NC State of Business

This past week, I saw some of the famous “green collar jobs” so often talked about as the key to America’s future prosperity. Charlie Parrish spoke of them extensively in his post on 4/18/09 – What are the Green Jobs? The interesting part is that these jobs I saw did not stand out, and I would not have known the difference between these jobs and the traditional “blue collar jobs” had I not been told.

I was visiting a local cable and wire assembly plant to discuss their need for coaching in some advanced quality tools such as FMEA and Control Plans. This place was loaded with good news. They had new customers, increased orders and quantities, and INCREASED EMPLOYMENT LEVELS. There were only a few workers called back for now, but some optimism exists.

Ok, back to the green jobs. During a tour of the plant, I was told that the company had orders to produce wind turbine wiring assemblies now and were discussing assemblies that would support new solar energy applications. Since no special training for the workers was required to follow the fabrication and assembly requirements for these orders, the “green collar” jobs are simply “blue collar” jobs in disguise. A point to make here is that many NC manufacturers are already participating in the new green economy and plenty of others are ready based on well proven capabilities. So bring on the technology…

It would be nice to hear of other jobs like these in North Carolina. So let me know about what you are seeing.

On a similar note, next week I will attend a venture capitalist function in Durham called the SJF Summit on the New Green Economy. Ahh…now this is the place where I could hear of the new green inventions that would use those wiring assemblies I saw last week. Maybe I will see you there.

Today I close out my brief series of blog posts about the Southern Technology Council Meeting I attended in Nashville back in February.

The meeting identified several "green" opportunities in new Federal initiatives, along with a few associated issues:

• • Renewable energy represents 2-5% of the energy portfolio in the South, and most of that is hydro. Any new hydroelectricity would have to be incremental. There is limited potential for wind in our region, a large potential for solar and geothermal, and high potential for biomass with resources across the supply chain. In fact, biomass was discussed as an engine for economic growth.
• • The priority sectors for applying Green technology include buildings (trying to achieve near zero net energy use), transportation, industrial manufacturing and recycling (e.g., steel, aluminum, pulp and paper, cement), food and agriculture.
• • Developing new, more efficient and "greener" batteries for transportation.
• • The South will need 20TW of energy by 2050 to meet increased demand. Geothermal has the potential to provide 12TW, solar 12TW, wind 2-4TW, tidal __?, and biomass 1-2TW. The key to viability for any new source is reducing the payback period; for solar, e.g., reducing the cost of materials will be vital.
• • Switchgrass probably has the highest potential for success among biomass sources, since others (e.g., corn) are plagued by the food vs. fuel dilemma.
• • Vehicles have to get above E10, meaning they will have to go to intermediate blends. This will be important without everyone going to flex fuel cars, and will be a public policy issue for the South.
• • We discussed a possible renaissance for nuclear power, with its immense baseload generating capacity. Here in Raleigh, with NC State's Nuclear Engineering program and the Shearon Harris plant providing the juice for our lights and computers and refrigerators, we're in favor of more nuclear power.

To close the meeting, we heard from a few individual states:

• • Tennessee reported on examples of legacy industries that started with their core competencies and grew new "green dollar" industries.
• • The Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership* found that companies that build their market on innovation are growing or have stabilized at a rate 35% higher than all other companies. They presented their survey results with respect to how globalization is creating new industry opportunities in the U.S.
• • West Virginia still has a budget surplus, and has charged itself to lead the way in renewable energy generation. Their Governor demanded that 10% of all electricity sold in WV today be generated from renewable resources, and directed that by 2025, 25% should be renewable.

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*MEP is a national program under NIST, with centers around the country -- IES is the North Carolina MEP center.

I'm continuing a brief series from the Southern Technology Council Meeting I attended in Nashville in February. Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen presided over most of the proceedings, which focused on alternative energy and developing a "green" state.

We had lots of discussion about alternative fuels and developing a Southern "common market," including:

• Developing and implementing common highway signage for available alternative fuels. Tennessee has a signage program for ethanol that could be used as a template.
• Paying attention to regulatory protocols. For example, Underwriters Laboratories has not completed full testing of valve systems for ethanol use, so they're not approved yet. The manufacturers guarantee them, but some states won't accept those guarantees for liability purposes.
• The supply-and-demand picture shows that the South imports ethanol production. States should consider that ethanol processing plants can have substantial economic development impacts on rural areas.
• Feedstock development (sugarcane, corn, switchgrass) needs to be considered, because corn use is maxed out -- and caused other problems.

I was very interested in Georgia's statewide "one-stop" permitting process for permitting bioenergy plants. The process is designed to meet the governor's executive order to have permitting completed within 90 days. The interested parties get together for a "one-stop shop" meeting that matches the right regulatory and state guidance with the people involved in the permitting, which may include representatives of the Governor's office, or the federal Environmental Protection Agency, or the Agriculture Commission. The 90-day goal may slip if the project requires an environmental impact statement or Title V requirements, but the average performance is 110 days: vastly improved over the "years" it used to take.

Back in February, I attended the Southern Technology Council meeting in Nashville, hosted by Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen. The Governor presided over most of the proceedings the first day and some of them the second, and because of his interest in alternative energy and encouraging a "green" state, the majority of the meeting was focused on that topic.

Governor Bredesen has challenged his cabinet to find ways to ensure that by 2020, 20% of Tennessee's energy consumption is generated from renewable sources. That's a big challenge, but they can rely on the strong relationship between the state and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to help meet it.

In this series of blog entries, I'll hit some of the highlights from the meeting.

One of the most impressive presentations was about the "Southern Bioenergy Roadmap." As noted in the Technology Council's news release, the Southeast Agriculture & Forestry Energy Resources Alliance -- with the clever acronym SAFER -- conducted the roadmap project along with the University of Florida. The project found that the South's abundant natural resources, combined with native intellectual capital, have enormous potential to produce electricity and automotive fuel from "biomass": plants, trees, and organic waste.

Some 2007 facts and figures from the report show that the South:

• Contained 30% of the nation's bioenergy potential in its agricultural and forestry resources
• Produced 46% of the nation's biomass-generated electricity
• Produced 22% of the nation's biodiesel (but only 6.4% of the nation's ethanol)

When SAFER presented these findings, Governor Phil Bredesen said that "this is a key time for the South to lead the nation in new technologies for converting biomass into energy." For the South to become the nation's leader in the research, production, and distribution of bioenergy, the Roadmap recommends states

1. Improve the supply, demand, and regulatory environment for bioenergy in the South
2. Invest in the development of commercial biopower and biofuel facilities in the South
3. Educate Southern leaders and the public on the economic and environmental benefits of bioenergy

Liam Leightley, Chairman of SAFER and Executive Director of the Institute of Advanced Learning and Research in Danville, Virginia, said, "The Roadmap provides a starting point for building on the region's assets and addressing the barriers to the bioenergy industry in the South. By wisely using our resources we can move closer to energy independence and at the same time create good jobs for our rural communities."

The full report can be found on the SAFER Alliance web page, http://www.saferalliance.net/projects/roadmap.html.

Earlier this month, I received notification that the US Department of Energy picked our Southeast Industrial Energy Alliance as a recipient of one of the “Save Energy Now” awards given by the DOE Industrial Energy Technologies (ITP) program. The Southeast Industrial Energy Alliance joins the regional team of NCSU’s Industrial Extension Service (IES), Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EII), and the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development in support of the DOE initiative to help industrial facilities achieve a 25% reduction in energy intensity in 10 years.

Through this program, IES will be working with 6 large North Carolina manufacturing facilities over the next 3 years providing the education, project identification and implementation support that will help them adopt, implement, and achieve energy intensity reduction of at least 2.5% annually. The activity will be comprehensive as the recruited industry clients will receive energy assessments that are based on the new ASME Energy System Assessment Standards. This program will lead to significant industrial energy savings, and will also build expert capacity in North Carolina to conduct these new assessments. During years two and three, the industrial clients will also participate in a pilot program to implement an ANSI-accredited Plant Certification program. As a result, industrial clients will implement an energy management program that will help to sustain and continually improve their energy efficiency efforts.

Stay tuned. We will soon be finalizing the contract and beginning the recruiting process for our first 2 program customers. Save Energy Now… coming soon to a large manufacturer near you!