The proposed new facility, which has the backing of economic development agency Scottish Enterprise, will be an extension of SSE's Glasgow-based Centre of Engineering Excellence for Renewable Energy.

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The European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC) project is a joint venture by utility company Vattenfall, engineering firm Technip and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (Areg).

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The EOWDC project is a joint venture with engineering firm Technip and the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (Areg).

BBC: Photomontage of planned turbines

Others are engineering careers tied to research in renewable technologies like wind energy and ethanol production.

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"These results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications, " said study leader Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering, who also is director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI).

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That financial engineering depends in large part on the tax incentives the federal government offers for renewable energy projects.

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The report goes on to warn that the offshore engineering skills and capacity required to meet the demand for decommissioning will also be in demand from the renewable energy sector, and that new yards will be required.

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