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Feds Boost Goal To 75k New Solar Power Workers By 2020
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. government has announced plans to help train 75,000 people to enter the solar workforce by 2020, including a number of veterans. The new goal is part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SunShot Initiative, which helps fund research, manufacturing and market creation. The SunShot Initiative's Solar Instructor Training Network works with 400 community colleges across the country for training, and claims to have already certified 1,000 solar instructors and nearly 30,000 students in the last five years. Ultimately, the SunShot Initiative has a goal for solar energy to reach price parity with conventional power sources in five years.
OK, dumbshit. Perhaps you didn't realize that all federally funded jobs include provisions for special consideration for veterans. It has been that way for your entire life, not just since Obama was elected.
But, please feel free to display your ignorance.
Why are they implementing all this training network and colleges for the solar industry whereas the solution for IT is "issue more visas"?
What exactly is so special about installing solar panels? It sounds to me like pretty conventional electrical and construction work.
Even recreational marine electrical systems can be more complicated, with a mix of solar, wind, grid, generator, battery (12/24/48V) and mixed loads (native, 12v, AC).
Most who qualify as veteran achieved that status before President Obama was elected. It has nothing to do with serving HIM but rather serving the country. Veterans have a higher unemployment rate than the general public, mostly because most employers don't recognize the skills they bring and that their military training doesn't always translate clearly into civilian HR job listings.
Also this isn't a jobs program but a training program. If the economy doesn't create 75k jobs for those trained through this program it won't help them. But if the market is there then they will have the training to work in the field.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Photovoltaic is what most people think of immediately when talking about "Solar Energy", and it does hold significant promise. Government programs are overlooking a couple of really high-payback, lower cost solar technologies in the big push for electrics that deserve much more support. Passive solar design for heating and cooling has almost immediate impact in significantly reducing the energy cost of a space, not just in the extreme cases where the design is so heavily skewed into support of the solar energy that no one would want to live there, but in much more modest but effective measures to be incorporated into more conventional designs. Requiring building code standards that require all new home construction to incorporate passive technologies to provide a minimum of 25% of a building's heating and cooling load, or perhaps 30-40% in commercial structures would provide work in the design and construction technologies, as well as making a very significant reduxction in the demand on outside power generation. Solar hot water units for residential and commercial spaces can provide very significant returns, often reaching a full payback of the investment in as little as 3 to 4 years. Combined with on-demand technology for water heating drawing from a tank or reservoir of solar pre-heated water and adding only the necessary supplimental heating to achieve the desired temperature if the solar heating had not already reached the desired temperatures could supply nearly 1/3 of a household's energy demand. Putting our focus on Photovoltaic is a limited strategy that needs to be broadened to include the available, proven and effective solar energy usage that will make the difference in a timely manner.
Most who qualify as veteran achieved that status before President Obama was elected. It has nothing to do with serving HIM but rather serving the country. Veterans have a higher unemployment rate than the general public, mostly because most employers don't recognize the skills they bring and that their military training doesn't always translate clearly into civilian HR job listings. Also this isn't a jobs program but a training program. If the economy doesn't create 75k jobs for those trained through this program it won't help them. But if the market is there then they will have the training to work in the field.
Bingo... sort of. It is true that if there is no market, then there are no jobs, but I doubt that the training won't help them. Knowledge is knowledge. I bet quite a few of these people will go on their own establishing their own businesses, or work on the side along side some other activity.
Those who get the training and expect to get a job just like that, they will be seriously disappointing. Which is true for many people getting pursuing most venues of education and training nowadays.
The success of an energy sector should not be measured by the number of people it employs. The goal of the energy industry should be to produce boatloads of dirt-cheap energy with almost nobody working at it, so we can all go off and do something more fun with that manpower and energy.
It's quite easy to provide tons of energy jobs: we did this 1500 years ago, when almost everyone in Europe worked in the energy sector (farmers and animal handlers and woodcutters, back then). But gradually wind and water mills, coal and steam, electricity and petroleum came along, increasing the energy output of each energy sector worker, providing cheap energy and spare labor that were used a much richer, more interesting society.
The end game is to artificially create a new domestic market to employ more Americans whose work has left the country as a direct result of outsourcing work to foreign countries. Also known as global socialism or global wealth shifting. The green movement has taken the bait hook, line and sinker, so to speak. I don't blame them; people followed Hitler, Mussolini, Kim Jong Il and Stalin.
That IS the driving force behind climate change initiatives even though the science for climate change is rapidly disappearing with the revelations of manipulated data, manipulated models; nothing less than blatant, severe tampering and falsifying of climate data on a massive scale. The climate change movement is proving itself to be the greatest hoax perpetrated, on a global scale, in the history of mankind. The real debate is now over. Real science has spoken. Factual data is now known. Period. Now we need to persecute said perpetrators and bring them to justice. Governmental, institutional and personal restitution is in order and proceedings should start as soon as possible while the crimes are still fresh.
You are right in that their approach is backwards. Instead of focusing on trying to get workers into the industry, they need to offer incentives to actually build and install solar panels that are cost effective. Tax breaks, Grants, etc. (thoroughly vetted though).
The Feds don't train construction workers, they offer tax deductions on home. Then, the workers will follow automatically.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Solar Panel installation is grunt work. Three guys to lift the panels and one electrician to make sure they don't electrocute themselves. There is no real need for a Federal program to train people for this.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Solar PV installation seems like a fairly safe bet. The panels and associated equipment are only getting cheaper, and within a few years they will become extremely common and pretty much standard on new builds. If you can invest say $1000 in a system and have it pay back in a year, then another 20-30 years of pure savings or even profit as you feed back in to the grid, why wouldn't you? It's a safe investment.
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