4,000 jobs possible in renewable energy: study
The Blue-Green Alliance of the Sierra Club and United Steelworkers is calling for a national requirement of 15 percent renewable electricity by 2020. The Renewable Electricity Standard is part of the energy bill before Congress.
At a press event using the Steel Winds wind farm on Lake Erie as a backdrop, local environmental and labor advocates said policies to encourage renewable energy can help create parts-making jobs, as well as construction, assembly and maintenance work.
The study, by the Renewable Energy Policy Project, estimates the economic impact of adding 185,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity nationally over 10 years. There are 167 companies in Erie County poised to benefit by supplying wind, solar, geothermal and biomass generating industries, it said.
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Why Fort Frances wants to build an integrated microgrid to deliver its electricity
TORONTO - When the power goes out in Fort Frances, Ont., the community may be left in the dark for hours.
The hydro system's unreliability — caused by its location on the provincial power grid — has prompted the town to seek a creative solution: its own self-contained electricity grid with its own source of power, known as a microgrid.
Located more than 340 kilometres west of Thunder Bay, Ont., on the border of Minnesota, Fort Frances gets its power from a single supply point on Ontario's grid.
"Sometimes, it's inevitable that we have to have like a six- to eight-hour power outage…
