BLOOMINGTON - The renewable-energy industry needs trained employees, and Illinois State University is working to provide them.

As wind-farm and ethanol-plant developers look to locate in Illinois, ISU agriculture, technology and economics professors are developing an interdisciplinary curriculum to prepare students for the thousands of jobs that will follow.

Students enrolling in the program could choose from a variety of professions, from maintenance and construction workers to developers and public-policy makers, said David Loomis, an associate professor of economics.

The curriculum still needs approval by university administration and the Illinois Board of Higher Education, but Loomis hopes to admit majors in the fall 2008 semester. In the short-term, he said, enrollment would be capped at about 60 majors.

The renewable-energy industry will create more than 7,000 new jobs in Illinois in the next five years, according to a study by the University of Illinois at Chicago. That number could increase to 12,000 by 2020, the study said.

"These jobs are not minimum-wage jobs. These jobs are highly skilled jobs. In America, we have lost a lot of these highly skilled union jobs overseas," said Athanasios Bournakis, principal research economist for the university's Energy Resources Center.

"It's construction jobs. It's jobs that are developing the technologies. It's jobs that are operating the facilities," he said.

Some of the job growth is already evident in Central Illinois, where more than 150 union workers have been clocking overtime at the Twin Groves Wind Farm under construction in eastern McLean County.

When complete, the wind farm will employ 25 to 40 people, said project developer Bill Whitlock of Horizon Wind Energy. He described the salaries as "family wage levels."

Several other Central Illinois wind farms are in the planning stages. The closest to reality - the White Oak Wind Energy Center near Carlock - would employ about 150 workers, many union, during the construction phase, said Joel Link, with developer Invenergy Wind. Many will work overtime, he added.

When completed, the wind farm would employ 10 to 15 people full time, with salaries ranging from $40,000 to $100,000, Link said.

In Chatsworth, Invenergy intends to build a 266-turbine wind farm that likely would employ more people than the Carlock project, Link said. Firm numbers aren't available, and the company has no timeline for construction.

In addition, Trinity Structural Towers Inc. is remodeling the old Thrall Trinity Freight Car plant in Clinton to manufacture wind farm towers. The plant will employ about 140 people when it opens this summer.

The ethanol industry, meanwhile, is also preparing to take off in Central Illinois.

Proposed ethanol plants throughout Central Illinois would employ more than 225 people combined, according to the developers of planned projects in Chenoa, Gibson City, Hartsburg, San Jose and Streator.