By David Hogberg -- BombThrowers——Bio and Archives--May 3, 2017
Global Warming-Energy-Environment | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
Trump may be resolutely committed to fossil fuels, but the economic reality is renewables are now among the cheapest sources of electricity. Wind and solar were the biggest sources of power added to U.S. grids three years running, becoming key sources of jobs in rural America. That's created clean-energy constituencies in North Carolina, Texas and other parts of the country that supported Trump in November.Let's start with that second claim first. It's not true, as demonstrated by a careful analysis of this graph found at this Bloomberg article (not written by Joe Ryan):
The overall shift to clean energy can be more expensive in wealthier nations, where electricity demand is flat or falling and new solar must compete with existing billion-dollar coal and gas plants. But in countries that are adding new electricity capacity as quickly as possible, "renewable energy will beat any other technology in most of the world without subsidies," said [BNEF chairman Michael] Liebreich.... When it comes to renewable energy investment, emerging markets have taken the lead over the 35 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), spending $154.1 billion in 2015 compared with $153.7 billion by those wealthier countries, BNEF said. The growth rates of clean-energy deployment are higher in these emerging-market states, so they are likely to remain the clean energy leaders indefinitely, especially now that three-quarters have established clean-energy targets.
Presently, BLS reports that utilities employ just over 2,800 workers for solar-specific generation. However, this figure does not count any jobs in the construction or other value chain industries for projects financed, owned, or directed by utilities...There are currently 373,807 Americans that spend some portion of their time working to manufacture, install, distribute, or provide professional services to solar technologies across the nation; of these, roughly seven in ten workers--or about 260,077--spend at least half of their time supporting the solar portion of business.Thus, over 100,000 of those workers spend less than half their time working in the solar business. If we translate those into the equivalent of full-time jobs, then the number of those involved in the solar industry drops by at least 50,000. But even if renewables employed more people, that's not necessarily a good thing. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of the energy industry? Is it the creation of jobs, or is it the creation of energy? If you said the latter, then coal and natural gas are clearly more efficient than solar and wind as it takes far fewer workers to generate energy from fossil fuels than renewable ones:
View Comments
David Hogberg is a writer living in Maryland. He is author of the book, “Medicare’s Victims: How the U.S. Government’s Largest Health Care Program Harms Patients and Impairs Physicians.”
David Hogberg (@DavidHogberg) | Twitter