The new green thumb

July 5, 2009 4:00 AM

My friend wants to travel to a developed country where he can learn about green technology hands-on and bring it back to his home country. He is possibly referring to a blue collar job, installing solar panels, etc. This means he's starting small. Where does he start looking?
posted by drea to work & money (5 comments total)

I think he'd do best to start in the USA, specifically in Colorado. It looks like lots of green companies are hiring there: "Why so many green jobs are sprouting in Colorado."
posted by BusyBusyBusy at 6:37 AM on July 5

It's going to depend somewhat on his country of origin, on the languages he speaks, and on which countries will grant him work visas easily. More details might get more useful answers.
posted by mareli at 7:38 AM on July 5

I think he'd do best to start in the USA, specifically in Colorado. It looks like lots of green companies are hiring there: "Why so many green jobs are sprouting in Colorado."

A number of other countries have more established records in developing new industries relating to renewable energy. Denmark, Germany and Spain are ahead in wind energy, Germany is probably the Western leader in Solar PV, with Japan and the US behind. China is the leader in solar thermal manufacturing and installation, the southern European states at installing it outside China. The US may be the leader in larger geothermal projects but this isn't really a growth area. The US will have the benefit of being English speaking if that is what your friend speaks.

In terms of applying knowledge back home then it would be useful to know what the local resources are like. African countries will generally have good solar resources, some will have good biomass resources, some good wind resources, some good hydro (large and/or small scale). If your friend wants to work back in his home country then he should get an idea of what the locally exploitable resources are before he goes for training. This might include consideration of what might usefully be exploited economically and whether there is likely to be any demand for a technology back home once he has his training.

The provision for training in different places will vary considerably. There are a few undergraduate programmes if he can access funding, as well as a larger number of post grad programmes. I am aware of UG programmes in Portland, Oregon; San Juan, New Mexico; New South Wales, Australia; and various courses across the UK (I won't name them as I am connected with one professionally).

One option may be to see what (if any) western RE companies are active in his country and see whether they offer any training either in country or out, I suspect the competition for this might be stiff where it exists.
posted by biffa at 9:06 AM on July 5

There are some charities which take volunteers for these kind of projects. Google will give you some starting points.

One thing which may affect him in some countries is licensing requirements for installers. Here, pretty much any kind of trade work requires some kind industry recognised competency qualification - not necessarily a hassle as these are often one or two days courses, but something to consider.

And yeah, there's a lot of government money being thrown at domestic conversion to solar in Australia at the moment (why is beyond me given how badly that panned out last time around...) so there are quite a lot of businesses and contractors actively chasing that money and they need a fairly steady supply of workers. Your friend might not qualify for a work visa here though.
posted by Lolie at 10:32 AM on July 5

It might be worth exploring RETscreen. This is a Canadian website that has lots of free software for analyzing the renewable potential of any area. It's theoretical, but it explains what should be done, and is used by some installers for calculating how to locate/site/consider installations.

More details about your friend would help, in particular the climate/countries that he plans on working in.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 12:45 AM on July 6