Clean Energy is Filthy, Dirty, Hot, Itchy, Sticky, Yet Awesome Work

This is a picture of my hand after a typical day at work. What this picture doesn't show you it the tiny fibers of insulation that have found there way up my sleeves, and the gobs of duct seal that may or may not have found stuck onto my pants, sweat-shirt, or hair.

Installing duct work for geothermal systems may be the cheapest and cleanest way to heat and cool your home, but it is dirty and hard work. You can hear in peoples' voices how excited they are about solar power, "its the way of the future" everyone says.

I always think about lugging a 50 pound solar panel wearing a 10 pound t-shirt (because its drenched in sweat) across a steeply pitched room. Which is, in 95 degree summer weather actually around 120 because you're standing on a black, asphalt roof that has been baking in the sun all day.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. In fact, I love this stuff. There is a huge satisfaction in using your hands to build something, and being outside is a huge bonus too. That's the really the cool part of renewable energy.

The base of the jobs being created are fundamentally construction jobs with a little tweaking. All distributed generation technologies (solar PV, solar thermal, small wind, and geothermal) are all installed by electricians, carpenters, roofers, drillers, tin workers, and drillers.

The growth of renewable energy will develop our economy from the bottom up, as opposed to lets say, the finance industry. One sales person and an engineer can create enough work for a lot of installers. The fact that our housing infrastructure is so inefficient - we use about double the energy per square foot of a European household - actually means we have a lot of upgrading to do, and that means jobs.

That's not to say finance, management, and investors aren't needed and won't be rewarded, but simply that it looks like the middle class is finally going to get some of the action as a new industry grows.

Chris Williams started the Green Light Distrikt, a community of young professionals working in clean tech sharing what they're seeing and learning on the front lines in US cleantech hubs.