The Green Jobcast, episode 26, is a short news segment with information about green jobs making headlines across the country. This week news about a possible solar panel planet in Austin TX and a biomass plant in Washington and some green job news from GE. (download mp3) (3 min)

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TRANSCRIPT

Austin could land a solar panel manufacturing plant that could bring 500 jobs within the next few years, city and state officials said last week. Yingli Green Energy Americas Inc. is considering Austin and Phoenix, Ariz., for a large solar panel manufacturing plant and its North American headquarters. The City Council is scheduled to hold hearings and vote on proposals March 11, after a public briefing Wednesday.

Yingli has only a few weeks to choose between Austin and Phoenix to meet the requirements for a $4.5 million federal tax credit tied to the project, said Dave Porter, senior vice president for economic development at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.

The company is a subsidiary of Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. , a Chinese company that is one of the world’s largest makers of solar power panels. The company’s agreement with the city says it would create 303 jobs within three years and spend $19.9 million on plant improvements and manufacturing equipment. Most of the jobs — 240 — would be for entry-level assemblers, but 63 more jobs would include higher-paid managers, supervisors and professional staff.

Green Energy Resources (Pink Sheets:GRGR) is hiring. The company is creating a dozen “Green” jobs to meet orders. Positions include administrative, sales and procurement. New job opportunities exist in the Norfolk – Richmond, Virginia area where International Paper plans to shutter its manufacturing facility in April. Green Energy Resources looks to take up some of the slack by creating a market for exports. The company is seeking assistance from Virginia State Government officials to help with port and logistical concerns. Port costs remain the greatest impediment to the development of an international renewable energy and bio fuels export terminal. The New England and the Ohio Valley areas are also high priority for the company, looking to add at least 2 positions in each area. Interested individuals can email resumes to penney@greenenergyresources.com (no phone calls).

Green Energy Resources is a supplier of woodchips and wood fiber fuels for the power generation industry. Green Energy Resources is an environmentally friendly company, sourcing wood from urban wood waste streams, storm damage and recyclable outlets. The company’s principal goal is to reduce green house gases through the use of sustainable biomass.

The Olympian newspaper In Washington state, Plans are under way to build a $250 million biomass plant near the Shelton Airport with an objective of turning 600,000 tons of wood debris into enough electricity to power 40,000 homes. A joint venture of Duke Energy and a global energy firm called Areva has a long, long way to go to get the plant off the ground, but it’s exciting to think about the potential to turn mounds of leftover logging debris — stumps and tree limbs — into electrical energy. Community and political leaders were quick to praise the woodwaste-to-energy plan because it’s expected to generate 700 direct and indirect jobs during the two-and-a-half year construction.

WQOW in Wisconsin is reporting…Milwaukee (WISN)- Hundreds of green jobs are coming to Milwaukee. Mayor Tom Barrett used his State of the City speech on Monday to announce that a Spanish company named Ingeteam will build a factory to make wind turbine generators. Land just east of Miller Park is set aside for the factory. Nearly 300 jobs are expected to be created. Ingeteam will also make Milwaukee its North American headquarters.

Mayor Barrett says several factors helped convince Ingeteam to build in Milwaukee. The factory site is close to Spanish-speaking neighborhoods and it’s also right next to Interstate 94. The city also threw in $1.6 million in clean-tech manufacturing credits.

GE unveiled a new building for it’s renewable energy global headquarters on Monday. The project, which is estimated to cost $45 million, was announced 2 years ago and has turned the hundred year old building fifty three on Schenectady campus into 1 of the best environmentally friendly buildings all over the Capital region. This building is also going to be the home of six hundred and fifty employees, most of them to be hired from the local colleges to work for GE. Paul Tonko, the U.S. Representative D-Amsterdam, said, “This is the day we all should celebrate as change has finally been brought upon us.”

Apart from the engineers who are designing and servicing wind turbines for GE, the facility is also going to be the home of one remote operations center, where the technicians are going to be watching carefully the 1000’s of wind turbines which have been installed by GE all arounf North America. This is 1 of the major reasons why the equipment from GE has a reliability rate of 98%, saif the vice president of the renewable energy for GE’s water and power unit, Victor Abate. “We have invested $1 billion in the technology just to ensure that you can rely on the wind turbines,” he said.

This new facility is located close to where GE plans to build a $100 million battery manufacturing plant which is going to be employing around 350 people. At this moment, GE provides jobs to around 7,000 people out of which 4,000 jobs are located on the Schenectady Campus. This campus is the one where the steam turbines & generators are produced by GE.