Economy & Jobs
“We need to encourage American innovation… and no area is more ripe for such innovation than energy… To create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.”
President Obama, State of the Union Address, January 27, 2010
“Another industry with tremendous growth potential is energy. I am committed to utilizing all of our vast, God-given natural resources to make Virginia the ‘Energy Capital of the East Coast.’ We must do our part to promote American energy independence.”
Governor Bob McDonnell, State of the Commonwealth Address, January 18, 2010
Achieving American energy independence will not only secure our energy future and protect our national security, it will also mean creating millions of new American jobs, many right here in Virginia. As America confronts the challenges of global climate change, skyrocketing energy demand and dwindling global energy supplies, we will no longer be able to afford our reliance on foreign countries for our vital energy resources. In order for the United States to maintain its global competitiveness, a large sector of the 21st Century American economy will concentrate on the development of domestic energy sources and the discovery of cleaner, cheaper and more efficient ways to use them. Clean, domestic energy will be one of the foremost engines of economic growth and job creation in the next fifty years.
Governor Tim Kaine’s 2007 Virginia Energy Plan calls for a 20% increase in in-state energy production by 2017. Virginia – with its vast, untapped supplies of vital energy resources – can be a leader in the 21st Century American energy economy. The increased development of Virginia’s nuclear, wind, solar, biofuel, oil, natural gas and coal production will create thousands of new jobs at a time and in areas where Virginia is most in need of economic development.
Virginia’s thriving nuclear industry will not only generate thousands of new jobs across the Commonwealth – from Lynchburg and Louisa County in Central Virginia to Newport News and Pittsylvania County in Southside – it will also make Virginia energy independent for more than 40% of our electricity supply. Wind power off the coast of Virginia Beach, on the mountaintops of Southwest Virginia and potentially in Lynchburg will also create thousands of new jobs and could generate as much as 20% of our electricity needs. Plans to build a large-scale solar installation in Front Royal and multiple large-scale solar farms on the Eastern Shore could create more than 1,000 new jobs and make Virginia the second largest producer of solar energy in the United States. Offshore oil and natural gas exploration – that could commence as soon as 2011 – promises thousands of new jobs and a reduction of our dependence on foreign oil. Virginia’s first biofuel facility in Hopewell will create new jobs and clean transportation fuel for Central Virginia, while extensive biomass research in Southside and at various institutions across the Commonwealth promises to expand Virginia’s biofuel and biomass industry in the next decade. Finally, Virginia’s coal reserves continue to be some of the largest in the nation, as well as the source of roughly half of our electricity supply and thousands of jobs in Southwest Virginia.
Virginia has an adundant supply of energy resources. Let’s use them as both a cure for America’s dependence on foreign energy and as an engine for economic growth and job creation in the 21st Century.
