A couple dozen cars lined a stretch of Route 1A in Winterport on Thursday morning, with drivers and passengers keeping their eyes peeled on the Penobscot River. Though the soft morning air spoke of spring, it wasn’t the weather that had them taking in the water view. They wanted to see the 354-foot barge carrying a portion of an oil refinery building to Port Arthur, Texas, chugging down the river. People gathered elsewhere along the route the barge would take, with cameras and binoculars in hand, ready to record and inspect.
It’s more than the unusual sight of a four-story high structure perched on a barge that brought such interest. Part of the excitement generated by the project is that it represents a return to Bangor’s and Maine’s maritime heritage. And even more importantly, it is a return to manufacturing — to actu-ally making things here.
Not coincidentally, the modular facility was built as a component to be used in an oil refinery. Energy is the growth field of the next few decades. And unlike such ephemera as credit default swaps, the energy economy has ties to real-world demand. Though the Cianbro project is linked to a fuel whose supply is declining — petroleum — there is an upside here as well, since it represents a step toward a kind of national self-sufficiency. With new refineries, domestic supplies of gasoline and heating oil will increase, helping the U.S. gain some independence from the vagaries of foreign mar-kets.
The Cianbro project, rising on the grounds of a defunct industrial site, is encouraging. It is also heartening to see that elected officials at the state and federal levels clearly understand that if we are to again make things here, our best shot is in the energy sector.
President Obama and Gov. Baldacci both have articulated the importance of investing in the rising green energy economy. Mr. Obama’s ambitious plans to prime the green energy sector with government spending will come at great cost because of the profound nature of the change in course. When a homeowner’s rickety old hot-air oil furnace is barely able to limp through another winter, the homeowner understands that this may be the moment to bite the bullet, borrow some money, and install a new efficient gas furnace, a heat pump or a pellet furnace. Remaking the U.S. economy is a compa-rable move.
The green economy, like the Cianbro operation, does more than create white collar jobs. Skills like those used by the welders, pipefitters and millwrights at Cianbro’s facility are needed to build wind turbines, heat pumps and pellet furnaces.
At the ceremony marking the barge’s journey to Texas, a sign reading, “Why Not Maine?” was prominently displayed. Why not, indeed.