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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 2007)
...Renewable energy generating jobs (From Page 1) Photo-Voltaic Energy Generation Sys- tems that begins in January had just one spot remaining as of press time. Solar industry demand for silicon chips surpassed the demand from computer makers. “The market is increasing, and we want to capture as much of it as we can,” said the training center’s solar specialist, Brian Crise, who helped re- vise the Solar Photovoltaic Systems chapter of the National Electrical Code. IBEW’s market share in residential solar installation is pretty small. But several well-known union commer- cial-industrial contractors now have solar divisions and a growing busi- ness, including EC Company and Dy- nalectric. Solar installation employs electri- cians, but there are also jobs on the manufacturing side, like the workers at the Solarworld AG facility in Van- couver, Wash., who are represented by the Machinists Union. In February, Solarworld bought the former Ko- matsu silicon chip plant in Hillsboro, and announced plans to invest $400 million to remake it as a solar silicon wafer and solar cell production facil- ity. When it reaches full capacity by 2009, the German-owned plant is ex- pected to be the largest solar factory in North America, with around 1,000 workers. And California-headquartered So- laicx, a manufacturer of silicon ingots and wafers used in the solar energy in- dustry, announced in June that it will be locating a solar chip factory in Portland’s Rivergate Industrial Dis- trict, employing around 100 workers. Meanwhile, other skilled trades are reaping the wind. Wind turbines aren’t manufactured locally (yet), but Dan- ish turbine maker Vestas employs about 200 people at its North American headquarters in Port- land. Ships bearing Vestas wind turbines made in Europe and towers made in Viet- nam are being un- loaded by union longshore workers at the Port of Vancouver using a special $23 million crane installed for that pur- pose. The windmill components head up I-84 aboard Wilhelm Trucking and Rigging trucks driven by members of Teamsters Local 162. Then union Iron Workers, Operating Engineers Labor- ers and Electricians install them. The Columbia Gorge east of the Cascades is fast becoming a giant wind farm, with 438 megawatts of currently-installed peak capacity from wind turbines, 919 megawatts ap- proved for construction within the next year or so, and 1,847 megawatts more under review. [As it’s commonly described, a megawatt is enough elec- tricity to power 1,000 homes; wind turbines typically operate at about a third of peak capacity, because the wind doesn’t always blow at top speed.] D.H. Blattner & Sons, the general contractor on the wind farms, started out open shop on the Stateline Wind Project, but unions worked to build a relationship, and now the company signs project labor agreements pledg- ing to use all-union crews. Blattner is currently overseeing the construction of two wind farms — PGE’s 450 megawatt Biglow Canyon and the 285 megawatt Klondike III; both are in Sher- man County. Also in the works are the Leaning Juniper II wind farm in Gilliam County (279 megawatts) and and expansion of the Stateline farm in Umatilla County. Four more wind farms — in Wasco Sherman, Gilliam, and Morrow counties — are at earlier stages in site review process. That pace is likely to continue un- der another new law approved by the Oregon Legislature this year — it re- quires the state’s investor owned utili- ties (PGE and Pacificorp) to get 25 percent of the electricity they sell in Oregon from new renewable sources by 2025. Then there’s biomass, a catchall term — basically organic material which is burned to create energy. That can mean cowpies — like methane di- gesters on a feedlot or dairy farm — or it can mean wood products. Denny Scott, assistant director of the Carpenters Industrial Council, said ‘The market is increasing, and we want to capture as much of it as we can.’ Swanson, Thomas &Coon Since 1981 Jacqueline Jacobson the Canadian company Finavera Re- newables to build prototype wave en- ergy buoys. And in April, Australian- headquartered Oceanlinx Limited announced plans to build a “wave park” one to three miles off the Ore- gon coast near Florence. At least 10 floating wave energy buoys would be anchored to the seabed, generating up to 15 megawatts, with the potential for more to be added. Taken together, says Shimshak of Renewable Energy Northwest, the re- gion’s new renewables could supply the region’s energy needs, and supply energy-hungry California as well. HEMORRHOIDS ATTORNEYS AT LAW James Coon his union has been calling on the U.S. Forest Service to award long-term stew- ardship contracts to thin overcrowded forests — to reduce catastrophic forest fires and provide bio- mass fuel. Currently several mills use saw- dust or woodchips to generate energy for consumption in the mill, turning a waste product into a renew- able fuel source. To ex- pand, Scott said, com- panies would need to know they would have a steady supply of new material. Another underex- ploited source of en- ergy is geothermal: Oregon is geologically active, with hot springs and volcanic activity under the surface, par- ticularly in the central part of the state. In Klamath Falls, with the help of fed- eral money, the Oregon Institute of Technology is planning to drill a mile- deep geothermal well and use the steam to generate about one megawatt of electricity, enough to power the campus. The final frontier, perhaps, is wave energy from Oregon’s 300-mile coast- line. 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