Germany: Renewables revolution (focus is on jobs and careers)

[kristopher]

Germany: Renewables revolution
Europe's largest economy is boosting research on alternative energy sources and generating job opportunities.
Quirin Schiermeier Katrin Kohnert
Nature 480 , 279-280 (2011) doi:10.1038/nj7376-279a
Published online 07 December 2011
This article was originally published in the journal Nature


Marcus Bär is a prime target for headhunters. An electrical engineer, he leads an independent young-investigator group at the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy (HZB), working on next-generation, high-performance thin-film solar cells. But his research experience has also attracted the interest of private-sector solar-energy companies throughout Germany, which are aggressively recruiting skilled scientists and engineers. Bär has received some tempting job offers, he says — but has opted to stay in his tenure-track academic position.

Solar research at the HZB is one of many alternative-energy initiatives to get under way in Germany in recent years. Energy research has long been a priority for the German government, but the meltdown in March at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan gave it extra urgency. Before the disaster, nuclear energy had supplied some 23% of Germany's electricity demand. But immediately after the meltdown, the German government withdrew the licences of seven older nuclear reactors (see Nature 472, 505; 2011), and later decided it would shut down the nine remaining reactors by the end of 2022. This has added impetus to plans for investment in energy research over the next several years.

In August, just weeks after announcing the nuclear phase-out, the government approved a 3.5-billion (US$4.7-billion) energy-research programme for 2011–14 — a 75% increase over the 2006–09 funding period. Of that, some 2.5 billion is earmarked for research on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

This means plenty of new jobs, for researchers at private companies as well as those at institutes that rely on government funding. Analysts with the German Institute of Economic Research in Berlin estimate that over the next decade, several hundred thousand skilled jobs could be generated in the renewable-energy sector, many for scientists and engineers. Companies and institutes will be recruiting from home and abroad; indeed, bringing in more foreign talent is a government policy...

Downloadable article at: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7376-279a

[CTyankee]

1. Maybe our kids should all start to learn German.

If they want foreign talent, ours could be it! At this rate, our kids aren't going to have a chance at a decent job and enjoy decent benefits.

Init funny how these socialists are creating jobs and making breakthroughs in alternative energy sources?

[phantom power]

2. I wonder what it's like to live in a country with a focus on jobs and careers?