The Green Jobs Fantasy
Various Democratic politicians and sundry environmentalists have promised us that alternative energy and "green industry" can revive our economy.
In June of last year, President Obama said, "the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs."
Kentucky Rep Ben Chandler says the ACES clean energy bill, "is not just about our environment, but it is about the future — the future of our economy, the future of our jobs."
The "Center of American Progress" claims, "a new Green Recovery program that spends $100 billion over two years would create 2 million new jobs."
The only problem with this idea is that it just isn't true. You see, alternative energy doesn't really produce....energy. It certainly doesn't do it efficiently enough to be profitable, even after extreme government handouts are taken into account.
Solar power only works well when the sun is shining brightly. On cloudy days, it produces little, and during the night it obviously produces none. The Department of energy calculates that solar power is only functional 21.7% of the time. Since humans have an annoying habit of wanting energy 100% of the time, solar power is almost completely useless for replacing conventional power plants.
There is no method currently existence, or even on a decade long horizon capable of storing enough energy to keep the grid running 80% of the time without any input, we will still need just as many coal, natural gas, hydro-electric, and nuclear plants no matter how many solar panels we build.
There are other issues like the size needed to create enough electricity. Even if we solved the energy storage issue, and totally covered a major city in solar panels, it wouldn't provide nearly enough energy to supply that city.
Real world solar plants (ideally located in the Mojave desert) are capable of producing only about 12.3 kW per acre on average. Which is about the same as a modest home generator.
This generator is small enough to fit in the bed of a pick-up truck, and is available for under $5000. By contrast Solar Two, the power plant in question, cost over $1/million per acre. That's right, it cost substantially over a million dollars to do the same job as a generator that costs $5000. Imagine how many lifetimes worth of propane or natural gas you could by with the remaining $995,000.
There are hopeful dreams that the cost could ultimately be reduced to under $100,000/acre of solar farm. Firstly, that hasn't happened yet, and isn't possible with todays technology. Secondly, the mojave desert isn't big enough to power the whole country by a long shot. Thirdly, $95,000 still buys a lot of fuel. Finally there simply isn't enough space, no matter the price, to install an over an acre of solar panels for every family in America. We need that space for things like living and growing food.
Wind suffers from a very similar problem. While it can work at night it only generates wind on very windy days. ERCOT, which manages the Texas electricity grid, rates wind turbines at only 8.7% of their listed output. California saw it's wind turbine output fall to just 4% of it's rated capacity during a heat wave in 2006 right when they needed the most power.
Again, humans have an annoying habit of wanting electricity 100% of the time. So we still need just as many conventional power plants.
What's worse, due to the intermittency of wind, we can only count on 2.67 kw per acre for wind power. The average family might need 20 acres of wind farms to be somewhat sure they can run their air conditions during the summer. Even then, there is always the chance that an unexpected lack of wind could render the whole thing useless. This amount is obviously completely un-workable.
All of these facts explain why "green jobs" are just a pipe dream.
The American Enterprise Institute said, "Green programs in Spain destroyed 2.2 jobs for every green job created, while the capital needed for one green job in Italy could create almost five jobs in the general economy."
After he was asked by the ominously titled "Copenhagen Consensus Center" to analyze the impact of alternatiEnergy Economist Gürcan Gülen said, green jobs "cannot be defended as another benefit" of alternative energy.
It's easy to see why.
Now, this wouldn't be so bad if it was a wholly private affair. It might make sense for a few people living in remote locations without access to the power grid to have alternative energy. It might be a fun hobby for some.
However, the government is robbing the American citizens in order to pander to the ludicrous dreams of environmentalists. Environmentalists completely ignore the facts of reality, and it is flat out evil to force people to support them.
Only the free market can figure out what energy sources are the most efficient to use. We can plainly see that governments are content to squander billions on impossible dreams just to placate neo-luddites that hate practical sources of energy.
Comments
Is there something in particular you are looking for?
"The Department of energy calculates that solar power is only functional 21.7% of the time," along with:
"California saw it's wind turbine output fall to just 4% of it's rated capacity during a heat wave in 2006 right when they needed the most power."
Both of these are critical to the strength of your well-constructed argument. In addition, I'm curious about the American Enterprise Institute's commentary on Spain's program. Do you know if this data derives from G.C. Alvarez's study? If so, then the following should be considered:
http://greeneconomypost.com/debunk-spanish-study-green-jobs-1582.htm
To reiterate, I enjoyed you article and think that you have developed a cogent argument.
I'm not sure about the American Enterprise Institute study, so I'm afraid I'm no help there.
Tidal and wave generators might work, but they haven't been implemented enough to do the math on as far as I know.
Hydro electric certainly does work, but it's night impossible to build a new dam in our country. The environmentalis ts hate the idea, and so much of our country is built up that any new dam would have to flood out large numbers of people.
I'm dubious of airborne wind generators. It seems like it would get the same difficulties land based generators have, and add in the difficulty of transporting the energy to the ground, and the expense of keeping the whole thing stable in the air.
Solar farms can never work, regardless of the method of energy storage, because they simply don't produce enough energy per acre.
Don't be silly. There are enough clues in the article for any adult to verify (or refute) the statements via the internet. The truly ignorant, after verifying the first level will demand proof of THAT report until being ultimately reduced to proving that 2+2=4. A certain level of science knowledge is assumed as a requisite for both understanding and challenging this type of article. The tools for doing exactly that is available to everyone, without having to prove the validity of all previous human knowledge each time.
Visit www.byronwine.com for documentation.
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