Overview Of U.S. Green Job Creation By Sector

The national discussion on the emerging green careers and jobs gets some perspective from this helpful overview of emerging U.S. green industries:

Examiner.com -- Bay Area Green Careers Examiner, Michal Lenchner reports:

"1. Renewable Energy -- Generation: developing and using non-fossil energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. Also includes green technological changes to non-renewable sources of energy, such as petroleum, coal, gas, and nuclear. Energy Trading: financial services of trading energy as an economic commodity and carbon trading projects.
Storage: capturing and storing energy and/or carbon emissions.

2. Energy Efficiency -- Increasing energy efficiency, capacity, reliability, and security.
Smart Grid infrastructure, construction, management and optimization. Includes the current and future electric grid, energy generation sources, distribution centers, allocation and wiring.
Service interruptions cost the American economy $100 billion each year. Per the GridWise® Alliance report, 280,000 new U.S. jobs will be created from smart grid deployment (full report: The U.S. Smart Grid jobs report - job creation by KEMA).

3. Transportation-- Increasing efficiency and/or reducing environmental impact of various modes of transportation including passenger transit, freight rail, and trucks.

4. Green Building and Construction -- Construction of new green buildings, retrofitting residential and commercial buildings, and installing other green construction technology.

5. Environmental Protection -- Environmental remediation, water conservation, climate change adaptation, and ensuring or enhancing air and water quality. Agriculture and forestry, efficient land management and farming. Also controlling GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions in these sectors. Legislation for conservation and pollution prevention, regulation enforcement, and policy analysis and advocacy.

6. Manufacturing -- Industrial manufacturing of green technology, energy efficient manufacturing processes, environmentally preferred purchasing, and waste management.

7. Recycling, Regeneration and Waste Reduction --Solid waste and wastewater management, treatment, and reduction. Processing/managing recyclable materials.

Note that the green economy will also generate indirectly jobs in research, design, and consulting services, finance, and other related business services. New and enhanced legislation in many industries will be essential and will also require knowledgeable professionals." See full article: