nuclear-news

Transition to renewable energy sector: the goal of these North American Oil and Gas Workers

Amid Price Plunge, North American Oil and Gas Workers Seek Transition to Renewable Sector  TruthOut, 03 April 2016 00:00By Candice Bernd,  “…….after years of working in an industry that one top climate scientist has called “the biggest carbon bomb on the planet,” Hildebrand came to realize that he was not the only oil worker in Alberta who felt “guilty about developing the infrastructure that is creating climate change.”

Opportunity in the Oil Plunge

Last spring, when oil prices began to fall, Hildebrand banded together with like-minded coworkers and began building an oil and gas worker-led nonprofit called “Iron & Earth,” which officially launched this month during a press conference in Edmonton. Through the nonprofit, the oil sands workers hope to help others who have been laid off diversify their skill sets and facilitate the necessary training to transition them to the renewable energy sector. They also want to help incorporate renewable energy projects into oil sands workers’ current scope of work…….

“We are a group of workers who not only want to diversify our work scope based on job need, but also based on a values-based mission, to ensure that we’re creating and building a future that’s going to be sustainable,” Hildebrand told Truthout. “The drop in oil prices was certainly a catalyst to help amplify these conversations, and created the pressure to … create a catch-all organization that’s going to make projects happen and get workers’ hands on some renewable energy projects.”

Moreover, not every oil worker with experience in Alberta’s oil sands needs to retrain in order to transition to the renewable sector, according to Hildebrand, who says a lot of trades are “directly transferable.” Hildebrand has worked on several renewable energy projects himself, including a biomass plant and the wind farm weather station that inspired him during his apprenticeship. “I didn’t require any retraining for that. All I required was the blueprints and the steel, and the facility to build it,” he said.

From Oil Sands to “Solar Skills”

Iron & Earth’s first project is its “Solar Skills” campaign to facilitate the retraining of 1,000 laid-off electricians from Alberta’s oil industry, to help build 100 solar installations on public buildings throughout the province beginning this fall. In the future, as the group takes on different campaigns focused on geothermal, biomass, biofuel and wind energy, they hope to attract other kinds of oil and gas workers, such as pipefitters and iron workers, as well as workers from other building trades, to retrain in those sectors………http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35477-amid-price-plunge-north-american-oil-and-gas-workers-seek-transition-to-renewable-sector

April 4, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, climate change, ENERGY