A recent item on CNN has highlighted a very interesting and important statistic – the wind power industry now employs more people than coal mining in the USA.
Wind energy industry jobs increased to 85,000 in 2008, representing a 70% increase on 2007, according to a report from the American Wind Energy Association. Coal mining currently employs about 81,000 people in the United States.
The global wind power industry overall enjoyed a bumper 2008 and the USA is now the global leader after a 50% increase in installed wind capacity during the year; enough to power 2 million homes. Wind capacity brought online in 2008 accounted for approximately 42% of all new power-producing capacity added in the USA last year, and will avoid nearly 44 million tons of carbon emissions being generated; which is the equivalent of taking over 7 million cars off of the road.
Results such as the USA is experiencing in wind energy employment is calling into question coal industry supporters’ claims of massive unemployment resulting from a phase out of coal mining and coal fired power generation to cleaner technologies such as solar power and wind energy. A similar "sky is falling" scenario was forecast in the early stages of the computer revolution, which never eventuated; in fact, the information technology boom created many more jobs, markets and opportunities.
As was the case with the rapid uptake of computer systems and the embracing of the Internet, renewable energy proponents believe all that is needed is for those coal workers affected by a similar development is adequate community assistance and government support in re-skilling and re-training, so those people can make the switch from their fossil fuel focused employment to fulfilling careers in renewable energy.
If the USA is able to achieve such a result just from the wind sector, the potential for job generation from all renewable energy technology sources and associated infrastructure could be quite staggering, not to mention the massive reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved by such a switch in energy focus.
