Rebuttal to “Spanish Green Jobs Failure”

Wind-Power NIMBY

I’m hoping this post will put to bed this contretemps between the DOE and its renewables detractors, at least for this blog.  The American Wind Energy Association reports in the paragraphs below that the Universidad Rey San Carlos study that concludes that more than two private sector jobs are lost for every “green job” created is methodologically incorrect.  Basically, it rather fatuously concludes that if the US governments’ assumptions and methods aren’t employed, there can simply be no correct conclusion.

The report’s writers twist themselves into knots justifying the official rationale for replacing our fossil-fuel economy with their “green obsession,” implying it just isn’t fair to look at the displacement of jobs in the private sector caused by the green substitute when it’s clear that it is only due to unfair and prolonged subsidies to fossil fuel that have made our current unsustainable and destructive energies possible.

They utterly ignore the green movement’s complicity in preventing both nuclear power and domestic fossil fuel development.  There is no mention that, without the scientifically disproved green gas theory (read our blog on the topic on these pages) and the non sequitur global warming theory, the need to reduce Co2 would be non-existent.  Without the theory, we are back to traditional conservation measures, for which there is broad consensus, and the ability to use the latest technology to achieve energy independence with our own abundant US resources.

When reading the piece that follows, from the American Wind Energy Association (a wind-power trade association), note that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and its operator, the producer of this report, are all academic and business interests heavily invested, for years, in the idea of replacing our fossil-fuel economy with one of their own imagining.  (And it’s good to remember that natural gas is a fossil fuel and that, because of the 200 million or so internal-combustion engine cars on American roads, we will be using petroleum products for many years to come.  And that these folks want to artificially create a demand for their “solution” to their “problem” and don’t care how many poor people won’t be able to afford to get to work on $4/gal and up fuel.)

Don’t forget to click on the link in the AWEA notice that follows.  It’s the NREL report “rebutting” the Spanish Rey San Carlos study.  Enjoy.

NREL Rebuts Spanish Jobs Study

The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has released a scathing critique of the so-called Spanish Jobs Study, which stated that renewable energy eliminates two jobs for every jobs it creates. The NREL analysis states that “The analysis by the authors from King Juan Carlos University represents a significant divergence from traditional methodologies used to estimate employment impacts from renewable energy. In fact, the methodology does not reflect an employment impact analysis. Accordingly, the primary conclusion made by the authors – policy support of renewable energy results in net jobs losses – is not supported by their work.” The Spanish jobs study was cited by columnist George Will, members of Congress and others as a reason to oppose the efforts by the Obama Administration and Congress to promote renewable energy as a means of increasing energy security, reducing carbon emissions and creating jobs. The Spanish study criticized actions by the Spanish government to promote renewables, saying it did so at the expense of job creation on other sectors of the economy. The NREL analysis says, “The study ignores the role of government in facilitating growth of valued new industries. Governments invest in renewable energy technologies to promote the growth of the industry as a whole. Emerging (renewable energy) technologies have not achieved levels of maturity and economies of scale that traditional technologies have; nor have they benefited from years of public and private investment. As a result, there may be a role for government to play in leveling the playing field between new and old technologies and in supporting emerging technologies. In the United States, all conventional energy technologies received government support in their early stages, and still benefit from government investment today.” N.B.  There is a disclaimer by the Department of Energy at the foot of the report, saying govt not responsible for content.(It was written by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, which operates the NREL.    LOL.