Monday morning muses - July 21, 2008 - Going "green" makes "green"

Good morning everyone,

Just got back from a week of vacation in beautiful Boston . What a treat it was to get off the "grid" for a week and spend some time with the family. I gotta admit it took me a few days to stop checking my email and compulsively check my voicemails.

Let me share a story that caught my eye in the Boston Globe. Evergreen Solar signs $1.2 billion contract - Click here to link to the story. Turns out that Northeast manufacturing jobs are in short supply ( and decreasing) and a company called Evergreen Solar (that makes solar panels) has just signed a $1.2 billion order. This order will sell out the capacity of the factory until 2013. The factory will employ over 700 people in high tech/high skill manufacturing jobs (that pay $70 -100k).

While I'm the first to acknowledge that TechColumbus is making headway in accelerating the startup community I ask myself , "What is Central Ohio doing to take advantage of its manufacturing heritage and affordable cost base to grow high tech manufacturing jobs?"

We've got a a lot of smart people and idle manufacturing capacity. What prevents us from landing a $1.2 billion dollar solar panel contract? With soaring energy coats you would think that the powers that be would be all over accelerating our jump into alternative energy industries. Does anyone know what we're doing as a region/state in this area? I would think that the opportunity to grow several hundred high paying jobs would motivate us. Evergreen Solar (a Devon Mass company has just shown us that it can be done.

What can we do as a community to accelerate making "green" from going "green"?


Peace out,
Ben