As the concept of green collar jobs becomes an ever more frequent staple of political rhetoric, it’s easy to forget that it already represents a real-world source of sustainability-driven economic growth. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than the small town of Corinth, Maine. 

The small logging town had been hitting hard times until very recently, with decades-old logging mills closing their doors due to more efficient manufacturing processes and cheaper labor elsewhere.  Fighting unemployment rates near double those elsewhere in the state, the rural logging regions found an economic savior in high oil prices, and the renewed investment they bought. 

While currently relying on older technologies for lower-carbon domestic energy solutions, such as wood pellets for home stoves,  the backwoods of Maine could soon be on the cutting edge of biofuel technologies, as progressively higher food prices stimulate research and development in alternative biofuel sources, such as poplar trees and sawdust, booth abundant in Maine’s rural interior

All told, the green energy investment in Northern Maine is expected to top $1 billion dollars [pdf] by the year 2012, creating hundreds of green-collar jobs out of what otherwise might have been another dying American industry.