About Those Green Jobs The Candidates Are Promising...

Clusterstock:

Thought you might like to think about something completely unrelated to the market carnage... If you've followed the Presidential campaign at all, no doubt you've heard the candidates make bold promises about "green jobs" and their potential to replenish the hollowed-out manufacturing sector of the economy (see: death of GM). Now of course, we'll be thrilled when we see some genuine technological breakthroughs on a scale capable of reducing our use of carbon-based fuels. But politicians are missing the point when they talk about jobs. In fact, jobs are just about the worst thing to focus on. Geoffrey Styles (via Knowledge Problem) takes a look at Obama's desire to see 5 million green jobs, and what that suggests about the future of the energy sector:

Read the whole story: Clusterstock

Comments

[blueskybigstar]

Keynesian economics. Invest, invest, invest. This time rebuild the infrastructure in green. Green is a gift that keeps on giving through savings. Look up Research's profile. He or she has a plan.

[Sumocat]

Way to overlook the manpower required to build the plants, infrastructure, and facilities necessary to get our renewable energy system off the ground. There was also the failure to mention the overseas jobs we would be replacing (or reclaiming) by increasing domestic energy production. I also noticed the focus was on a comparison with the oil and gas industry; no mention of the coal industry, which supplies half our electricity.

[mamacat]

There is a great post in the Business Section of Huffpo; an article by Nathan Gardels in which he interviews George Soros. The intent of the article is to discuss the economy, but towards the end Mr. Soros links the economy to the subject of green jobs:

"Because we face the menacing challenges of global warming and energy dependence, the next administration should direct any stimulus plan toward energy savings, developing energy sources and building green infrastructure. This stimulus can be the new motor for the world economy."

The conclusions of Mr. Soros would seem to be in direct opposition to the conclusions of the author here.

[research]

what a BS article.

500 barrels oil equivalent for wind and solar versus 3000 barrels per employee for oil and gas works(half in service stations).

As if wind and solar installation is equivalent to oil and gas extraction refining and distribution.

Go look up the "s Curve" Solar and wind are nearing the exponential growth phase.

Once solar and wind are installed in 90% of the country, the installation phase will subside. The Maintenance phase will replace it. This will require far fewer people.

The author states that solar and wind (not noting that it is the installation phase) are only 15% as productive per person as if this is a determining factor. fewer than 2million people work in oil and gas. so 8 times that (1/15%) is 16 million people needed employed to replace oil and gas with solar and wind.

SO?

[KillTheMessenger]

Green technology is not just solar and wind. We will need hundreds of thousands of bus and shuttle drivers. We will need people retrofitting heating and cooling and installing geothermal storage. Where is Joe the Plumber when you need him? Probably running from the IRS...

:-)

[SonofLiberty1]

Green jobs hardly exist at all.
In reality, it's going to take time to start them.

Want to make an impact here?

Then Google

"Light Pollution"

Using lighting that directs light down to the ground and not in your eyes or into the sky

SAVES MONEY.

But you wouldn't know it because so called environmentalists DON'T TALK ABOUT IT!

http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do

[LouisvilleLiberal]

Green Jobs and Energy Independance go hand in hand. Both keep jobs and dollars in the United States and benefit US citizens.

As the demand for crude oil products world wide catches up with supply, energy gets more expensive and US dollars go to foreign countries...which would eventually break us.

So, we need technology and inventors to develop new, clean forms of energy and we need workers to build the products that are invented. The government will give us tax breaks to insulate our houses, replace inefficient heating and cooling systems, install solar panels and hot water heaters.

These things will not only create jobs and thus stimulate the economy, they will prepare us for the energy crunch that is just around the corner as oil producing nations consume more of their own oil and China and India compete with us for the oil that's left.

The energy oriented jobs are great jobs to develop because you can't outsource installing solar panels and insulating houses.

[toje]

Close your eyes and and picture the global economic prospects for, oh, say, the next 12-18 months. Forget for a moment the global financial meltdown that is the at the root of this economic doldrums.

This will be the permanent state of a Green Economy.

"Sustainability" is P.C. for "never ending recession".

[LiberalBuzz]

WOW, I am sure all those unemployed people would readily agree with you.

Must be nice to say jobs are the least one should worry about.

[JuniorNorman]

LEGALIZE HEMP AND MAKE PLASTICS AND CHEMICALS FROM IT!
What the Chemical Industry Doesn't Want You to Know about Everyday Products
' The global chemical industry annually produces about 6 billion pounds of bisphenol A (BPA), an integral component of a vast array of plastic products, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales. The value of BPA-based manufactured goods is probably incalculable. Environmental Working Group studies have found BPA in more than half the canned foods and beverages sampled from supermarkets across the U.S. Soon after scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons found the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts of BPA caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice, a scientist from Dow Chemical Company showed up at the Missouri lab. He disputed the data and declared, as Vom Saal recalls, "We want you to know how distressed we are by your research." "It was not a subtle threat," Vom Saal says. "It was really, really clear, and we ended up saying, threatening us is really not a good idea."

[darthdarcy]

If so called Green Jobs is all we can hope for in the future it is not enough to resurrect of economy we need 130,000 new jobs created each month just to accommodate those graduating high school and college but now we are losing 80,000 jobs per month...

If we Nationalize the Oil Industry and all Major Energy, that would help a lot and also fund the research and creation of new technologies and new jobs and also cut energy costs by 30-35% as well..

[KillTheMessenger]

How would nationalizing an oil rigger's job help with research and development? If the mans IQ is barely high enough to understand that his job is dirty and dangerous, a change of employer will not make him any smarter, now will it?

:-)

[marijam]

I'd like to see you try to keep your fingers and toes, working on an oil rig. Then let's talk about who has the higher IQ!

[mamacat]

The author makes an assumption, and then arranges "facts" to suit his assumption. Not a very pragmatic way to do anything, and he does not make a convincing argument.

A few points. The author says that half of 1.8 million energy jobs are in filling stations. Those jobs are probably not paying very much, and are not contributing much at all to the overall economy.

Domestic oil energy jobs will not likely be displaced until all of the recoverable oil and gas are used up. Green jobs will not supplant domestic oil workers, but they will help us to meet our energy needs and they will help us to stop sending $700 billion dollars outside our borders every year for the oil that we don't and cannot produce.

It takes a lot fewer man-hour jobs to maintain an energy facility, green or not, than it does to construct that facility. Both construction and maintenance jobs will realistically pay much more than a filling station job.

A more accureate assessment of the productivity of workers in future green jobs would be to look at the productivity of workers already in green jobs. There are crews building wind, solar,geothermal and other types of energy facilities, and there are much smaller crews in maintenance. These are jobs that can not be outsourced overseas, and which already are contributing to our enonomy.

[KillTheMessenger]

Nice spin but completely off the mark.

If we put solar on every possible roof (comprising maybe 25-50 percent of all homes over the long term), we are talking about millions of homes that need their solar heaters and panels upgraded every year. Upgrading windows, installing high efficiency heating systems, geothermal heating and cooling systems, insulation materials in ALL of our old buildings that require upgrades is a multi-million jobs project that will span a whole generation. We will need new electric grids (intelligently managed DC systems from end to end) and information infrastructure. We can rebuild our whole automobile fleet and add public transportation from coast to coast.

There is more work to be done than anyone can imagine.

[V4Vigilance]

Huh?!?

I can see why this guy Styles writes for a site called Knowledge Problem, he seems to have one. All the energy proposals I've heard state that job 1 is to eliminate our dependence on FOREIGN oil. Starting out with the assumption that these jobs are going to somehow replace the energy produced by the DOMESTIC oil & gas industry doesn't make any sense at all.

[mjt218]

Great post . . . It's amazing how little thought has gone into this issue.

Al Gore called for "a job in the clean air and sunshine for every coal mine worker" and then left job training out of his three part plan for reducing carbon emissions in ten years. There is a lot of BS going around on job creation.

However, I believe a lot of Obama's jobs are related primarily to efficiency improvements not direct energy generation, like residential solar panel installation, etc. That's probably where the biggest short-term prize is anyway.