What Spain’s Lessons Might Teach Us About The Reality Of Green Jobs
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
A significant portion of President Obama’s federal stimulus package was oriented to the concept that taxpayer dollars flowing to create “green jobs” will change the world.
Stemming from this same philosophy, Nevada’s Majority Leader, Senator Steven Horsford promoted a sweeping legislative agenda geared to making Nevada the center of the universe for green energy and green jobs. It just won’t be able to get any better than we can expect it to be once those green jobs get working…
A report entitled “Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources” prepared by a team of researchers connected with Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, presents a chilling tale of what actually happens, based on Spain’s experiences with actually doing what President Obama and others want us to do too.
The report notes as it’s first key point – “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 resources. 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.”
Based on the lessons from Spain, the study reports – “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 would add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.”
Oops, who could have seen that coming? After all, saving the planet from the theory of climate change and moving away from carbon-based, evil, energy is suppose to make cartoon birds, bunnies and cute skunks dance around board-room tables, whistling joyful tunes…
“Each ‘green’ megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy”, the study reveals… spelling out that 8.99 jobs are wiped out by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy and 5.05 by mini-hydro
On top of actually creating very many jobs in the first place – two-thirds coming in the construction, fabrication and installation areas and one-quarter coming in the administrative, marketing and projects engineering – only one out of 10 jobs has been created at the more permanent level of actual operation and maintenance. “This came at great financial cost as well in terms of jobs destroyed elsewhere in the economy,” the study describes.
At the heart of the problem is that the price of electricity from “green sources” (in the Spain experience – and probably not too far off from some numbers we’ve seen elsewhere) increases by as much as 31 percent. Spanish citizens and at some point us, have to pay the double whammy of increased electric rates as well as increased taxes to cover the public “investment”.
There’s a reason that “renewable” energy is considered “an alternative” – it costs so much more that nobody wants to buy it and it kills jobs and economies when government tries to change economic reality.
A significant portion of President Obama’s federal stimulus package was oriented to the concept that taxpayer dollars flowing to create “green jobs” will change the world.
Stemming from this same philosophy, Nevada’s Majority Leader, Senator Steven Horsford promoted a sweeping legislative agenda geared to making Nevada the center of the universe for green energy and green jobs. It just won’t be able to get any better than we can expect it to be once those green jobs get working…
A report entitled “Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources” prepared by a team of researchers connected with Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, presents a chilling tale of what actually happens, based on Spain’s experiences with actually doing what President Obama and others want us to do too.
The report notes as it’s first key point – “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 resources. 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.”
Based on the lessons from Spain, the study reports – “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 would add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.”
Oops, who could have seen that coming? After all, saving the planet from the theory of climate change and moving away from carbon-based, evil, energy is suppose to make cartoon birds, bunnies and cute skunks dance around board-room tables, whistling joyful tunes…
“Each ‘green’ megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy”, the study reveals… spelling out that 8.99 jobs are wiped out by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy and 5.05 by mini-hydro
On top of actually creating very many jobs in the first place – two-thirds coming in the construction, fabrication and installation areas and one-quarter coming in the administrative, marketing and projects engineering – only one out of 10 jobs has been created at the more permanent level of actual operation and maintenance. “This came at great financial cost as well in terms of jobs destroyed elsewhere in the economy,” the study describes.
At the heart of the problem is that the price of electricity from “green sources” (in the Spain experience – and probably not too far off from some numbers we’ve seen elsewhere) increases by as much as 31 percent. Spanish citizens and at some point us, have to pay the double whammy of increased electric rates as well as increased taxes to cover the public “investment”.
There’s a reason that “renewable” energy is considered “an alternative” – it costs so much more that nobody wants to buy it and it kills jobs and economies when government tries to change economic reality.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 6/19/2009 8:25 AM 
Categories: Alternative Energy
Tags: Federal Stimulus Renewable Energy Nevada
Categories: Alternative Energy
Tags: Federal Stimulus Renewable Energy Nevada
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