Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
attempt to stop California's emerging clean-energy economy in its tracks. The signific-
ance of Prop 23's lopsided defeat was that it challenged the mythology that clean en-
ergy was somehow at odds with creating new jobs. In our sound-bite world, if you as-
sert something and put enough dollars behind it, it often starts to be accepted as the
truth—and that's what Big Oil was counting on. But it didn't succeed in this case, and
voters signaled en masse that they know the truth. Despite the ongoing trauma of hav-
ing more unemployed workers than any other state in the nation, Californians voted by
a large margin to support clean energy in 2010. Why? Poll after poll shows that voters'
foremost concern is jobs. Could it be that voters see the twofold growth of new jobs
sprouting from the clean economy over the rest?
Creating Smart Jobs in the Solar Space
We know that people who are changing careers are moving into the renewables and en-
vironment space faster than in any other industry. The
Wired
magazine article “The Eco-
nomicRebound:ItIsn'tWhatYouThink”analyzedjobcreationcomingoutofthereces-
sion. The publication concluded that the economy is not just gaining jobs as it slowly re-
bounds but also creating a new category of middle-class work that it called “smart jobs”:
“They're innovative and high tech, but most of them are located far from Silicon Val-
ley or New York. They're specialized, but that doesn't mean you need a PhD or even (in
some cases) a college degree to get them or to do them well—though they do require
some serious training, whether on the job or in a vocational program.”
A lot of solar jobs, and some of the ancillary work or adjacent enterprises spawned
by the Rooftop Revolution, match the profile of these smart jobs. They blur the line
betweenconventionalblue-collarandwhite-collarwork.Thesejobscaninvolveworking
in a factory, but those workers are using more brains than brawn. This kind of work is
cropping up all over the country and is not confined to one industry or geographical re-
gion. As pockets of innovation gain a foothold, these jobs will grow and employers will
multiply.
Cleantechandcomputerscreatetheperfectstormforthissortofeconomictransform-
ation.Thenexusbetweenthesetwomarkets—calledtheCleanWeb,bysome—isashuge
an area of growth as any in the economy. I believe the combination of software and the
momentum of the Solar Ascent is going to generate enormous value and employment in
coming years.
At Sungevity we created a new category of worker, the remote solar designer. Prior
to our company's creation of software that combined aerial and satellite images to allow
accurate engineering of a solar-panel solution for a home without going to the site, this
job was done manually. Now we have about 20 people fulfilling this function, so there's
