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Cities, states, jostle for 'clean energy' firms



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By BOB KEEFE Cox News Service - Published: March 12, 2007

LAS VEGAS — In the 1970s and 1980s, cities across America bet their economic futures on recruiting banks, insurance companies and other white-collar employers to replace factory and farm jobs.

In the 1990s, it was the computer industry. Then came biotech firms. The latest rage in economic development: "clean energy" companies that do everything from building windmills and solar panels to turning cow manure into fuel.

"This is bigger" than previous growth industries, said Lara Valentine, who was hired by the Austin, Texas, Chamber of Commerce to lure clean energy companies to the Texas capital. "Everything we do in this world revolves around energy."

Austin, which became a hub for high-tech during the computing revolution, is fast gaining recognition as a nationwide leader in clean energy and other clean technology ventures.

Earlier this month, SustainLane, a group that tracks sustainable living in U.S. cities, named Austin the No. 1 city for clean tech.

Mayor Will Wynn has made advancing clean energy a top priority. An innovative Clean Energy Incubator program at the University of Texas helps innovative companies get started. And city-owned Austin Energy recently invited clean-energy companies nationwide to try out their innovations on the local power grid.

Last week, Austin-based Balcones Recycling, which turns recycled paper into an alternative fuel for electricity generation, said it is building a 125-acre "Environomics Park" to which it hopes, with business and government help, to recruit clean-tech companies from around the globe.

"Austin right now is the leading city in America" when it comes to energy efficiency and renewable energy efforts, said Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, which promotes the industry.

"This is where energy policy decisions are made," Tom Kuster, chief executive of DT Solar, said last month in announcing the company had picked the city for its new southwestern headquarters. The New Jersey-based company, heavily backed by media mogul Ted Turner, develops large-scale solar energy plants.

But Austin isn't alone any more.

One year ago at the annual Power-Gen renewable energy conference here, Austin was the only city trying to recruit clean-tech and clean energy companies, according to Valentine.

Last week, economic development officials from New York, Washington, Oregon, the United Kingdom, Germany and elsewhere also had booths and worked the conference floor.

"Clean tech … is the next big thing," said Oregon economic development liaison Glenn Montgomery. Earlier this month, German solar cell company Solarworld AG announced it had picked Hillsboro, Ore. for a new plant that will employ at least 1,000 workers.

Other states are getting into the clean-energy act too.

  • In Georgia, Gov. Sonny Purdue introduced legislation in January to lift the sales tax on materials used to produce fuels like ethanol and bio-diesel. If passed, the legislation "will help make Georgia a national leader for the development of home-grown alternative fuel sources," Perdue said in a statement.

  • In Florida, officials last month awarded the first of $15 million in renewable technology grants for clean-tech ventures. Among the winners were projects to promote solar energy use, to make ethanol from citrus and sugar cane waste, and to replace natural gas in factories with gas from switchgrass and other plant materials. Gov. Charlie Crist recently recommended a $68 million spending package on other ways to encourage alternative energy businesses.

  • California, the leader in solar energy and other alternative energy use, is investing heavily too. Late last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a $95 million package to support research, and this year he launched an unprecedented solar power initiative. In February, in a major coup, the state and the University of California at Berkeley landed a $500 million clean energy research program funded by petroleum industry giant BP.

    "The major driver (for the industry) right now is government support," said Eckhart of the Washington, American Council on Renewable Energy. "The governors, the mayors, the city councils … are getting on board."

    The reasons, of course, involve energy security, high fuel prices and environmental problems. But another factor is the age-old mission of local politicians: attracting and creating high-paying jobs.

    Whenever a new solar power company comes to town, whenever an ethanol refinery opens up, whenever a new wind turbine operation starts spinning, it creates jobs, Eckhart said.

    "And these are local jobs," he said, "not like in the oil industry, where when it grows somebody in Saudi Arabia gets to keep their job."

    Of course, running a wind energy farm or installing solar panels doesn't take as many workers as a semiconductor factory churning out personal computers or semiconductors. And for now, clean energy initiatives are absorbing subsidies from states and cities, not creating tax revenues.

    But governments are making the investment because they see the new businesses as requiring less infrastructure, polluting less, and providing rather than consuming energy.

    "For every kilowatt of energy produced by renewable energy, about five jobs are created," claimed Valentine.

    What's different about clean energy today is that it's not just environmentalists talking about the benefits, said Eckhart. It "has now become a positive growth industry."



    TOP CITIES FOR CLEAN TECH

    1. Austin, Texas

    2. San Jose, Calif.

    3. Berkeley, Calif.

    4. Pasadena, Calif.

    5. Boston








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