North Dakota

The Viking wrote: Wow, reality sure shuts up the left!

New coal plants and number of jobs
A 2011 Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies report, "A Fraction of the Jobs" found that power companies have overestimated the number of jobs created by new coal-fired power plants. The analysis looked at the six largest new coal-fired power plants to come online between 2005 and 2009, and combed through each project’s initial proposals and job projection data, including public statements, published documents and other material. They then compared that data to actual employment — before, during and after construction — in the areas where the projects were built, relying chiefly on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.[20]

They found that only a little over half - or 56 percent - of every 1,000 jobs projected, appeared to be actually created as a result of the coal plants’ coming online. In four of the six counties, the projects delivered on just over a quarter of the jobs projected. Only one county, the Walter Scott unit number 4 project in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, saw an increase in construction employment that was roughly commensurate with the numbers predicted before the project there got under way.[20]

Coal regulations and jobs
Some companies argue that coal regulations would affect jobs in the power industry and slow overall economic growth. A June 2011 study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), "A lifesaver, not a job killer: EPA's proposed "air toxics rule" is no threat to job growth" found that new regulations on mercury, arsenic and other toxic air pollution from power plants proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March 2011 would actually have a slightly positive impact on job growth and economic health.

The study found that:
The toxics rule would have a modest positive net impact on overall employment, likely leading to the creation of 28,000 to 158,000 jobs between now and 2015. (This estimate reflects the specific findings that follow below.)
The employment effect of the toxics rule on the utility industry itself could range from 17,000 jobs lost to 35,000 jobs gained.
The toxics rule would create between 81,000 and 101,000 jobs in the pollution abatement and control industry (which includes suppliers such as steelmakers).
Between 31,000 and 46,000 jobs would be lost due to higher energy prices leading to reductions in output.
Assuming a re-spending multiplier of 0.5, and since the net impact of the above impacts is positive, another 9,000 to 53,000 jobs would be created through re-spending.

Calzada's argument is also directly contradicted by reality, because renewable energy investment and development tends to create more jobs than fossil fuel energy because a larger share of renewable energy expenditures go to manufacturing equipment, installation, and maintenance, all of which are typically
more labor-intensive than extracting and transporting fossil fuels.

Indeed a 2004 UC Berkeley study concluded:

"Across a broad range of scenarios, the renewable energy sector generates more jobs than the fossil fuel-based energy sector per unit of energy delivered (i.e., per average megawatt)."

The study found that implementing a Renewable Portfolio Standard and investing in various types of renewable energy would create approximately twice as many jobs in the USA by 2020 as investing in coal and natural gas. Similarly, a 2001 Renewable Energy Policy Project report found that wind and solar photovoltaic investments lead to at least 40% more jobs per dollar than coal.

It's a complicated comparison, because renewable energy sources tend to be more expensive than fossil fuel energy. Thus hypothetically, the extra money invested in renewable energy could have been spent elsewhere to create new jobs in a different sector of the economy. However, fossil fuel energy is also artificially cheap because its price does not account for various external costs like climate change and impacts on public health. When accounting for all factors, it's likely that renewable energy results in more jobs per dollar invested than fossil fuels.

The Germans have installed over 10,000 megawatts of solar panels in the past two years, enough to power 2 million American homes (or most of Los Angeles, Calif.). If Americans installed local solar at the same torrid pace, we could already power most of the Mountain West, and could have a 100 percent solar nation by 2026, while enriching thousands of local communities with new development and jobs.

The spread of solar has also been in harmony with environmental goals. Rather than covering natural areas or fertile land with solar panels, 80 percent of the solar installed in Germany was on rooftops and built to a local scale (100 kilowatts or smaller -- the roof of a church or a Home Depot store).

The following map shows the amount of a state's electricity that could come from rooftop solar alone, from our 2009 report "Energy Self-Reliant States"

Such local solar power also provides enormous economic benefits. For every megawatt of solar installed, as many as eight jobs are created. But the economic multiplier is significantly higher for locally owned projects, made possible when solar is built at a local scale as the Germans have done. With local ownership, making America a 100 percent solar nation could create nearly 10 million jobs, and add as much as $450 billion to the U.S. economy.