The brightest star in the U.S. economy is the emerging multi-billion dollar green sector. It promises new opportunities in clean renewable power, energy efficient construction, clean technology, and urban agriculture.

More to the point, green offers jobs. According to a 2004 UC Berkeley study updated in 2006, Putting Renewables to Work: How Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy Industry Generate? - the renewable industry has consistently produced more jobs per megawatt of electricity generated than the fossil fuel industries in construction, manufacturing, installation, operations, management, and fuel processing.

With a 20 percent national renewable energy standard, UC Berkeley predicts more than 188,000 jobs would be created by 2020. The Apollo Alliance's Jobs Report details how 3.3 million new green collar jobs could be added to the economy over a 10-year period that would stimulate $1.4 trillion in new gross domestic product.

Clean sources of renewable energy like emission-free PV solar are key to America's energy independence and vital to world efforts to combat global warming. Through development of projects like Cleantech America's CalRENEW-1 and targeted job training programs, everyone wins: American innovation and technological leadership is supported, communities thrive, local workers find a pathway to self-sufficiency.

(Sources: Apollo Alliance, Ella Baker Center's Green Collar Jobs Campaign, University of California, Berkeley)