Buffalo Sun City, Part Two: Hydro-Powered Solar Silicon Factory Re-Opens in Niagara Falls

The tentative greening of Greater Buffalo was a favorite subject of mine in my early days at gbNYC, mostly because I'm a sucker for underdogs and any good news -- be it about the ultra-moribund Buffalo Bills or an attempt to remake the city as a solar manufacturing hub -- about Greater Buffalo always kind of counts as a man-bites-dog story. The just-reopened Globe Specialty Metals plant in Niagara Falls isn't an especially green building in its own right; this is a metal manufacturer, after all. But it's certainly green around the edges: the Globe plant is powered by 40 megawatts of low-cost hydroelectric power courtesy of the New York Power Authority, and will specialize in making high-grade silicon for use in solar panels. While the plant won't pursue any LEED certification -- which, to reiterate, "der, it's a metal factory" -- Globe has declared that it will exceed national clean air and health standards. More interestingly, though, the re-opening of the old Globe Metals factory after six shuttered years is an unmistakable step forward in Western New York's attempt to remake itself as a center of green industry.

Given its combination of public funding -- all that cheap energy comes with a 10-year guarantee of $25 million from the Enterprise State Development Corporation as the first part of an eventual $60 million project -- and governmental attempts to lure the solar industry with various incentives, the Globe Specialty Metals plant isn't really that different from, say, a call center lured to Tampa by various tax advantages. But this is more than that -- New York State is, to all appearances, making a game attempt to leverage everything in its power to lure the solar energy industry to Western New York. "Under its deal with the state, Globe also will allow Empire State Development to offer solar manufacturers up to 25 percent of its upgraded product at reduced prices as an incentive for them to relocate to New York," Mark Scheer writes in the Niagara Gazette. "The project represents one of the state’s first ever 'green-to-green' incentive initiatives as hydropower is being used to produce silicon that is being offered at a cut rate to solar cell manufacturers." The deal appears already to be bearing fruit -- Oregon-based solar panel manufacturer SpectraWatt, enticed by an offer to get 200 metric tons of silicon at reduced prices, has announced plans to open a factory (and create 161 jobs) in Duchess County in 2010.

The chances of this venture's success are improved greatly by the high demand -- and comparatively paucent supply -- of purified silicon, which is the prime ingredient in solar panels. While there's clearly more to this than a simple, cheery green-to-green story -- however they get their power, however committed they are to meeting (inadequate) national standards, metal manufacturing is still metal manufacturing, and solar panel manufacturing is a notably un-green business -- it's not difficult to look past the pomp to see the real good news here. 138 new jobs in a depressed part of the state is nothing to sneeze at, and Globe expects to employ about 500 people in the region within a few years. Also, while solar energy has a long way to go to become truly relevant, it's hard not to feel good about the growing presence of a fast-growing sector of the Green Technology industry in a fast-shrinking part of the state