Over the last couple days we have told you about more green energy jobs in Kansas, and New Mexico, seems that now Massachusetts has gotten into the game.
US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is expected to disclose the funding today during a visit to the state. The money comes on top of a $2 million US Department of Energy grant awarded to Massachusetts for the proposed facility two years ago, as well as $13.2 million in grants and loans from the state’s Renewable Energy Trust. Construction of the center is scheduled to get underway in September.
“This would really do a lot in terms of pushing us further down the road in terms of wind and harnessing the power of wind energy,” said a federal official familiar with the project who was not authorized to speak in advance of Chu’s visit. The Obama administration wants 10 percent of electricity generated in the United States to come from renewable sources by 2012. Currently about 2 percent of the nation’s electricity is generated by wind, solar, and geothermal facilities.
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Officials said they expected the center to create about 250 construction jobs and eventually employ about 10 people to run the facility, which will test blades for pressure and fatigue by using hydraulics and sensors.
“Initially, there are not going to be too many jobs available. It’s not as if we have a factory moving in,” O’Flaherty said. “I’m hoping that, potentially, businesses that are interested in learning from this wind turbine testing facility will locate nearby.”(via)
I know of at least one architect that is working on this project, and can anticipate an ecosystem of renewable energy research jobs (science and research are the Boston areas bread and butter, lots of smarties around here) sprouting up around this sort of facility.
I wish instead of creating meaningless green jobs, as well as a bunch of useless non-green jobs in Massachusetts, they would actually follow up on their renewable energy rebate promises, introduced rebates for geothermal heating systems and let the private sector great green jobs and improve the environment at the same time.
Oh, and also … how much longer will it take for Cape Wind to go up? It seems like we can’t do anything without taking decades and billions of dollars :)