July 2009 Archives

THE CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY: All State Fact Sheets (2009)

A companion piece to the Clean Energy Economy report, individual fact sheets that quantify and describe each state's jobs, businesses and investments in the clean energy economy.

For example:

ALABAMA:  Alabama has a small but growing piece of America's clean energy economy. The state's number of jobs in the clean energy economy in 2007 was less than the national average of more than 15,000 jobs, but it increased slightly between 1998 and 2007 despite a lack of venture capital investments and few clean technology patents, and it exceeded the growth rate for overall jobs in Alabama during the same period.
 

FLORIDA: The Sunshine State has a large and growing piece of America's clean energy economy. Florida ranks in the top 10 states for jobs in the clean energy economy in 2007, with more than 30,000, and it attracted nearly $117 million in venture capital in the past three years, half of which has supported clean energy generation. The state created an Energy Systems Consortium among state universities to leverage the expertise of its research community to boost its clean technology industry.

Energy Productivity is higher in California than the rest of the country. While gains were similar from 2005 to 2006, the gap in energy productivity between California and the rest of the U.S. remains with California's energy productivity 68% higher than the U.S.

Measured as the ratio of energy consumed (inputs) to GDP (economic output), growth in energy productivity equates to more dollars of GDP generated per unit of energy consumed.

In 2006, California produced $2.17 of GDP for every 10,000 BTU of energy consumed. In comparison, the rest of the United States produced $1.29 for every 10,000 BTU of energy consumed.

Therefore, the difference in energy productivity between California and the rest of the U.S. is about 88 cents per 10,000 BTU of energy consumed.

The CALIFORNIA GREEN INNOVATION INDEX (2009) provides insight on a California culture that includes three decades of ambitious state environmental and energy policies, putting California on a path to energy independence and one of the lowest per capita carbon footprints in the nation, all the while growing one of the most vigorous economies in the world.

Solar is one of the renewable energies leading the new green economy in California with the Million Solar Roofs program, extensive solar PV installation training infrastructure development, and utility scale solar PV and solar thermal installations to meet California's demand for renewable energy and mandates in AB 32 and related greenhouse gas legislation.