green economy

Clean energy and jobs

October 30, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

America’s clean energy industry is unquestionably under attack by the Trump administration. The administration is blocking renewable energy projects on federal lands, slashing clean tech tax credits, and putting in place new regulatory hurdles for solar and wind power and electric vehicles. During the first half of the year, businesses cancelled $22 billion worth of clean energy projects, which would have created more than 16,000 jobs, ironically mostly in Republican areas. Federal clean energy tax credits have generated billions of dollars in economic value annually, providing a strong return on investment for every federal dollar spent.

Last year, clean energy jobs grew three times faster than the rest of the economy. The U.S. added nearly 100,000 jobs in solar, wind, batteries, energy efficiency, grid upgrades, biofuels, and electric cars. In total, more than 3.5 million Americans hold jobs related to clean energy.

Clean energy investments create substantial economic growth. The clean energy transition creates opportunities in manufacturing, engineering, installation, and maintenance. These new jobs far outweigh job losses in the fossil fuel sector. Investments in clean energy had been projected to create massive numbers of new jobs and significantly boost the U.S. GDP by 2030, often providing new opportunities for rural communities.

Overall, clean energy has been one of the hottest and most promising job sectors in the country. Now that clean energy job growth is at serious risk, so is the health of the overall economy.

**********

Web Links

More Americans Working in Clean Energy Than as Servers or Cashiers

Photo, posted July 28, 2025, courtesy of Bronx Community College via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Sunrise Wind construction begins

August 9, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In mid-July, construction started on New York’s largest offshore wind project. Sunrise Wind is a 924-megawatt offshore wind farm located about 30 miles off the coast of Montauk Point on Long Island. Sunrise Wind is expected to be operating in 2026 and will provide enough clean energy to power nearly 600,000 homes, making it the largest offshore wind farm in the United States.

The ongoing construction project will support more than 800 direct jobs. It will be built under project labor agreements ensuring local union labor’s participation in all phases of construction.

Power from the wind farm will flow through an undersea cable coming ashore deep under the beach at Smith Point County Park. From there, the power will travel primarily under roadways via a transmission line terminating at a power converter station in Holbrook, Suffolk County.

Sunrise Wind is being developed by Oersted, the largest energy company in Denmark and the world’s largest developer of offshore wind power by number of built offshore wind farms.

The second large offshore wind farm in New York, Empire Wind I, is being developed by Equinor. These large wind farms are the result of New York’s fourth offshore wind solicitation. The two projects, totaling over 1,700 megawatts, will be the largest power generation projects in New York State in more than 35 years once they enter operation in 2026.

New York has also launched a fifth offshore wind solicitation for which final proposals will be due in September. Offshore wind is a major component of New York’s effort to expand the use of clean energy, grow its green economy, and combat climate change.

**********

Web Links

Construction begins on Sunrise Wind, New York’s largest offshore wind project

Photo, posted June 14, 2022, courtesy of Stephen Boutwell/BOEM via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Recycling Shingles | Earth Wise

May 27, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Every year in the US, about 13 million tons of asphalt material is removed from old roofs to be replaced with new shingles. Only about 10% of that is recycled for use in paving and various roadway projects. The other 12 million tons of asphalt ends up in landfills where it takes a very long time to break down.

GAF, the largest roofing manufacturer in North America, has developed a shingle recycling process for which it has received three patents. The process involves grinding torn-off shingles into a refined material which can then be introduced into the shingle manufacturing process. The material – referred to as RAS for recycled asphalt shingles – has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of virgin asphalt needed to make new shingles.

Tests by GAF reclaimed upwards of 90% of the waste shingle material and produced new shingles containing up to 15% recycled content. Underwriters Laboratories certified the shingles containing RAS material with regard to their safety and effectiveness. The GAF process opens to door to creating a circular, sustainable economy for asphalt used for roofing shingles.

Roofs play an important role in the transition to a green economy. Apart from recycling asphalt shingles, there are increasing options for solar shingles, which take the place of both traditional asphalt shingles and ordinary solar panels by integrating them into a single roofing product. There are also so-called green roofs, which replace conventional roofing materials with a contained green space atop a building. Such roofs provide stormwater management, cooling, and an interesting aesthetic.

All aspects of buildings play important roles in our environment – even their roofs.

**********

Web Links

5 Ways Roofers Can Celebrate Earth Day, Everyday

Photo, posted April 15, 2012, courtesy of Robert Taylor via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Russian Forests And Climate Mitigation | Earth Wise

August 24, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Russia is the largest country in area in the world, almost equal in size to the sum of the next two largest – Canada and the U.S. Russia is also the world’s largest forest country, containing more than one-fifth of the world’s forests. As a result, the country’s forests and forestry activities have enormous potential for impacting climate mitigation.

Since the dissolution of the USSR, there has been a decline in the availability of information on the state of Russia’s forests. The Soviet Forest Inventory and Planning System compiled information until 1988. Since then, the Russian National Forest Inventory has been the source of forest information on the national scale, and it hadn’t produced a comprehensive inventory until 2020.

The new data indicates that Russian forests have in fact accumulated a large amount of additional biomass over the intervening years. Using the last Soviet Union report as a reference point, the new results show that the ongoing stock accumulation rate in Russian forests over the 26-year period is of the same magnitude as the net forest stock losses in tropical countries.

Thus, it is clear that Russian forests have great potential in terms of global climate mitigation as well as potential co-benefits relating to the green economy and sustainable development. It is important to note that as the impact of climate change increases, disturbances to the Russian forests could have severe adverse effects on global climate mitigation efforts.

While much of the world’s attention is rightfully upon tropical rainforests in the Amazon and elsewhere, it is important to not ignore the largest country in the world hosting the largest land biome on the planet where even small percentage changes in the amount of forest biomass could have a major global impact.

**********

Web Links

Russian forests are crucial to global climate mitigation

Photo, posted June 6, 2015, courtesy of Raita Futo via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

China As Climate Leader

December 30, 2016 By EarthWise

China and the United States today produce nearly half of the world’s carbon emissions, so the fight against global climate change depends greatly upon what actions the two countries take. China has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past twenty years from a largely rural society to one that is far more urbanized and far more energy intensive. In 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol on climate was negotiated, China was only responsible for 14% of global CO2 emissions. It then surpassed the US on that front in less than 10 years and now accounts for nearly 30% of the world’s emissions.