These poor souls are wasting good money to train for jobs which are nothing but a passing fad and will disappear in three years after Obama leaves office. I recall similar retraining in the Jimmy Carter years. We have plenty of dead Carter-era alternative fuel facilities not operating anymore serving as a reminder, but people are repeating the same mistakes. I just did some work with one of the largest alternative fuel companies in the world. They have just laid off half their work force. Maybe they don't trust this President.

The "green bubble." What a bunch of hype. Anyone want to learn to make biodiesel, here's a pretty good recipe:

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html

sounds like the colleges will benefit --- they get their money up front. i have a feeling it will be years before any of those people actually are employed, and by then, the industry will have changed just enough so that these people will need to take refresher courses. i went to college at about the time personal computers were just getting started - by the time i graduated, much of what i learned was obsolete.

in this economy, how many people are going to be installing solar panels anytime soon ? the same people most likely to have projects like that done on their homes are in the group whose taxes are being increased --- where's their incentive to do this ? it takes many years of usage to recoup your investment on solar panels or wind generators, unless you do it yourself like i did. and that doesn't help these new students any.

got news folks, solar has been around a good long while..and our government has not backed it with anything...only thing getting backing is big oil...nuclear power...nothing on that to amount to anything other than excuses....and why would that be other than big oil...which our elected have sided with as long as I can remember. And the profit goes to who...Arab nations and big oil.

Ronpal, you do realize there is a huge tax credit from installing solar panels right? If you live somewhere that uses a lot of electricity like I do, solar panels pay for themselves very quickly and you can sell the excess energy collected back to the power company, monthly. The only reason more people don't do it is because of the thousands in initial cost.

Colleges will benefit from this, that is why it is part of the stimulus package. However, you should read how many colleges have been raped of public funding. Colleges around the country are losing money. Tuition is being hiked, employees are taking furloughs, getting fired, departments/degree programs are being merged. Here at ASU we have less funding now than we did 27 years ago, and that doesn't even include accounting for the rate of inflation. This is a GOOD thing for colleges. They desperately need it!

i just hate to see people being promised jobs thru retraining in an industry that is rapidly changing. and where does that tax credit come from ? that's money coming out of the taxpayer's pockets. i built my own solar, but not everyone wants to do that. what are the current figures on cost of installation versus yearly return ? also, solar only works well in certain areas of the country.

i do feel sorry for the colleges, but some of this is their own fault. by requiring a minimum number of course credits for a particular degree, and requiring additional credits in areas totally unrelated to the major field of study, they have made the college experience much more expensive than it would need to be. this is not a new problem --- this has been the practice for decades.

ronpal, don't know where you get your facts, but solar works in north east Ohio it will work just about anywhere and I had solar panels in NE Ohio. It works and is worth the investment in the long run.

try it in oregon or washington. i used it in colorado, but the area where i was got lots of sunshine --- equal to phoenix. and that's the problem, it works in the long run. many people are reluctant to invest in something that has such a slow rate of return, and a high initial cost.

and in the wintertime, northern states only get sunshine like 8 hours a day --- what do you do for the other 16 hours ? and that 8 hours is only if it's not cloudy or snowing, and if it snows, someone has to go up and brush off the snow. i preferred my wind-generator --- got more wind than sunshine.

around here, a 225 watt solar panel sells for $1800. our current electric rate is 10 cents per kilowatt. that $1800 would buy 18,000 kilowatts. put another way, that $1800 would pay my electric bill for 2 years. and frankly, how far is a 225 watt solar panel going to take you ?

also, i don't where you are in ohio, but columbus is the highest ranked city in ohio for sunshine, and columbus only gets 50% of the total available during daylight hours, which means your solar panel isn't going to help you near as much as someone who lives in phoenix. seattle only gets 43 %.

I see solar panels popping up everywhere! Not! If the government was serious about this all new construction would be required to have solar and wind generators incorporated into them to provide some of the building energy requirements - but they are not serious because I government is corrupt and owned by the the corporations that want to ensure they can keep robbing us in the future!

My cousin used to install home solar and wind power. He went belly up long before the tax breaks went Federal. Customers are resistant to relatively high installation costs, and afraid of fluctuating energy output. Solar and wind do pay for themselves in a relatively short time, but variability is still a problem, solved to some extent through use of batteries. Firewood heating is a highly reccomended adjunct to solar and wind power for northern states. My cousin showed me around his workshop before his business failed. Nearly every piece of hardware was imported. Teaching students to install solar panels is like training people to install drywall. They will be simple day laborers, vulnerable to being undercut by illegal alien workers, just as in any other unskilled labor industry. Why not train to be an electrician instead? Better yet, the government could send some of that stimulus money to domestic manufacturers of alternative energy products. Then jobs will be created that will stay in America, skilled workers will be needed, and the tax revenue from said businesses will be greater than any garnered from income taxes of theoretical workers.

Folks:

From what I'm reading above it seems clear that many of the posters have little or no experience with energy issues and green technology.

Sustainable design includes many things, which may use alternative energy or fuels, but this is only a small part of the larger picture. Training facilities are providing a broad cross-section of topics which must include the conservation of energy by retrofitting existing buildings and industry. So much of our infrastructure and built environment is existing and will not be replaced rapidly just because of energy issues, that it is, of course, imperative to renew our homes; our businesses; our schools; and our public structures if we are going to even think about putting a dent in the problem of dwindling energy resources and totalitarian demands of energy producing nations, (and also self serving, greedy, rotten energy companies, like Enron, for instance, ..ssh..les that they are/were).

In my own home for instance, which is a rental, the owners would probably never consider making energy upgrades, why would they? So I did my own, and just did the basics, but I was able to lower my combined utility energy bills to less than half of the use, which was under $80 on last months bills, and it was not a big deal. If I owned this house and really upgraded it I am certain I could reach near or to zero impact energy, if on site electrical production were transferable from utility to utility, (electric to natural gas, different companies in this city), but that's not possible. I might use the excess solar to charge an electric plug in hybrid or full electric car like the Zenn, when they become viable and available at prices I may approach. The house is pretty normal, (nice bungalowish home; built in 1935; Central Valley of California, hot summers with cool wind at night, mild winters; wood frame; lightly sloping composition shingle roof over wood shingle roof/no particular thought to climate concerns or orientation to sun or wind; large trees to the South and medium to the West for okay shade in the summer; squarish with lots of windows and glass doors; zero insulation; zero thermopane; zero weatherstripping; 2 bedroom; 1100 sf; NGas floor furnace; window AC in living room; NG hot water).

Here the rundown on the house upgrades:

• Installed full height, full wall white drapes to the sunny side of the house, (full height, off-white cotton, J.C. Penney, I think, these were used, a friend gave me the drapes a part of payment for painting her living room and I got the drapery rods by returning some Christmas presents I did not want and buying the hardware on extreme sale, total cost to me was around $15.00; time to install 4 hours);
• CFL light bulbs, (used, got these from a project I was working on, they were part of the demolition, so I saved them from the trash, (cost $0; time to install 1 hour);
• Attic fan I built myself, (installed in normal attic access opening, got a circle shaped fan on sale and built a rectangular surround of plywood and wood trim to hold it horizontally in the ceiling hole, used extension cord), (cost around $35, time to build and install 4 hours);
• Use natural ventilation at night to cool the house, (cost zero, time to do 3 minutes per day);
• Close down rooms and closets not in use, (winter cycles),(cost zero, time to do zero);
• Turn off lights, (cost/time free);
• Full turn off computers and other power drains, (0/0) ;
• Lower air temperature to 66F in winter, unlimited in summer, but the natural cooling thing works so well that AC is rarely on, 6 hours last year, (cost, well I probably will need to buy more sweaters as I work at home so comfort is important, but really this is free);
• Lower water temperature to 115F, (0/0);
• Shower head turn off valve, (saves hot water and water in general), (cost $8, time to install 15 minutes);
• Open 2 existing outlets under the house, (need screens over these), and let he cool air up during the day through the house all spring, summer and fall, (this works really well, easy to do), (0/0);
• Turn off NGas to heater six months of year May to November, (usually), (0/0);
• Full loads of laundry, cold/cold, medium dryer heat, (0/0);
• Shower when needed, not every 24 hours. Usually every other day or so. Quick wipe down with washcloth on other days. Sound yucky, but it's not. Lots less dry skin problems than before. Keep the hair really short, same with the beard, (do it myself, it's not hard, was going for that edgy look like Eric Clapton on the unplugged album. I sort of landed more between Ringo Starr and Elmer Fudd!)

Other things I could do now:

• Air dry the washing, (I used to, but the tree died that I used for the lines, so need to replace with something else, maybe in the garage area for year round use!);
• Build storm windows with wood and plastic, like in the 80's;
• Wrap the water heater, (it is in a very tight closet in the middle of the house, so no big savings here);
• Put exterior roll down shades on the south side of the house, (bamboo looks cool)
• Install roof drip water system for added cooling ability at little cost, (did this on the garage I converted to an office and it kept the temperature 10 to 15 degrees lower than outside temperature, really cooled it off a lot at night, also had to install gutters and a drain system to the garden for the extra water runoff so it would not be wasted; used recycled rubber drip irrigation tubing made by Fiskars out of old tires and a couple of plastic ball valves to control flow, really cool stuff, not spendy)

These are just a few things that may be done inexpensively, there are many other more involved technologies, but these basics cut energy use in half or more with nearly no expense. This kind of hands on approach is not for everyone, so it stands to reason that we could use people who are well versed in these matters for the large task of upgrading our existing world as well as installing newly developed products and design concepts in the future buildings and in the old.

Education and energy are on a side by side track. They both require more frequent updates and review these days. The technology is changing rapidly, so do not believe that a single education that leads to a life time career is guaranteed. It is more and more likely that everyone will need to continue their educational process and even retrain into other fields, throughout their lives, maybe more than once. It's kind of a pain to go back to school, but it can also be very exciting and enriching with the new concepts to be learned and the new people to be met.

Any statements that "green" technology is a phase is unsound thinking. We are in a no win situation if change does not come immediately. Unless you wish to have a future where you stay in one spot for a long time because you can not afford transportation and do so in silence and in the dark and at the mercy of the weather because you can not afford energy for appliances and comfort, then you better shape up and get cracking on understanding how to change, then change, or get out of the way as change will come with or without you.

Good Luck!

It's not a new mantra, the same old record goes round and round. But no one dares criticise Capitalism - that makes you a "Communist"!

Used to be, being a "hired man" was somewhat shameful. Everyone takes for granted that we must work for to make someone else rich, for a wage that does not reflect the cost of living. People used to do for themselves, literally. Now, the 'vine is filled with assistant deputy managers bragging about "hard work." What a weak and pathetic nation this has become.

I've got links for every kind of self-sufficiency one might care for. Just name it, I'll post it.

I'd like to see those links. Trying to find a way out...

Where would you like to begin? Growing food for your family? Producing ethanol? Making gunpowder? I believe that revolution begins in the mind and spreads out through your actions, touching every person and every thing you encounter. Once you are living as a free person, it is possible and desirable to free others from illusions and shackles. I am at your disposal.

ShadowXX:

I get the same sh..t on the architectural side, although it is getting a little easier.

We're doing a small commercial building and we are using an steady summer breeze; cool night air; windward aperatures; and water emitters to make a shade box with natural swamp cooler effects out of a couple of "tower" design elements. All of the heat exchange for the split system HVAC, as well as the main wall in freezer; walk in refrigeration; public access frozen product; and ice makers will be installed in these towers on metal grating. We immediately get a big help from the night air temperature for the night cycle of the frozen/chilled food as they run all night, but we also stop heating the interior air day and night with the heat exchange.

We are hoping to keep the plenum exhaust system and night time purge of the interior air since it is so inexpensive and helps so much with early morning cool down, especially since the night air is down in the 60's even in the Summer, (Los Banos, CA).

We also installed "green screen" planter walls on the South/West exposures, lowering the wall temperatures by 15 to 20 degrees.

Most of this is not a big expense, but it's really hard to get the contractors to do anything that is not straight out of the box.

Good Luck!

and there-in lies the problem ---- if the companies that do this sort of work aren't hiring, then all the colleges are doing is flooding the job market. the college i graduated from had so many graduates in my field, there was zero chance of being employed anywhere in that region. i had to move 250 miles away, to a much less desirable city.

which is another problem ---- how many of these new students are going to willing and/or able to relocate ?

and if people are so concerned about our carbon footprint, we could begin to plant trees. the training needed for that is minimal, so people could start working right away. and the ecological benefit is also very immediate. i planted 120 trees on my place, that i obtained from the state forestry at low cost, and they even gave me helpful instructions for the planting.

ronpal,good for you however tree planting would be done as it now by illegals there would be no jobs produced for citizens

All of these programs should stipulate citizenship.

Now you are against work. I believe you need to re read the article.

We should not sit back and let our auto manufacturing industry be sent off to China and Mexico. These green jobs will not replace that or assuage the upheaval. Japan is not letting Toyota die.

Old- I live in Michigan and my husband 'was' an engineer in the automotive industry. You're preaching to the choir..............