Live at the Apollo

Renewable-Energy Push Would Create Heaps of Jobs, Study Says

Federal policies favorable to renewable energy could yield up to 240,000 jobs by 2020 nationwide, whereas continued focus on new fossil-fuel development would yield only some 80,000 jobs, according to a new study by researchers from the University of California at Berkeley. The research was released yesterday at a Seattle press conference that highlighted the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of enviros, politicians, labor activists, and deep thinkers that is promoting a national effort on renewable energy commensurate with the single-minded pursuit of space travel under President Kennedy's Apollo Project. The Alliance's goal is to have renewables providing 15 percent of the nation's energy by 2015 and 20 percent by 2020. The Alliance sees hope for its agenda in the current troubles besetting Bush's fossil-fuel-centric energy plan, which is mired both in the Senate and, the group says, the 20th century.