By Jesse Jenkins (Director of Energy & Climate Policy, Breakthrough Institute) Published at Huffington Post and Forbes Energy Source

When you think ‘green jobs,’ do you conjure images of green hard hats, caulk guns, and tool belts? Well it might be time to start thinking about ‘green’ lab beakers, ‘green’ drafting tables and ‘green’ brief cases as well, because the careers needed to secure competitive clean energy industries will also run the gamut from cutting-edge researchers and high-tech engineers to innovative designers and fearless entrepreneurs, according to Dr. Henry Kelly, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.

Dr. Kelly spoke to an audience of Stanford University students Monday about the steps necessary to educate “the Energy Generation,” warning that it will take a generation of the nation’s best and brightest, working in dozens of diverse fields, to truly build a clean and prosperous American economy:

“So what is a green job? Well green jobs are architects and engineers that build buildings, design buildings that operate at extremely low energy use. They are people that design, manufacture, and install devices in buildings ranging from high-tech windows to lighting to sensors and controls and electronics. It means looking at radically new industrial processes which simply replace previous kinds of industrial manufacturing with sophisticated bionumetics and nanotech approaches, to cutting down the material intensity and energy intensity of production, this is the kind of thing you need to do to stay competitive in the modern world.If you look at what the nation’s transportation system is going to look like, Henry Ford looks like he’s toast, it’s going to be replaced with an entirely new generation of either extremely high efficiency fuel powered vehicles, electric vehicles, perhaps even hydrogen fuel cells – the people that make and maintain these are going to be operating in a different world that’s an enormously sophisticated operation.

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Secretary of Energy Steven Chu spoke at Stanford University today.  The full recording is available here (introduction begins 20 seconds in), which is also available at WhiteHouse.gov, Energy.gov, and permanent link here.

Live TV : Ustream

Thomas Friedman has devoted yet another New York Times column to the need for the United States to do a better job encouraging innovation to maintain a competitive position in the world economy.  His column relies on industry testimony from Intel CEO Paul Otellini and highlights the need for RE-ENERGYSE and comprehensive investment in energy technology.

Speaking from experience, Otellini confirmed the idea that the U.S. is falling behind in higher education:

While America still has the quality work force, political stability and natural resources a company like Intel needs, said Otellini, the U.S. is badly lagging in developing the next generation of scientific talent and incentives to induce big multinationals to create lots more jobs here.

Intel can thrive today — not just survive, but thrive — and never hire another American. Asked if his company was being held back by weak science and math education in America’s K-12 schools, Otellini explained:“As a citizen, I hate it. As a global employer, I have the luxury of hiring the best engineers anywhere on earth. If I can’t get them out of M.I.T., I’ll get them out of Tsing Hua” — Beijing’s M.I.T.

Otellini goes on to cite a study measuring strides toward future innovation that ranks the U.S. dead last out of the 40 nations measured.

The measures he cites to improve this situation include tax credits for R&D and reduced corporate tax rates.  With gaping deficits in the government budgets, any cuts in taxes clearly raise complicated economic issues.  But if Intel can build the same plant in another country at a significantly lower cost, argues Otellini, America cannot afford to let their investments continue to go overseas.

“I’d like to see competitiveness and education take a higher role than they are today,” [Otellini] said. “Right now, they’re going to try to push this health care thing over the line, and, after that, deal with the next thing. God, I’d just like this [our competitiveness] to be the next thing. Something has to pay for” everything government is doing today.

Read the full piece here.

A post on Good Magazine’s website about the development of a clean energy workforce made reference to Americans for Energy Leadership’s “grassroots effort among students to make sure RE-ENERGYSE makes it through Congress in 2010.”

The mention came alongside a short description of the $74 million budget proposal that would help “solve the root problem, which is American students choosing not to study technology-related majors.”  Without RE-ENERGYSE and comprehensive energy education initiatives, the post contends, investments such as the $3.5 billion Intel and other leading companies just committed to creating jobs in technology fields cannot have their full effect.

Read the full post here.

In a story reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times, a group led by Intel and 24 Venture Capital has pledged $3.5 billion in private investment for tech start-ups.  This effort will go hand in hand with a commitment by Intel, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco to hire 10,500 engineers and computer scientists from American universities.

The investments, which will include clean energy as a main focus, are meant to serve a dual purpose in stimulating technological innovation while sending a message to the government about the need for public funding.  One prominent executive frames the push this way:

“This investment is one step forward, but also an important bridge-building step with the public sector,” said Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a trade organization representing employers. It says “Silicon Valley is serious about putting our wallets where our words are.”

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The Council of Graduate Schools has issued a statement strongly supporting the Obama administration’s FY 2011 budget request for higher education, specifically endorsing RE-ENERGYSE as an important step in regaining U.S. globally competitiveness.  The statement says:

The budget proposes funding increases for a number of programs that support graduate education and research, which are critical to maintaining America’s global leadership in the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century.  The priorities outlined in the FY 2011 budget also recognize that support for graduate education is essential to the development of a highly-trained workforce…

As the budget proposes a freeze for most discretionary spending, CGS especially appreciates the following key provisions that support graduate education and research… Funding for the RE-ENERGYSE program, a new partnership between the Department of Energy and NSF that will include graduate fellowships for both master’s and doctoral students in clean energy fields.

For more on RE-ENERGYSE see here.

From the Harvard Business Review blog, “The U.S. Must Grab the Lead on Green“:

After the Copenhagen Summit, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote about the importance of sustainability to America’s future competitiveness: “An Earth Race led by America — built on markets, economic competition, national self-interest and strategic advantage — is a much more self-sustaining way to reduce carbon emissions than a festival of voluntary, nonbinding commitments at a U.N. conference.”

First the bad news. We’re already behind on the Earth Race.

“Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” a report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Breakthrough Institute, gives a bleak outlook. ITIF founder Rob Atkinson says that, between 2009 and 2013, the governments of China, Japan, and Korea will out-invest the U.S. three to one in CleanTech: $509 billion vs. $172 billion.

How did we get to this place? Have we lost the will to compete?

The full post is well worth reading here.

“Bill Gates wants clean, cheap energy more than he wants to pick the next 50 years worth of presidents, even more than he wants a miracle vaccine,” reports the Breakthrough Institute. “At least that’s how he ranked his number one wish while describing climate change as the world’s greatest challenge to a rapt audience at the TED conference last week.”

Just weeks after lending his voice to a growing “innovation consensus” by writing on his blog, Gates Notes, that innovation, not just insulation, must be the focus if we are serious about “getting to zero,” Gates’ TED speech expanded on what we need to get there:

“We need energy miracles. The microprocessor and internet are miracles. This is a case where we have to drive and get the miracle in a short timeline.”

Gates emphasized the need for an energy miracle portfolio that includes carbon capture and storage and nuclear as well as wind and solar. According to CNN’s coverage of the conference (the video is not posted yet), Gates showed particular interest in the potential for nuclear waste reprocessing as a source of clean, cheap energy.

Read the full post and watch Bill Gates’ TED talk here:

Two weeks ago, the Stanford Political Union hosted a climate and energy policy debate featuring Teryn Norris, Director of Americans for Energy Leadership, who spoke about the global clean energy race and its implications for U.S. policy: