New U.S. Institutes Help Tackle Cleantech Workforce Shortage

by Maria Gallucci (SolveClimate News) Training academies are cropping up to steer students and professionals into clean energy industries that lack manpower to match growing opportunities
The San Diego green crude producer typically hires from within the biomedical field. Employees are paid full-time while they train for work in the developer's labs or at its research and development facility and biorefinery in New Mexico.
But Stephen Mayfield, Sapphire Energy co-founder and director of the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, has a more efficient method in mind.
The algae expert is helping to lead a new post-graduate training program that is building a ready workforce ahead of an anticipated boom in biotechnology development.
Around 100 students are expected to enroll this year in EDGE (Educating and Developing Workers for the Green Economy), a public-private partnership that offers industrial and technical certificate programs in biofuels and biotech production, analysis and processing. For now, the initiative does not include ethanol.
...EDGE's first certificate course began in March at MiraCosta community college in northern San Diego County, and a second set of students will start classes this summer.
Tuition will be waved the first two years as the program is tweaked, and course materials will later be packaged for nationwide distribution. READ MORE