La.’s ‘clean energy’ reviewed

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Jun 11, 2009 - Page: 6B

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As clean energy jobs go, Louisiana is neither better nor worse than the U.S. as a whole, according a study released Wednesday by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

But the state lags in investment for renewable energy — such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal sources — and was one of 10 states that attracted none of the $12.6 billion of venture capital invested nationwide in such projects from 2006 through 2008, Pew reported.

Here are some Louisiana-specific findings:

• Louisiana has 10,641 “clean energy” jobs as defined by Pew. That’s up about 2 percent per year and 19.5 percent for the past decade. Those jobs represent 46 out of every 10,000 Louisiana jobs. The 770,400 U.S. total clean energy jobs make up 49 out of every 10,000 jobs in the nation.
• Louisiana lacks standards found in 29 states plus Washington, D.C., that require energy providers to supply a fixed amount of power from renewable sources. That omission hurts the state’s ability to grow clean energy jobs, Pew said.
• Louisiana drew praise from Pew for a state tax credit worth 50 percent of the first $25,000 cost for installing residential solar and wind energy systems.

Pew, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy group, is a nonprofit that took in $390 million in public contributions for the year ending June 30, 2008. Its work tackles solutions for pressing public problems, such as where to find abundant, clean sources of energy.

Though it acknowledged nuclear energy can lower greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, Pew excluded nuclear power jobs from its study, “The Clean Energy Economy.” That decision came in part because “the technology to reprocess spent (nuclear) fuel is at least 40 to 50 years away,” the study found.

Louisiana, poised to generate more than 1,000 nuclear-related jobs through The Shaw Group Inc., wouldn’t get credit for clean energy jobs for any of them from Pew.

“There are still some concerns about the safe storage and distribution of nuclear energy,” said Pew’s project director of research, Kil Huh. “Part of what we want to do is to establish a baseline so that going forward we can (find) the right investments that will drive growth of the clean energy economy.”

Definitions are a critical part of understanding what constitutes a clean energy or “green” job, Pew leaders agree. The Pew definition includes jobs linked to boosting energy efficiency at businesses and homes; jobs that provide energy not linked to depleting fuel sources, such as fossil fuels; and jobs that recycle products and lower waste.

Others fear that Pew’s assumptions could lead to billions of taxpayer dollars spent on unproven or inefficient energy solutions. One of them is Andrew Morriss, a University of Illinois law professor, who co-authored “Green Jobs Myths” in March. The Institute of Energy Research, which is allied with traditional energy companies, partly funded the 97-page academic study.

Morriss lauded Pew’s attempt to get a narrowly defined count of green jobs. Pew, for instance, also excluded jobs tied to corn production for ethanol because that production diverted corn from the food supply.

“We need a lot more work trying to get some data on this,” said Morriss, who criticizes movements to transfer all coal-based power production to wind energy. “We’re talking about doubling energy costs. I don’t think our economy can handle that. We’re not only talking about energy that goes into paying our utility bills here, but there are enormous amounts of energy embedded in every consumer good we use.”

His study, for example, found no evidence that investments today in green jobs can support results promised by such groups as the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the United Nations Environment Programme.