Re-Tooling for a healthier economy

In "A Splash of Green or the Rust Belt" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/business/02wind.html), Peter Goodman of the New York Times describes the conversion of old abandoned factories and the workforce that inhabited then, to supporting Green jobs. In particular, he describes that after Whirlpool swallowed up Maytag, the Newton, Iowa factory producing washing machines closed down. Roughly a year later TPI Composites, a wind turbine blade producer based in Arizona, arrived to look at the facilities. Newton's rail and highway transportation systems, as well as it's proximity in the Great Plains where the blades would be transported, made it an ideal spot. In addition, Newton's local community college was eager to teach employees how to make the blades.

Goodman also describes the case of West Branch, Iowa, where the Spanish company, Acciona, converted an empty hydraulic pump factory into a plant that makes wind turbines.

Many companies in the midwest see the renewable energy industry picking up in the center of the country. Xunlight of Toledo, OH and Entegrity Wind Systems of Boulder, CO are two more companies that may make this happen.

Surely, it's a lucrative field as Venture capital put $5 billion into clean energy firms last year, roughly twenty percent of their total investments. This was a marked increase from just two percent in 2000.

For these companies, marketing the social importance of helping to re-tool U.S. factories to provide cutting edge jobs for Americans should be central to their efforts. Reinforcing the fact that most of these jobs can't be outsourced, should be central to the marketing program. Particularly with wind, shipping the turbines is prohibitively costly.

But even more importantly, Americans view themselves as the world's most advanced economy. Highlighting that these jobs must be done by Americans, reinforces the notion that wind (and solar) are the most 'advanced' and 'modern' energies. Americans are needed to produce them and we have the know-how and resourcefulness to do it cost-effectively.