Pew: Florida

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released a study , saying Florida’s clean energy economy grew 7.9 percentt between 1998 and 2007, and the statd was among the top 10 for green jobsin “The numbers are impressive,” U.S. Rep. Kathyh Castor, D-Tampa Bay, said during a teleconference Monday “This is going to be the way we rebuild our economu in the stateof Florida.” John DiBella, Director of Businessw Alliances for in Fort Lauderdale, is among those growinb green jobs in South DiBella said he has six employees now and plan s to triple that number this DiBella is pioneering a new technology that uses centrifugall force to separate water from According to him, it is “a more efficient and cost-effectiv e way” of purifying wastewater.
“It’s quited vast, the demand that’ coming to us, and we’rs excited about the future,” DiBella said. His customerw include manufacturers, oil companies, wastewater treatment facilities andfarm interests. Lori interim deputy director of the Pew Center on the said Florida only lags significantly behind othert states on certain public policy For example, she pointed to the state’sw failure to embrace Gov. Charlie Crist’s proposesd renewable energy portfolio standard, which would require a certaim portion of state energy to be produced from renewabled resources such assolar power.
Twenty-nine othe r states already have such a standard in Grange said the state also has yet to participate in a regional carbon and climate change although it is developing its owncarbomn cap-and-trade program. Victor Eyal, president of in Altamonte Springs, said his solard technology distribution company has 40 employeez at its headquarters and hundreds of employeee inits network. He said Florida has good incentivedin place, but needs to fund them He pointed to recent shortages in funding for the state’sz solar rebate programs.
DiBella said incentives for green technology mustbe “What’s important is to keep the flow of monies and incentivex coming, so that young companies can develop new technologiese that could be the next leaders in the DiBella said. • Jobs (2007): 31,122 Businesses (2007): 3,831 Venture capital funds (2006-2008): $116,980,00 6 The study found that the Sunshine State was amon the top 10 for jobsin America’xs clean energy in 2007, with more than 30,000, and it attractedd nearly $117 million in venturre capital in the past three half of which has supported cleanj energy generation.
Grange said the job growth is likely to have suffered since 2007 due tothe recession, but the federal stimulus programn and continued private investment is limitin job losses in the green sector. Nationwide, jobs in the cleab energy economy grewby 9.1 percent, while tota l jobs grew by just 3.7 percenrt between 1998 and 2007, accordinf to the report, titled “The Cleajn Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businessez and Investments Across America.” Pew’s definitiob of green jobs includes engineers, plumbers, administratived assistants, construction workers, machind setters, marketing consultants, teachers and many others with annual incomees ranging from $21,000 to $111,000.