POLICY MATTERS REPORT: 22,000 POTENTIAL OHIO JOBS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY

I missed it but Hypothetically Speaking didn't. Policy Matters released a study Tuesday detailing potential Ohio job creation under the national renewable energy investment plan advocated by the Apollo Alliance. More than 5,000 of those jobs could be in Cuyahoga, Lorain and Summit Counties.

The premise of these calculations is a $72 billion national investment in "50,000 megawatts of wind energy, 9,260 megawatts of photovoltaic or solar energy, 8,700 megawatts of biomass energy, and 6,077 megawatts of geothermal energy". Of course, this premise is, well, hypothetical. But the Policy Matters/Apollo study shows in detail how specific Ohio industries and counties would benefit from turning that hypothetical into a reality.

Given the unending brutal impact of high natural gas and electric bills on Cleveland consumers, and the massive flow of energy dollars out of the Northeast Ohio economy, it's remarkable that energy efficiency and local sourcing still rank so low on Cleveland's economic agenda. (For example, neither of the two candidates for Mayor is saying anything at all about these issues.) Maybe the Policy Matters report will help break the silence.