Tech employers nationwide were still creating new payroll jobs at midyear, albeit fewer than last year at this time and at a lower rate than overall private-sector job growth.

That was the gist of a report issued Tuesday by the American Electronics Association, the nation’s leading tech trade group.

According to the association, which compiled its report using federal unemployment figures, tech employers nationwide added 118,500 jobs - an increase of 2 percent - in the first six months of 2007.

However, that number falls short of the 143,000 jobs that tech employers added in the first half of 2006, when payrolls grew 2.5 percent.

And in another sign that tech hiring nationwide is softening, the report noted that the 2 percent growth so far in 2007 trails the 3.3 percent overall private-sector job growth rate, meaning that tech is lagging rather than leading current employment trends.

Asked to explain the relatively weak hiring at a time when tech revenues and profits are strong, Matt Kazmierczak, the association’s research vice president, said tech firms nationwide “have thousands of openings in the United States” that they have been unable to fill because “there are not a sufficient number of available workers.”

In releasing the jobs numbers Tuesday, the group’s president, William Archey, also issued a statement urging Congress to increase the number of college-educated foreigners who can be hired by U.S. employers under H-1B visas. He also asked lawmakers to streamline the process for getting green cards.

But tech union organizer Marcus Courtney disputed the suggestion that tech employment is soft because there aren’t enough workers to fill the openings.

“That’s completely ludicrous,” said Courtney with WashTech, the Seattle union attempting to organize software engineers.

“Ever since the downturn of 2001, there’s been a failure to see strong tech job growth primarily because employers are sourcing jobs overseas,” he said.

E-mail Tom Abate at tabate@sfchronicle.com.

Chances are that Louis Michaud is one of very few people who spend their days trying to make tornadoes. A year ago, the retired petrochemical engineer put together what looked a bit like a high-tech kiddie swimming pool. Only rather than splashes, this pool tends to generate twisters about as high as the garage.

Michaud is shopping this prototype around to energy companies, hoping to get funding to build a tornado pool the size of a sports arena. The plan is to use warm air expelled by, say, the cooling system of a nuclear power plant, to create tornadoes that stretch up to 9 miles high, spinning turbines to generate electricity. Michaud figures that such a tornado could generate as much power as a nuclear plant, though he allows that his idea is “the type of thing that’s outside the norm.”

But as the nation hunts for ways to reduce both pollution and U.S. dependence on foreign oil, outside the norm is exactly where many entrepreneurs are poking for inspiration. With prices for traditional fuels still riding high, it’s more economically feasible to pursue potential energy sources that might otherwise appear to be “way out there,” from algae and huge kites to lightning bolts. Diverse Energy Sources

The demand is clear: Sales of energy generated from alternative sources, including corn-based ethanol, solar panels, and fuel cells, rose 37.5% in 2006, according to «investing.businessweek.com», an industry consultancy. That trend could accelerate, based on predictions by some that the nation is heading for a fuel shortage over the next decade. Recently, the North American Electric Reliability Council, a utility industry organization, predicted a shortfall by 2015. “We are moving from a mono culture,” reliant on just a few traditional fuels like oil and coal, “to a diverse range of energy sources,” says Ron Pernik, co-founder of Clean Edge. “There’s room for new players.”

True, many of the kookier-sounding concepts are still in deep development within large corporations, universities, and, of course, the garage. In August, Sony («www.businessweek.com») announced advances on a biobattery that produces power from a sugary solution, but won’t discuss any potential timing for commercial availability yet. Universities are pumping out ideas that might never appear in their present, theoretical form. Recently, two Massachusetts Institute of Technology architecture students proposed capturing energy from the footsteps of crowds by installing special floors near popular sightseeing spots where tourists stampede daily. Funding from Several Corners

But projects that are further along are finding serious investors. The research firm New Energy Finance estimates that venture capital and private equity investments in clean energy from will grow at an annual compound rate of 17% through 2013. One company with a quirky idea that got funded is «investing.businessweek.com», which is trying to generate biofuel from algae grown in pools. Because algae grows superfast, it can produce many times more oil per acre than corn or other crops seen as potential fuels. In May, LiveFuels received $10 million in funding from individuals including David Gelbaum, who has backed environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club.

Other energy entrepreneurs, such as «investing.businessweek.com», have turned to the stock market for help funding their unorthodox ideas. Finavera, which listed on Toronto Venture Exchange earlier in the year, unveiled a giant $2 million buoy designed to harvest wave power. The AquaBuOY 2.0, which is being tested off the coast of Newport, Ore., looks like a circular yellow platform that’s 15 feet across. As it bobs in the waves, a 70-foot shaft hidden underneath moves up and down, generating power.

Investors in South Korea’s two best-known blue chips have scant reason for cheer these days. The leading icon of Korean corporate success, Samsung Electronics, appears headed for a third straight year of falling profits as a result of the crash in memory-chip prices. And growth at Hyundai Motor Co. has stalled as Korea’s surging currency has erased most of the automaker’s cost advantage vis-а-vis its Japanese rivals.

Time to bail out of the Korean stock market? Investors don’t seem to think so. The Seoul exchange’s benchmark KOSPI index has surged 34% so far this year despite the U.S. credit crunch. The chief attraction: Korea’s steel mills, shipbuilders, petrochemical operations, and other smokestack industries. Shares of petrochemical producer LG Chem Ltd. and steelmaker Posco have more than doubled. And Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. (the world’s largest shipbuilder, which split from Hyundai Motor Co in 2002) has tripled. Samsung’s shares, meanwhile, are down by 13% this year and Hyundai Motor’s are up just 5%. “Forget about the Digital Era and fancy marketing,” says Park Kyung Min, chief executive at Seoul-based fund manager Hangaram Investment Management. “It’s all China and emerging markets.”

SAVVY INVESTING
In the late ’90s, Korea’s old industrial sector seemed like deadweight when compared with the country’s booming technology companies. Its foundries and petrochemical operations epitomized the debt-fueled expansion that wounded Korea in the 1997 Asian foreign exchange crisis. No other country poured as much money into production facilities, and many basic industries became hopelessly oversupplied. Korea in 1998 had nearly 50 million tons of steel production capacity, about double domestic demand. Two sprawling new Korean ethylene plants added to a global capacity glut. And all of Korea’s major shipyards built new dry docks even as rivals fretted about oversupply.

These days, though, all that investment is looking mighty smart. With emerging economies booming, the gluts have changed into shortages, and Korea has ready capacity to crank out steel, container ships, and the plastics needed for everything from MP3 players to car bumpers. Shipbuilders Hyundai Heavy, Samsung Heavy Industries ( ), and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering all now have nearly four years of order backlogs as shippers cater to ballooning trade between China and the rest of the world. And in the first eight months of this year, exports of steel leapt by 26%, ships and heavy machinery such as bulldozers by 25%, and petrochemicals by 22%. “China certainly was a factor in freeing us from debt and starting a virtuous circle of profits and growth,” says Kim Tae Han, strategy chief at Samsung Total Petrochemicals Co., an affiliate of Samsung Group now half-owned by French oil giant Total ( ). Its profit in the first half of 2007 climbed 16%, to $250 million, on sales of $1.8 billion, up 3.3% from a year earlier. Since 1999, the company’s exports—mostly to China—have jumped by 240%, to $2.3 billion last year.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKED
That’s not to say Korea felt no pain in the intervening years. Companies that were leveraged to the hilt folded or were sold. Hyundai Petrochemical Co., which found itself $2.9 billion in debt after building a new ethylene plant, went into receivership in 2001, while Hanbo Steel went bankrupt in 1997 after racking up $4.4 billion in debt. Yet many factories that failed were so high-tech that no one dared scrap them. Hanbo, for instance, was bought by the company now known as Hyundai Steel in 2004 for $750 million—one of three failing mills Hyundai has taken over since 2000. “The financial crisis was a huge opportunity for us to buy modern facilities on the cheap,” says Kim Sang Gyu, business strategy chief at Hyundai Steel, an affiliate of the automaker and now Korea’s second-largest steel producer. Sales jumped 38% in the first half, to $4 billion, while exports soared 47%, to $950 million.

With China and the Middle East building basic industries like crazy, Koreans know the current boom won’t last forever. But for now, they’re happy to fall back on their smokestack companies while the erstwhile stars ride out the turmoil in the U.S. and the developed world. Says economist Lim Kyung Mook at Korea Development Institute, a government-funded think tank: “The economy is much more balanced and healthier now.”
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