Gov. Brown Lauds Job Creation at World’s Largest Solar Energy Project

Office of the Governor

PRESS RELEASE:

Contact: Governor's Press Office

Friday, June 17, 2011

Brown Lauds Job Creation at World’s Largest Solar Energy Project

BLYTHE — California Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. today joined Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and other federal, state and local officials at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Blythe Solar Power Project, a plan to build the largest solar energy facility in the world. The project will bring thousands of construction jobs to Riverside County and help California obtain 33 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

 

“It makes sense to power California with renewable wind and solar energy that protects clean air and water and promotes energy independence,” Governor Brown said. “Renewable energy projects also stimulate business investment in California and create thousands of new jobs.”

 

Brown also visited six other solar and wind energy projects—just 5% of the state’s 270 total renewable energy projects—including: First Solar’s Desert Sunlight, Solar Millenium’s Palen Solar Power Project, NextEra’s Genesis facility, Solar Reserve’s Rice Airfield Project, Abengoa’s Mojave Solar Project, and Terragen’s Alta-Oak Creek wind power project (also the world’s largest wind project).

 

The projects Brown visited today are estimated to create 5,390 new construction jobs and 400 permanent jobs in California. Upon completion, these power plants will generate 3,470 megawatts of energy, or 6 percent of California’s peak energy requirement, which is enough energy to power more than 1.4 million single-family homes.

 

In 2010, the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies surveyed 12 solar, wind, and geothermal projects and found an average of 4,258 jobs would be created per month during construction. Skilled and non-skilled trades needed to work on these projects include steel and ironworkers, teamsters, plumbers and pipefitters, cement masons, electricians, operating engineers, and managers and general laborers. These projects would also bring nearly 1,000 long-term operations and maintenance jobs to California.

 

California’s move toward renewable energy is creating thousands of new jobs and providing economic benefits including:

 

•       Investment of approximately $250 million to $1.5 billion for a typical project

•       Hundreds to thousands of skilled and non-skilled workers employed per month

•       Long-term operations of approximately 30-40 years

 

In April 2011, Brown signed SBX1 2, which requires that one-third of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. The renewable energy projects Brown visited today represent a significant step toward meeting state requirements to obtain 33 percent of energy from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2020.

 

Other federal, state and local officials and contractors attending today's groundbreaking ceremony in Blythe included Bob Abbey, Bureau of Land Management Director, John Laird, California Secretary of Natural Resources, Joseph DeConinck, Mayor of Blythe, Uwe T. Schmidt, Solar Trust CEO, and Christoph Wolff, CEO of Solar Millennium AG.

 

# # #

Governor Jerry Brown
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

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Produced By Conference 2011 At Disney Studios - Digital Is The New Green

By Gina Hall

Gina Hall
is a Los Angeles-based writer. Follow her on Facebook. [Bio Cont'd Below...]

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The third year of the Produced By Conference brought more than 2,200 people to the Disney lot in Burbank on June 4th and 5th. There was no shortage of star-powered panels and discussions on "green content" but the focus ultimately centered on emerging digital technology. The hope is that digital technology can usher in a more sustainable era to the industry by reducing our print and production materials and changing the distribution model from one that requires delivery of a print to one that is beamed into the theater or home.   
Highlights of the conference included the Bleeding Green: Content with a Cause panel, which featured a conversation on developing documentary material with a green agenda. Panelists included Lesly Chilcott, producer of Waiting For ‘Superman’ and An Inconvenient Truth, and Fisher Stevens, producer of The Cove. 

Again, the focus centered on how digital media has become the biggest asset to the "green filmmaker" in all areas; financing, raising awareness, filming and distribution. Twitter, Facebook and blogs have become the go-to method for finding an audience and online channels plus Netflix a preferred distribution outlet. The glut of eco-content has become an issue, but the overwhelming sentiment was one of optimism in getting these issues out to a broader audience.  

Raising Your Tentpole proved to be another popular panel, apparently many aspiring to bypass the slow ascent to success and jump straight into developing and producing franchise faire. Panelists incl
uded Gale Anne Hurd, Bonnie Arnold and Kevin Feige, among others, as they discussed the ups and downs of creating content through the studio machine.
Perhaps more useful to the indie producer was the panel Plugged In: The Socially Networked Producer where Elias Plishner, Sony Senior VP of Digital Marketing who headed up the Social Network campaign, told the audience that it's never too early to start engaging fans of your project through social media channels to build "pre-awareness." Not surprisingly, the panel discussed how actors are cast based on their Twitter following as it is assumed that that will become part of the marketing package.
Meanwhile, in the conversation panel with Harvey Weinstein and Mark Gordon, the view on internet distribution and Video on Demand (VOD) was lukewarm. Both Weinstein and Gordon expressed that while it is the future, the current business model should continue to focus on the theatrical release.
A major announcement from the conference came from the CEO of Scenios, Mark Davis, who unveiled that their production management software will now be available entirely in "the cloud." This type of platform will allow production teams to collaborate from pre-production through production and then into post and will include a collection of apps that manages items like the script, budget, locations, shoot schedule, call sheets, dailies and rough cuts.

With this movement toward cloud computing, digital distribution, and online marketing, the move toward the industry consuming less is yet to be seen. In the near future, the industry's net consumption of paper screenplays, plastic DVD cases and oil to shuttle prints to theaters may go down, but electronics require a massive amount of conflict metals and create toxic eWaste (and let's not get started on production offices and sets slow to phase out plastic water bottles and disposable Starbucks cups).
Whatever the future may bring, it's coming quickly and next year's conference can't come fast enough.     

Gina Hall writes for publications such as Greening Hollywood, as a guest blogger, Culver City News, AskMissA.com and TheScoopLA. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Cinematic Arts and has worked in the entertainment industry on documentaries and features, as a development executive and as a writer. She works with environmental organization Global Green USA whose efforts are primarily focused on fighting global climate change through policies, advocacy and education. 

Eco Consulting * Eco Media Green Blog Network * Greening Hollywood *




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Responsible Tourism Awards - June 17th Nomination Deadline

About the Responsible Tourism Awards

The Responsible Tourism Awards are organised by founder responsibletravel.com, with support from media partners Metro Newspaper, Geographical Magazine (the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society), and World Travel Market, where the Awards are given out. The judging process is designed and organised in partnership with the International Centre for Responsible Tourism at Leeds Metropolitan University, and Virgin Holidays have supported the Awards as headline sponsor since 2007. 

Read more about our Partners

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Since they were founded in 2004, the Awards have attracted over 10,000 nominations from members of the public, leading to 201 unique organisations Awarded from 51 countries around the world. 

What are the Awards for?


The Responsible Tourism Awards were founded in 2004 to celebrate and inspire change in the tourism industry. The Awards rest on a simple principle – that all types of tourism, from niche to mainstream, can and should be organised in a way that preserves, respects and benefits destinations and local people. 

We want to celebrate the shining stars of responsible tourism – the individuals, organisations and destinations working innovatively with local cultures, communities and biodiversity. 

But more than that, we want their examples to inspire others. That’s why we’ve got the most rigorous judging process around, and work with the best partners in the industry to help us get the word out – to ensure that their stories provide an example to the industry. 

How do the Awards work?  Read MORE on ResponsibleTravel.com

 


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