An employee solders solar panel cells at Hanwha’s facility in Dalton, Georgia.
Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg
Every Politician Wants Green Jobs in This Bitter US Battleground
Weaning off fossil fuels is surprisingly good politics in Georgia thanks to new solar, electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing jobs.
Demand for carpeting lives and dies with the real-estate market, and that puts jobs in Dalton, Georgia, the self-proclaimed “carpet capital of the world” at risk whenever housing goes soft.
But instead of the blight and decline that’s come to characterize many rural US manufacturing towns, this city of 34,000 is on the upswing. After a successful push from state and local development authorities, Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group built a solar factory — the largest in the Western Hemisphere — in Dalton. It opened in 2019.