With everyone from the government to interior designers going green, careers for scientists who want to protect the environment are red hot. A July report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers forecasts 52 per cent growth in environment-related jobs between 2000 and 2016, compared with 14 per cent for the economy overall. Whatever your interest, thereâs likely a job to match.
For instance, one of the latest coups for green engineering is an engine that saves $250 million in fuel during its lifetime. It comes not from a start-up or an academic lab, but from the US Navy.
The Navyâs newest addition, the USS Makin Island, is the first surface ship to replace steam boilers with a hybrid gas and electric propulsion system. âAt high speeds it runs on gas turbine engines and at lower speeds it runs on an electric drive â just like a hybrid car,â says Captain Bob Kopas, the shipâs commanding officer. During a journey from Mississippi to Lima, Peru, the ship consumed 673,148 gallons less fuel than a steam ship would have, he says.
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The Navy is also investing in alternative energy by awarding contracts to startups developing biofuels, helping to support the burgeoning industry. As one of the fastest-growing divisions of the environmental market, alternative energy is also receiving a great deal of attention from national corporations and private investors.
For instance, Virent Energy Systems, a start-up in Madison, Wisconsin, has a joint research and development effort with Shell to commercialize a catalytic process that converts plant sugars into gasoline and gasoline-blend components. The products are similar to those derived from crude oil and can be used in existing car, diesel and jet engines, says Randy Cortright, the companyâs founder and chief technology officer.
Start-ups such as Virent provide opportunities for mid-career scientists interested in the environment. In a companyâs initial phase, writing grants and attracting funding are key skills an experienced scientist brings to the table. âThe first 12 months I was writing proposals,â says Cortright. Now that Virent is closer to commercializing its technology, Cortright says he is hiring âgray hairsâ with experience of bringing an idea to market.
Green shoots
If youâre just starting out, however, government labs offer some of the best entry-points for alternative energy careers. All have strong internship programs that offer real-world experience. Theyâre also slated to receive more funding â and create more jobs â as the US government increases support for alternative energy research.
Many of these labs are ranked among the worldâs top research centers. The journal publisher Elsevier, which recently analyzed the alternative energy research papers produced by more than 3,000 research institutions, put NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at the top of the pile, followed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranked sixth, and Los Alamos National Laboratory was 24th.
Another huge player in the alternative energy sector is agriculture, as biofuels wonât take off until there are enough energy-efficient crops to feed the burgeoning industry.
Monsanto, an agricultural company based in St. Louis, Missouri, has taken note. It is developing hybrid plants that can adapt to drought and other climate stresses, and use marginal land not suited to food crops. It also wants to reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides. âAll careers at Monsanto have a focus on the environment in some way,â says Dave Fischhoff, vice president for technology strategy and development.
The industry is starting to borrow heavily from genomics to better control gene expression in plants. âThe convergence of these technologies is a really interesting new area, and youâll see many companies such as ours wanting to integrate them,â says Michael Lassner, vice president of trait discovery at Pioneer, an international seed company. âPeople who train themselves in these areas and are creative in thinking about how to use these advances will really succeed,â he says.
ĐÓ°ÉÔ´´s are also using the tools of the genomics revolution to improve conservation efforts. Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State, won a MacArthur âgenius grantâ in September for her work in modeling diversity and extinction events with RNA viruses and ancient DNA extracted from plants and animals.
Not all jobs are lab-based, either. A basic accounting of the planetâs biodiversity and ecosystems is still lacking, meaning there are plenty of jobs for people who like to tromp around outdoors. âWe donât really know whatâs out there,â says Shahid Naeem, director of Columbia Universityâs Center for Environmental Research and Conservation. âHalf the biomass is the microbial community, and itâs just a gigantic black box. Some of the most exciting discoveries recently have been in this microdiversity,â he says.
Whatever your interests, there are two skills that open the door to any environmental career, arising from a universal need that crosses all fields and industries: scientists who can develop innovative monitoring systems and integrate the huge data streams these networks provide.
âWe predict data analysis, bioinformatics and predictive modeling to be areas of growth,â says Monsantoâs Fischhoff. âTo get a foot in the door, graduate students should ensure they are targeting programs that offer research opportunities in these areas. Their work doesnât need to be in the area of agriculture or plant biotechnology, but can be related topics from other fields.â
In the marine sciences, Jim Yoder, dean of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, sees increasing interest in sensor networks. âWeâve had really sophisticated sensors to measure properties of water, but biological and chemical properties are not as advanced. Sometimes itâs just a straight computer software problem, but thereâs also a lot of effort to develop and apply autonomous sampling platforms, like little vehicles that can be programmed to drive around and come back to the surface to get picked up.â
But donât forget to focus on the basics. âI worry a bit, particularly at the undergraduate level, that some of the environmental science programs are kind of soft,â says Yoder.
Jon Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, agrees. âI think that rigorous training in chemistry, physics and biology at the undergraduate level is essential,â he says. âWe donât need a bunch of Pollyannas, we need people who can roll up their sleeves and dive into the problems.â