Why the future really can be bright green

Sep 21 2009 By Kevin Rowan, The Journal

A NATURAL sense of optimism led me to believe that the green manufacturing revolution would always happen.

A tendency towards idealism is probably not one of the greatest qualities to have as an activist in the trade union movement; countless times as a young shop steward in the shipyard of Barrow-in-Furness wise counsel to ‘focus on what’s realistically achievable’ would be drummed in by older, more experienced colleagues.

However, I still believe that a much better world is an achievable aspiration, including a sustainable economic future with a strong platform based on good quality jobs in green manufacturing.

Whenever I’ve discussed this, while the confidence that it’s been a case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’, there has always been a slight doubt, a slight anxiety that we might just mess it up and miss out, despite there being an almost perfect storm of opportunity for the North East.

Then we get the long-awaited announcement from the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband – at the TUC Congress no less – that Clipper Wind is to receive substantial Government backing to develop the huge Britannia Wind Turbines here in the North East, leading to at least 1,000 new jobs.

This is on top of development of electric cars and battery manufacturing in Washington, biomass at the Port of Tyne and an emerging and growing hydrogen and bio-fuels industries in and around Wilton plus the strong potential in clean coal technology. Supported by the region’s Low Carbon Economic Area status, we really can see the North East leading the world and moving quickly into a much stronger economic environment, including significant employment growth in the very near future.

Clipper alone will be seriously good news: 1,000 jobs would not be sniffed at anywhere in the UK, but there are good reasons to be confident that this development will be quickly followed by other investment in this sector.

One of the key factors to be considered in developing offshore wind is reliability. It’s not hard to see why.

Any wind turbine is only of any use when it is working; if you have a turbine the size of the Eiffel Tower with the London Eye on top of it, several miles offshore, the very last thing you want to do is have to go and fix it. The North East has proven excellence in both engineering and offshore technology. This is one of the reasons investors are looking to be here – that expertise is a risk minimiser.

A further step to ensuring reliability is to develop a very close industrial cluster of supply chains. The bases, the towers, the nacelles, under-sea connectivity and the engineering can all be based in the North East, turning these initial 1,000 jobs into potentially 30,000 – or more – if the aspirations for the region to be global leaders are achieved.

That changes this announcement from being very good news to being transformational investment.

Kevin Rowan, Regional Secretary, Northern TUC