As money flows to wind power, will jobs follow?
A day after the federal government awarded $500 million to renewable-energy projects, the American Wind Energy Association is pointing to a study that concludes that the investments will lead to "green collar jobs" as intended.
The U.S. Treasury and Energy departments on Tuesday said that 12 renewable-energy projects, 10 of them in wind, were awarded cash grants, a move meant to bring financiers back to the U.S. wind industry and create manufacturing and construction jobs.
Home on the plain: Wind power.
(Credit: GE)On Wednesday, the AWEA said that a new study shows that the government stimulus on wind is money well-spent when it comes to job creation. Specifically, the industry association backed an analysis from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory that debunks a previous study which found that Spain's wind and solar policies actually resulted in fewer jobs.
That previous study dates back to March when researchers at Spain's King Juan Carlos University concluded that for every job created by Spain's aggressive renewable-energy policy, on average 2.2 jobs will be "destroyed." The study (click for PDF in English) has been cited by people opposed to using Spain as a model for U.S. energy policy.
The reasoning behind the analysis is that nonsubsidized investments would have created jobs at a lower cost. It calculates that a "green job" in Spain costs over twice the "average capital per worker" in the private sector.
The analysis of Spanish job creation doesn't quite add up, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's response which was published in August. (Click for PDF.) NREL found fault with how the King Juan Carlos University study calculated job loss, saying that more established methods found a net benefit to Europe's energy policies.
In addition, NREL researchers said that the Spanish study doesn't take into the account the value of creating industries with export potential. Many industrial areas of the U.S. with auto expertise, for example, are trying to move into wind turbine manufacturing. It also said that there are limits to applying the lessons of Spain's employment market to other countries.
But even in its rebuttal, NREL researchers concede that it's a fair to ask whether the net effect of boosting wind and solar power is more jobs. In the U.S., the Senate is considering whether to create a national mandate for renewable-energy production at utilities or to ratchet up the one passed by the House earlier this year.
Overall, NREL found that the price of conventional energy is the key point in determining whether government policies supporting renewable energy have a net positive effect on creating jobs. "With increased awareness of potential energy price scenarios, recent research has found that it is only when conventional energy prices are forecast to be very low that net employment impacts from (renewable energy) investments are negative," according to the study.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Yes. But they'll be in China and Mexico.
A. They are very heavy.
B. They must be assembled on site.
Shipping costs largely negate the benefits of using foreign labor.
It was a HORRENDOUS idea to take all that regulation off the stock markets, and we should have known this latest bullcrap was going to happen after those safeguards were removed.
As for the pay of the CEOs, that's just envy talking. If you had their education, training and experience, you would be doing it too. That argument doesn't hold water. If you want to keep blaming those who have more money than you, be prepared to accept socialism. And remember that there are still the elite in a socialist society.
After suffering a third rate hike in electricity in the last 8 months I don't care if the money flows into the toilet, as long as it's not going into the overstuffed pockets of utility CEOs"
And after these alternative energy sources are built, guess who is going to wind up buying and running them? Yep, those CEO's you hate. And even if they don't buy them outright? They will still buy the electricity, then sell it to you at an inflated price. Guess what? You are still filling the pockets of those CEO's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Denmark has the most per capita wind power, and the dirtiest electricity in Europe.
Wind power costs at least 20 cents/kwh, Nuclear/coal/hydro about 4. The cost is a measure of resources required - which makes it non environmental.
Goldman Sachs and other large bankers are the real pushers of wind power. Their customers, who are large power companies get so many tax breaks and the like for installing wind that they really could care less if the turbines actually turn or not.
Expect your electric bill to double over the next ten years if all of this goes through as planned. You have been warned.
If you really want to get rid of carbon, just tax it, and let business find a way around it. When politicians decide what is the best industry to build, you have what is known as a soviet socialist style economy.
Coal without sequestration: 12-15 cents
Coal with sequestration: 20-24 cents
Nuclear: unknown due to long storage of waste, but estimated at 30-40 cents
Hydro: 14-16 cents
Solar: 12-14 cents
If we like numbers:
Wind 22 cents/kwh
Hydro 1 - 10 cents/kwh
coal with out sequestration 5 kwh
coal with sequestration ? i don't know that number
nuclear with burial, etc 5 cents/kwh
nat gas 6 - 10 cents/kwh
solar - 30 - 100 cents/kwh
Your numbers are obviously weird - likely from some fanciful report generated by a pro wind group. Cradle to grave? I think that various governments will start paying big to remove abandoned wind turbines within 5 years.
Hydro Quebec produces power for less than 1c at many of its facilities. Where does 14 cents come from? At that price you could build the entire province of Quebec, for all the power they have sold to New York state.
Many nuclear power generation sites are on long term contracts for 3 - 4 cents.
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/ElecCostSUM.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WorldWindPower2008.png
As to taxing appliances, are you going to tax grandma's 30 year old fridge in her kitchen or the new Energy Star fridge in the store? Great plan.
http://www.ref.org.uk/PressDetails/139
The result of this is that for every Gigawatt of energy you expect to generate with wind, you need a backup source for when the wind isn't blowing. The cost of the backup source isn't factored into the calculations of how much wind energy costs. The result is that wind energy is the most inefficient source of power around. The only way it can be made to be used semi-efficiently is by using the wind energy to pump water uphill to fill a reservoir for the purpose of powering a hydro turbine. This of course requires your wind turbine to be able to keep enough water in the reservoir 24/7, 365 days a year, which means your wind power harvesting has to exceed your hydro turbine output to make up for the times when there isn't enough wind blowing. As a result, your actual efficiency of output tends to be less than half of what the wind turbine is rated as. Again, not very efficient, but at least better than 90% of the current implementations where fossil fuel generators are sitting on standby, burning fuel to keep the generator ready to go instantly in case the wind stops blowing.
I am not unemployed, nor am I poor. But one thing I do have is a conscience. Apparently this combination is not of the norm, or this country wouldn't be in the shape that it is. So if you think solar power is a bunch of malarky, you can stuff your "CEO's deserve more" rhetoric where the sun DOESN'T shine... because the REST of the world who actually WORK for a living aren't buying it anymore.
- by shawnkempf08 September 8, 2009 2:21 AM PDT
- Plenty of jobs in medical billing, get your degree in medical billing and get a job in medical billing find info at http://bit.ly/ESUNX
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