As President Obama mentioned in his State of the Union address last week, sources of electricity production like wind, solar, natural gas and renewable and clean coal are inexorable parts of this country’s energy future as a way to create green jobs. For the United States to achieve energy independence and to lead the global marketplace in clean energy jobs, all of our energy resources must be part of the solution.
By investing in energy innovations such as clean coal technology, we can preserve the good jobs we already have and expand the American workforce for decades to come.
According to a study by Pennsylvania State University, if coal production was to disappear completely, more than $1 trillion of gross output – including 6.8 million jobs – would be lost directly and indirectly from the economy of the contiguous United States in 2015.
Compare that to the landscape with the deployment of clean coal technologies like carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) on a commercial scale.
Constructing 100 power plants equipped with CCS could generate up to $1 trillion of economic output and create between 5 and 7 million man-years of employment and a quarter of a million permanent jobs, as reported by BBC Research and Consulting in a 2009 study.
As you can see, keeping coal in our nation’s energy mix allows for economic growth helps to protect the environment all while ensuring the many valuable American jobs that coal already has provided.
Note: These studies were commissioned by ACCCE.
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is committed to the idea that America can have the affordable, reliable electricity we need, with the clean environment we want. ACCCE’s Behind the Plug blog is the place for up-to-date news and analysis on clean coal technology developments and energy policy progress.