The second installment of the House Energy & Commerce Committee Jobs and Innovation Forum was convened to discuss the “natural gas revolution.”
The mostly Republican US Congressional Representatives truck a broadly enthusiastic tone about the economic potential of shale gas, with an emphasis from some speakers on safe operations and regulated drill operations. Six energy expert guests were invited to the discussion and mostly agreed that “fracking” has become a bumper sticker for natural gas opponents that does not actually relate to the risks and benefits of shale gas. Keep reading →
After many years as a sideline in the US energy business, natural gas has become the central fuel driving new generation, with opportunities to remake the American energy economy both regionally and globally.
It is hard to remember when natural gas was flared as a waste product in the search for oil; many of those same oil giants are quickly becoming gas giants instead as the scale of the available shale gas resource becomes apparent. Increased use of natural gas has been hailed as the next step in responding to global warming threats, and as a way to reduce US dependence on energy imports. Keep reading →
Although manufacturers might be slashing costs left and right amidst a weak recovery, they readily acknowledge that’s not much of a long-term solution. Ninety percent of manufacturing executives say that innovation, not cost-cutting, is the key to long-term growth in the manufacturing industry, according to a new report. The report, which surveyed 360 manufacturing executives and was released on Tuesday by its sponsor General Electric, found that although 62 percent of manufacturing executives say that cost-cutting would help in the near term, nearly all of them say innovation is crucial to long-term success. Overall, 61 percent of manufacturing executives said that ensuring a higher quality of production was the strongest safeguard against competition from emerging markets such as China. This article is a linkout, to see the original go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/18/manufacturing-innovation_n_1018086.html
The leading U.S. solar-industry lobbying group says a tax provision that expires at the end of this year will create some 37,000 additional jobs in 2012 if it is extended by Congress. And if it’s not? In a press conference, Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) chief Rhone Resch said killing the Section 1603 Treasury Program “would essentially amount to a massive tax increase … that would reduce jobs significantly.”
The 1603 provision allows renewable energy developers to receive a grant for up to 30 percent of the cost of a project, once it goes online, in lieu of claiming an energy tax credit. The grant option was instituted for two years in 2009, as the financial crisis froze up tax equity markets. After heavy lobbying late last year it was extended through the end of this year. Keep reading →
