Grants Support Green Jobs Training

NC State received grants totaling $1.7 million from the North Carolina Energy Office to provide undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on experience and training for jobs in the state’s energy economy, including “green-energy” fields.

The N.C. Energy Office created the program with money from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Four different units received funding:

• The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering received $464,801 and will hire 48 full- and part-time interns to either work with outside partners active in conducting energy assessments and studies, or work on campus in the Industrial Assessment Center or Energy Management Program.
• The  College of Natural Resources received $435,481 and will provide 45 internships and three fellowships in fields including environmental technology, forest management, natural resources, paper science and engineering, and wood products.
• The North Carolina Solar Center, a unit within the university’s College of Engineering, received $373,469 for six internships and four fellowships to share research or projects and provide estimates of greenhouse-gas reductions from their work. Possible positions and job experiences for participants include bioenergy feedstock breeding and genomics, feedstock growth, cultivation and harvesting techniques, analysis of novel energy crops, feedstock chemical analysis, biofuel chemical analysis, biomass conversion systems, biofuel refineries, economic modeling and lifecycle analyses.
• The  university’s Utilities and Engineering Services/Department of Energy Management received $475,488 to place six fellows with various university organizations that study or deliver energy efficiency.