The Myth of Green Jobs

[Master Shake]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
LESSONS FROM THE SPANISH RENEWABLES BUBBLE

Europe’s current policy and strategy for supporting the so-called “green jobs” or renewable energy dates back to 1997, and has become one of the principal justifications for U.S. “green jobs” proposals. Yet an examination of Europe’s experience reveals these policies to be terribly economically counterproductive.

This study is important for several reasons. First is that the Spanish experience is considered a leading example to be followed by many policy advocates and politicians. This study marks the very first time a critical analysis of the actual performance and impact has been made. Most important, it demonstrates that the Spanish/EU-style “green jobs” agenda now being promoted in the U.S. in fact destroys jobs, detailing this in terms of jobs destroyed per job created and the net destruction per installed MW.

The study’s results demonstrate how such “green jobs” policy clearly hinders Spain’s way out of the current economic crisis, even while U.S. politicians insist that rushing into such a scheme will ease their own emergence from the turmoil.

The following are key points from the study:

1. As President Obama correctly remarked, Spain provides a reference for the establishment of government aid to renewable energy. No other country has given such broad support to the construction and production of electricity through renewable sources. The arguments for Spain’s and Europe’s “green jobs” schemes are the same arguments now made in the U.S., principally that massive public support would produce large numbers of green jobs. The question that this paper answers is “at what price?”

2. Optimistically treating European Commission partially funded data, we find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.

Rest here.

http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090...-renewable.pdf

[Roughneck]

Re: The Myth of Green Jobs

Oh wait it's creating jobs.... in China
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/10/...en-jobs-again/

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: The Myth of Green Jobs

Is the world running out of oil or not? If so then putting a solar hot water heater on every roof is a work of far sighted genius and if not then it is a monumental waste of man power and money.

[Ghent12]

Re: The Myth of Green Jobs

Is the world running out of oil or not? If so then putting a solar hot water heater on every roof is a work of far sighted genius and if not then it is a monumental waste of man power and money.

Apples and oranges. A solar hot water heater is "solar power" in the same sense that a 9V DC battery is considered a "power plant." Talking about reasonable approaches to increasing energy efficiency or decreasing its use, such as the aforementioned solar hot water heater on the roof, is one thing. Talking about substantial subsidies to photovoltaic, solar tower, and other forms of solar or renewable electricity generation is quite another matter entirely. It may or may not be smart to install the water heater, but certainly the same argument cannot always be made for installing a solar power installation in the same region.

[Master Shake]

Re: The Myth of Green Jobs

Non-sequiteur.

[BK]

Re: The Myth of Green Jobs

Green Jobs is All About Creating a New Opportunity for Financing......it ain't about saving Energy as much as its about Making Profits for the Entities that will Finance the Green Projects.

Just what America needs is More Debt - but,for Bankers its the best way to make a buck.

Check out.....ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia-
http://www.sbpac.com/bins/site/templ...Media&NC=6021X

ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia does Financing for "Green For All' the Van Jones. Green For All recommends upgrades to people homes - and ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia puts together the Financing Package.

[Starving Steve]

Re: The Myth of Green Jobs

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

LESSONS FROM THE SPANISH RENEWABLES BUBBLE

Europe’s current policy and strategy for supporting the so-called “green jobs” or renewable energy dates back to 1997, and has become one of the principal justifications for U.S. “green jobs” proposals. Yet an examination of Europe’s experience reveals these policies to be terribly economically counterproductive.

This study is important for several reasons. First is that the Spanish experience is considered a leading example to be followed by many policy advocates and politicians. This study marks the very first time a critical analysis of the actual performance and impact has been made. Most important, it demonstrates that the Spanish/EU-style “green jobs” agenda now being promoted in the U.S. in fact destroys jobs, detailing this in terms of jobs destroyed per job created and the net destruction per installed MW.

The study’s results demonstrate how such “green jobs” policy clearly hinders Spain’s way out of the current economic crisis, even while U.S. politicians insist that rushing into such a scheme will ease their own emergence from the turmoil.

The following are key points from the study:

1. As President Obama correctly remarked, Spain provides a reference for the establishment of government aid to renewable energy. No other country has given such broad support to the construction and production of electricity through renewable sources. The arguments for Spain’s and Europe’s “green jobs” schemes are the same arguments now made in the U.S., principally that massive public support would produce large numbers of green jobs. The question that this paper answers is “at what price?”

2. Optimistically treating European Commission partially funded data, we find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.

Rest here.

http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090...-renewable.pdf

File this under "the myth of green jobs": Solar energy can be used to cool milk. Sounding like a great idea, the only problem is the cost of a solar-powered milk cooler. In Uganda, the cost of for a cooler to cool about a litre of milk is $600 to $800 U.S. --- which is no small amount in a poor country like Uganda.

A larger milk cooler now being developed by MIT in Boston is going to cost Indian farmers about $6000 U.S.--- again, no small amount in any nation, and especially no small amount in a poor nation like India.

And the problem of cost keeps coming back to the obvious problem with solar energy: There is very little energy in the solar flux, so very little energy can be harvested per unit of area. In other words, unless areas covered by solar panels are very large, there is nothing much to harvest from the Sun. This translates back to cost: Solar energy is too costly to harvest.

Why does it take a geographer like me to spell the obvious out to MIT engineers and to the public? Unless people are very rich and own lots of land, there is no future at all in solar energy.

Some engineers in California are working on silicon chips in paint for roofs. Again, the promise is that solar chips in paint might make solar energy cheap to harvest--- no small accomplishment, to be sure. (Advanced Micro-devices in Santa Clara, California is working on this now.)

For now, solar energy for economical power generation has been a big disappointment everywhere in the world where it has been tried.... Is it any surprise then that nine jobs have been lost for every four created with green jobs, especially with photo-voltaic solar-energy schemes?

Bad ideas and money-losing schemes remain such, no matter how many suckers invest in them.... If I were wrong, Portugal and Spain, Italy and Greece would not be asking for bail-outs now.