An investment in solar is an investment in jobs.
Solar investments creates more jobs per megawatt than any other energy resource- seven times more jobs per megawatt than coal production. And, most of the jobs in the solar value chain are local installation jobs, which cannot be outsourced. (Source: UC Berkeley Energy Resources Group)
100,237 Americans are currently working in the U.S. solar industry. The U.S. solar industry now employs more people than than the coal mining or steel & iron manufacturing industries. Solar businesses added 6,735 new workers in all 50 states since August 2010, which represents a 6.8 percent growth rate. During the same 12-month period, jobs in the overall economy grew by a mere 0.7 percent, while fossil fuel electric generation lost 2 percent of its workforce. (Source: Solar Foundation’s National Solar Jobs Census – 2011)
An investment in solar is an investment in environmental protection.
Solar PV uses less water than any other energy resource. That’s a good thing, because conventional power production uses vast amounts of our country’s precious fresh water resources. According to researchers at the Virginia Water Resources Research Center fossil-fuel-fired thermoelectric power plants consume more than 500 billion liters of fresh water per day in the United States. (Sources: CEC PIER Advanced Generation Program, Water Use for Electricity Generation, Aug, 2009. IEEE Spectrum)
Solar energy has one of the lowest emission profiles, on a life cycle basis, than any other energy resource. That’s a good thing if you believe that climate change is happening and needs to be mitigated, which we do. Check out these resources to learn more about climate change and what organizations around the world are doing to stem its impacts: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Union of Concerned Scientists, The Columbia Climate Center and The Alliance for Climate Education.
An investment in solar is an investment in public health.
Solar energy and other renewable energy resources have the potential to power the vast majority of our energy supply. A transition to renewables would dramatically reduce our dependance on coal, which would mean a reduction in air pollution that contributes to serious health problems in the U.S. (Source: Environmental Defense Fund)
