A Green Corridor Runs Through It

by Colin Read, July 15, 2009

Clinton County is on to something. Part location, part innovation, it is clear that this region is taking advantage of fundamental shifts in business strategies.

For more than four hundred years, this region on the northern tip of Lake Champlain has been a gateway that connects different worlds. First it connected tribes that traded north to south, east to west. Then it connected these early supply chains of the New World to the Old World of Europe. Now it connects businesses that can access a huge hinterland from Montreal and Quebec City to Boston, New York, and beyond.

And it transcends the old world of manufacturing toward a new world that demands green products and a green supply chain.

There are a few types of businesses that will act as the basis of the new, green, and sustainable economies of tomorrow. Gone are the industries that can be more competitively performed with low wage and lower skill workers in emerging countries. The types of businesses that will thrive in the future are those that are necessarily local and those that tap unique skills and human resources found locally. It is these industries that are growing at an exponential rate.

Jobs such as teachers and barbers, building contractors and doctors, are the jobs we induce by creating goods and services that can be exported elsewhere. We also can create indirect jobs that support the industries which contribute to the flow of goods along the Green Corridor running through Plattsburgh. Critical to our success, though, is our ability to tap in to those industries that are sprouting up along the Corridor and exporting their products to other regions.

These industries include state-of-the-art manufacturers of all sorts. Nova Bus makes leading edge buses in Plattsburgh, with the capability of producing hybrid buses and articulated buses that are more efficient and less polluting per passenger mile. These buses will transport people and athletes in the Vancouver Olympics. Bombardier is well positioned to tap into the need for light and fuel efficient trains as communities recognize the need for mass transit in the face of pricier oil. Triangle Electric is producing solar panel arrays that efficiently track the sun and enhance panel output by 50% or more. And the state-of-the-art wind turbines of Noble Energy in Ellenberg were even featured nationally on General Electric television ads.

These are the types of industries that allow us to wean ourselves off of precious commodities and onto a path of greater sustainability. They are the industries of the 21st Century, and they share the values that make the Green Corridor unique.

Other members of the corridor also share these green values. The Port of Montreal is fast becoming a leading port on the East Coast, with a projected capacity for containers that will allow a three-fold increase in annual tonnage from 2007 to 2020. By then Montreal will have almost half the tonnage capacity of New York/New Jersey and will be nearing the actual tonnage imported into the NY/NJ ports in 2007.

About a third of the container traffic through the Montreal end of the Quebec/NY corridor is destined for points south. This currently represents almost half a million tons of cargo traffic flowing south from the Montreal port. By bringing cargo up the St. Lawrence Seaway and through Montreal, shippers can serve destinations within the 135 million person East Coast hinterland. They can also avoid the delays and congestion of NY/NJ ports while still taking advantage of the significant energy efficiencies ships offer cargo destined to inland areas.

A single ship can carry the cargo of up to one thousand trucks, with almost a tenth of the energy consumption of trucks and less than half the energy consumption of trains. The ability to use the Green Corridor for shipping to inland locations in the Northeast can result in significant energy savings.

And much of this traffic uses the Montreal to Plattsburgh portion of the Quebec/NY Green Corridor.

Clinton County companies like Nova Bus and Bombardier Light Rail can also capitalize on world bus demand that is projected to increase. The following table shows the anticipated increase in bus demand in North America and worldwide as of 2006. Since then, the oil price shock is expected to accelerate bus demand, especially demand for hybrid buses that offer a 40% or more savings in fuel costs and carbon dioxide emissions.

These companies can capitalize on increasing demand for fuel efficient mass transit alternatives as the Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act shall inject $17.7 billion into bus and light rail transportation nationwide. Another $300 million will also be offered to state and local government to procure new energy efficient trucks and buses.

Meanwhile, products such as solar tracking arrays from companies like Triangle Electric of Plattsburgh are poised to benefit from $6.3 billion in funds offered to state and local government for energy efficiency improvements. They may be able to tap into a further $6.5 billion in grants and loans for sustainable energy production. Complete details of the federal spending initiatives can be found here.

The corridor also benefits from an emerging emphasis on clean jobs (see accompanying article by Paul Grasso in the TDC e-newsletter). These jobs of tomorrow are in conservation and pollution mitigation, clean energy, energy efficiency, and environmentally friendly production. A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trust, entitled "The Clean Energy Economy," notes that 80% of venture capital investment in 2008 was devoted to businesses that develop clean renewable energy or reduce our demand for energy. These are the types of clean industries typified by Nova Bus, Triangle Electric, and Bombardier in Clinton County. New York and New Jersey has 5,354 such businesses, generating 59,860 jobs in 2007, and $492,158,000 in venture capital spending from 2006 to 2008.

These industries share an important workforce characteristic with other major new plants along the Green Corridor. They demand workers that are skilled and trained for the new clean industries. The implications on our regional labor force are far reaching. The hundreds of new jobs created in Plattsburgh through Nova Bus, Bombardier, and their associated suppliers join the thousands of new workers needed just down the Corridor in the Saratoga Springs area in support of the new GlobalFoundries computer chip plant. This plant, valued at $4.2 billion, is expected to employ another 1,400 direct jobs, and a total of almost 5,000 direct and indirect jobs along the corridor in industries that will leave their imprint on corridor workforce needs and corridor exports.

It seems clear that the Green Corridor is the latest wrinkle to a trade relationship that has seen many metamorphoses over the centuries. And just like the others, it bodes well for our region's global competitiveness.

 

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