After losing their fight for Proposition 23 in California, one might have hoped the world would be safe from oil-rich climate deniers Charles and David Koch for a little while.
But unfortunately their misinformation campaign is drifting over the border into Ontario, Canada where renewable energy is once again under fire from the "forces of yesterday."
Tim Hudak, the leader of Ontario's Conservative party, wants to gut the Ontario Green Energy Act -- an initiative that Al Gore has said is "widely recognized now as the single best green energy program on the North American continent." The Environmental Defence report Faces of Transformation analyzes the impact this legislation is having in Ontario.
And since the facts aren't on his side, Hudak is citing the infamous "Spanish study on renewable energy jobs" which is linked to funding from astroturf group the American Energy Alliance, a "free-market think tank" funded by Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries. The study erroneously claims that Spain's policy on renewable energy caused the country to lose jobs as the author's analysis implied the cost of creating a renewable energy job is higher than the average cost of creating a job in Spain.
Americans are likely familiar with this bogus study, as it was used extensively by conservative climate skeptics in the media to fight the Obama administration's 2010 budget proposal to create tax incentives for clean-energy programs, as well as to oppose many other recent efforts to promote the growth of the renewable energy industry. The study has been debunked by the Spanish government, the U.S. Department of Energy and even the Wall Street Journal (not exactly a bastion of pro-conservation sentiment).
Regrettably, some Ontario journalists haven't done their homework on this front yet, and as a result the study's misinformation has been spread unchecked.
The U.S. right usually complains about the Canadian border being too porous for their liking, but in this case it is Canadians that need protection. Another Prop 23-style battle is now underway in Ontario, with the fate of real jobs and cleaner air hanging in the balance.
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That is "Progressive Conservative." The federal party dropped the Progressive several years ago. In Ontario, it just is a matter of time before the provincial party does the same.
However, if natural gas is involved, it might be a good thing to promote it. Why, because it emits about half of what coal does. After factoring in energy costs for extraction, a little better, and after considering that ng fired turbines are more efficient than the coal "steamers", would probably be like 60% more efficient.
Now, since, for some reason, nobody wants to make robotic solar panel factories (along with very cheap energy storage), natural gas is the BEST way to seriously reduce emissions. Of course nuclear is a possibility, but is FIVE times more capital intensive. I don't like nuclear anyways, unless it is closed cycle (which needs even more research and capital).
So NG buys us time to first "develop" the economy, then to develop the important things like robotic solar panel factories here in America!
We are not losing jobs to Asia because of labor cost! This is a myth! We are losing manufacturing jobs because of energy cost. China consumed over 45% of all the coal consumed in 2009!
China Inc. gets it! There has always been cheap labor but the industrial revolution had to wait for the steam engine and cheap reliable energy! Many of the newest plants in China are automated and ran with dirty coal energy! Many of you China defenders will say they are moving to the new more efficient coal generating plants! Whoopee! They go from 36% to 44% efficiency, it still produces twice the CO2 as a natural gas generation plant!
I have friends that could not get jobs here that are working in Asia; China, Viet Nam, and Thailand. My industrial electric rates were between 5 to greater than 7 times their rates!
You can make ~ 2500kwh per ton of coal and long term contracts for coal run about $35.00/ton. This breaks down to a cost of $0.015/kwh. California's industrial electric rate is greater than $0.12/kwh. My industrial electric rate in California has gone up 68% since passage of AB 32, injust over 3 years!
The largest solar cell manufacturer is leaving California for China and it's not because of labor!
The only people who could be opposed to this are the Chinese, Wal-Mart, and the NIMBY EnvironmenÂtalist!