LYNNWOOD — The color of the region’s work force looks like it’s going to get greener and greener. So-called “green” jobs in the county number about 2,000 in 200 firms, as of January 2009, according to Deborah Knutson, president of the Snohomish County Economic Development Council.
At the EDC’s quarterly breakfast meeting April 28, Marc Cummings, director of public affairs at Battelle National Laboratories in Seattle; Diahann Howard, director of economic development and governmental affairs for the Port of Benton; and Steve Klein, general manager of Snohomish County PUD, described what the future may hold and what’s happening today.
Cummings kicked off the presentation by explaining the state’s efforts to make Washington a leader in clean technology. Gov. Chris Gregoire created a 23-member Clean Leadership Council, working with a consultant to analyze assets and create a road map.
First, Cummings said, parties need to agree on a policy that aligns the needs of capital, technology and policy execution to complement incentives to go green. Second, he said, whatever policy the council develops must be durable. To work, it must be supported and embraced on the implementation level.
Third, intensified innovation in clean technologies will pay off, especially in larger markets outside Washington, which already has green-energy credibility with 70 percent of its power needs coming from hydroelectric dams, he said. Cummings said the three most promising aspects in that effort are green buildings and energy efficiency, biofuels and biomass generation, and a “smart” electrical grid.
One key to meeting energy needs will be figuring ways to get more efficiencies from current power supplies — green and traditional — rather than creating new power sources, he said. Another hurdle is the fragmentation of the state’s power suppliers.
“You’ve got 68 utility jurisdictions in this state,” Cummings said. “Scale matters.”
The leadership council sees a future where Washington becomes the best state to deploy products, services and innovative energy solutions to serve the world, he said. However, there probably won’t be any single large employer in Washington leading that charge. Rather, Cummings said, “We’re probably a state that’ll do really well as a second- or third-tier supplier. It’s still a lot of jobs. You end up with a lot of 50- to 200-people facilities.”
Klein touted the efforts of the PUD in bringing more green business to Snohomish County. The PUD’s tidal energy pilot project west of Whidbey Island, the first of its kind in the U.S., should be producing power in two years, he said.
If everything works as expected, the underwater turbine will produce electricity for 70,000 homes. PUD partners — the University of Washington and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories — are studying the turbine’s potential impacts on the marine environment. The PUD is also one of two utilities in Washington state to receive a $500,000 federal grant to invest in a fiber-optic smart electrical grid, Klein said. It amounts to automating 70-year-old technology.
“A smart grid to a dumb utility doesn’t work,” he said. “We’re in the process of ‘smartifying’ it.”
Klein also touted an energy-efficiency initiative in cooperation with the city of Everett and Snohomish County that will help 3,000 homeowners and 100 small businesses this year and in 2011.
The Port of Benton in Richland is trying to capitalize on its proximity to the Hanford nuclear reservation and the Tri-Cities Research District, both of which attract clean energy, bioscience, environmental technology and computational science enterprises, Howard said. The cleanup effort at Hanford presents opportunities for the research district, including a tie-in with a smart electrical power grid and the region’s electricity production potential.
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