With the steadily shrinking coal sector, Goldwinds America, a branch of a major Chinese turbine manufacturer, is opening a free jobs program to retrain former coal workers into skilled wind turbine technicians.

The company is building a wind farm in Wyoming, the largest producer of coal in the United States, in an area known as Carbon County. The region‘s falling employment rates in the coal sector opened up opportunities for cleaner energy to grow in the region: just as it had been throughout the rest of the nation. Wind farms are nothing new in the United States. They are very popular in Southern California. If you have ever driven through Palm Springs, you have definitely seen them. They are massive, windmill-looking figures ? hundreds and hundreds of them. They provide energy, jobs and a drop in coal consumption, which is beneficial to the environment and the economy. A win-win.

Researchers at Columbia University found that a 49% of the drop in coal consumption came from cheap natural gas, a low demand for coal resulted in a 26% drop, and cheap renewable energy cause 18% of the drop.

With the shrinking demand for coal, the Powder River Basin in Wyoming provides an excellent location to open more jobs in the wind industry as it has excellent wind resources, ensuring solid employment for workers in the field. And when there’s more workers in wind farms, there’s more money in the economy, and less dirty coal fumes in the air.

<Sean Chiang, Troy HS 11th Grade>