Inconvenient energy fact: It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker
AEIdeas
In an April 25 New York Times article (“Today’s Energy Jobs Are in Solar, Not Coal“) reporter Nadja Popovich wrote that “Last year, the solar industry employed many more Americans [373,807] than coal [160,119], while wind power topped 100,000 jobs.” Those energy employment figures are based on a Department of Energy report (“U.S. Energy and Employment Report“) released earlier this year that provides the most complete analysis available of employment in the energy economy.
But simply reporting rather enthusiastically (see the NYT headline again) that the solar industry employs lots of Americans, more than twice as many as the number of coal miners and utility workers at electric power plants using coal, is only telling a small part of the story. Here are some important energy facts that help provide a more complete picture about how much energy is being produced in different sectors, how many workers it takes to produce a given amount of electric power, and which sectors receive the most generous taxpayer handouts.
To start, despite a huge workforce of almost 400,000 solar workers (about 20 percent of electric power payrolls in 2016), that sector produced an insignificant share, less than 1 percent, of the electric power generated in the United States last year (EIA data here). And that’s a lot of solar workers: about the same as the combined number of employees working at Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Pfizer, Ford Motor Company and Procter & Gamble.
In contrast, it took about the same number of natural gas workers (398,235) last year to produce more than one-third of U.S. electric power, or 37 times more electricity than solar’s minuscule share of 0.90 percent. And with only 160,000 coal workers (less than half the number of workers in either solar or gas), that sector produced nearly one-third (almost as much as gas) of U.S. electricity last year.
The graphic above helps to quantify the significant differences in electric power output per employee for coal, natural gas and solar workers. In 2016, the coal sector generated an average of 7,745 megawatt hours of electric power per worker, more than twice the 3,812 megawatt hours of electricity generated per natural gas worker, and 79 times more electric power per worker than the solar industry, which produced only 98 megawatt hours of electricity per worker. Therefore, to produce the same amount of electric power as just one coal worker would require two natural gas workers and an amazingly-high 79 solar workers.
Bottom Line: The goal of America’s energy sector isn’t to create as many jobs as possible (as the NYT article would apparently have us believe) especially the politically-favored and heavily-subsidized renewable energy jobs. Rather, the economic goal is to produce as much electric power as possible at the lowest possible cost, and that means we want the fewest number of energy workers!
It’s a common mistake of politicians and the media to treat jobs as an economic benefit, when in fact, jobs are an economic cost or price of production. As Milton Friedman explained nearly 40 years ago, the appropriate economic objective is to have the fewest number of workers producing the greatest amount of output. When it comes to solar energy, we are employing a very large number of workers who produce a very small amount of electric power – a sure sign of economic inefficiency.
As the graphic above clearly demonstrates, today’s most productive energy workers are in coal and natural gas, not solar. And there’s only one reason that the solar workforce has been increasing so rapidly (25 percent gain last year) despite its dismal record of worker productivity and minuscule share of U.S. electric power — government policies that have subsidized the solar industry nearly 350 times more than fossil fuels per unit of electricity production.
Only in the fantasy world of the Beltway does it make sense to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to artificially support an energy source that is so labor-intensive that it requires a workforce 79 times greater per unit of energy produced than coal, and nearly 40 times greater than natural gas. If I could re-title the New York Times article, I think a better choice would be “Today’s Most Productive Energy Workers are in Coal and Gas, Not Solar.”
This article was originally published by the Washington Examiner.
HTs: Gale Pooley for his important contribution to the concepts of the post and graphic, and AEI’s Olivier Ballou for designing and creating the graphic.
Bonus related Venn Diagram below: The environmentalists and conservationists apparently think it’s important to conserve on the use of all scarce resources except one — the “ultimate resource” — precious, scarce human resources?
Fair call !
This is not a realistic assessment because the solar and wind workforce is building projects. The number of man-hours to build a fossil fueled power plant is not included in the employment figures. To do a proper comparison, one needs to look at employment for operations and employment for construction on a separate basis.
The tax subsidies alone make these trendy left energy projects a bad deal for the amount of energy they produce. Oil and gas projects are a better deal especially for local governments who receive a big bang from the property taxes, and direct, indirect, and induced economic multipliers…and ultimately, they impose less human impacts in terms of the need for local public services. Think electricity, clothing, housing, schools, hospitals, transportation systems, food supplies…)
The author is clearly a biased O&G pundit. Completely ignores the ongoing future kWh production of solar projects that require very little O&M–very unlike fossil based generation that costs a lot to “feed” and maintain.
Your article is mostly BS.
Stop the blatant smears and stick to the FACTS like solar panels deliver in 25 years ONLY 12 times the energy it takes to grow, shape, and form the silicon solar cells.Silicon melts at 2577 degrees F.
Nice ad hominem fred! The ongoing future kWh production of solar projects is easy to ignore because its miniscule in the grand scale of things. Minute. Diminutive. Inconsequential.
If the solar industry wasn’t subsidized by our tax dollars it wouldn’t exist, period. Do you have the figures for what it takes to build a solar farm? Look it up. Also, if solar were our only source of power we wouldn’t be able to build them because they do not provide the needed energy to build the steel needed for structures, to make the concrete that they are built on, nor to mine all the precious metals required for the solar panels themselves. Every solar farm requires a coal or gas backup power plant to be online and wasting good fuel, in case the days are cloudy or for the long winter nights.
I have no problem with solar panels if they are not subsidized and can compete on a fair basis. They are not the green energy everyone is saying they are.
Even Elon Musk states that he would be happy to compete with coal and nuclear generation without solar subsidies, if you eliminate their subsidizes as well. Look up how cheap the leasing fees coal miners pay the federal government to mine on federal land with paying little or no royalties to the federal government. Look up the help nuclear plants are now getting from some state and local governments to remain in operation. We should eliminate all subsidies and let the market do its job to provide the most efficient and reliable power to all Americans.
To boot the nuclear plants have an exemption from liability to third parties for damages from an accident, beyond 12.6 billion. If you look at an accident like Fukushima you see that any utility suffereing such an accident will become a ward of the state (as Tepco has).
YES–Oil and gas should have their 10% tax credit REVOKED. The tax credit has been in place for a century and yet O&G still needs this support? Wind and solar have only been on the government dole for just over a decade so they look quite good in comparison to Oil and Gas. Or did you forget that fact??
I can hear the ethanol lobby screaming now. That will be the day.
Ever hear of Solyndra?
Your point is absolutely correct.
Very well said, and also solar and wind are renewable and cleaner as opposed to the limited reserves of coal and gas. It is clear though the world is going to be reliant on fossil fuels for some time.
Integration, and just counting numbers of workers required is not the determining factor at the moment.
There is a rather blatant fallacy here. A unit of labor spent to dig up coal produces something that is used once and then gone forever. A unit of labor spent to install solar panels produces an ongoing power supply for decades. By the “logic” of this article, nobody should ever buy automobiles because a $20 cab ride is cheaper than a $20000 car.
Marcus
“ A unit of labor spent to install solar panels produces an ongoing power supply for decades.”
A unit of labor spent building solar panels includes mining scarce rare earth elements that are used one time, create toxic and radioactive waste in the manufacturing process, and then stay in the environment pretty much forever. Not sure this is a better deal.
And of course the world will never run out of coal. As it becomes scarcer, it will become more expensive, allowing other, less costly sources of energy to replace it, so that it will never all be used up. And of course while sunlight is essentially unlimited, there are well known limits to the low energy density of sunlight that call into question the amount of land need to be covered with panels in order to produce meaningful amounts of electricity. And of course there’s the as yet unsolved storage problem.
“ By the “logic” of this article, nobody should ever buy automobiles because a $20 cab ride is cheaper than a $20000 car.”
I’m not sure that says what you think it does. There are good reasons to prefer a cab ride to owning an automobile in some circumstances, and there doesn’t appear to be a shortage of either one in the foreseeable future. How does that relate to coal vs solar?
Reply Share
it would also need to factor in environmental expenses, worker safety and health cost to capture a more complete economic impact. plus, subtract any subsidies.
@Mark J. Perry
> Bottom Line: The goal of America’s energy sector isn’t to create as many jobs as possible
I always cite jobs-creation claims as instances of the Broken Window fallacy. Those three little words save a lot of time and effort.
Solar and wind now create both – the cheapest energy source and the most jobs. Open bidding in the US and worldwide is selecting solar and wind as the cheapest source of electricity, even unsubsidized. All fuel sources are heavily subsidized, fossil fuels and nuclear have had 50 years of subsidies so they learned how to hid them better, embedded in the tax codes: Most of the current fossil fuel subsidies were embedded into the tax codes years ago in very non-transparent ways – title 179C tax credits, depletion allowances, intangible drilling cost deductions, foreign tax credits on royalties, advanced liquid fuels credits, etc., etc. In addition, the fossil-fuel industries have also enjoyed a free ride for many decades on emitting pollutants and consuming excessive water without penalty, also a form of subsidies.
Kevin
“Solar and wind now create both – the cheapest energy source and the most jobs.”
How is that even possible? Considering that all three sources – sunlight, coal, and natgas – are essentially free in their natural state. It’s is the labor and capital required to retrieve them and convert them to a usable form of energy that costs money. Seventy nine times as much labor for solar over coal seems like a lot of expense.
“Essentially free”.
So — we don’t subsidize these industries. We don’t “essentially” give away the leases to our shrinking and finite national resources. It costs nothing to build and/or modify the plants to ensure that they neither poison the water around and beneath them, nor the air we require to live. It costs nothing to those of uswho pay for the electricity (or, more directly, the heat they generate…)
You are SO full of shit.
David, you are SO full of reading incomprehension.
Yes, all of the things you listed cost money, and all contribute to the price of fossil fuel power generation. Those fossil fuels have value at the point of power generation. Two miles below the surface they are gifts of nature, and have no value, until they are extracted and transported to a power generation plant.
Natural resources have no actual economic value until they are processed in some way that makes them useful to people.
The trick with solar and wind is that the marginal cost of a kwh is essentially zero, since there is no fuel cost. Solar and wind are basically fixed cost items, at the level of the tower or the solar plant, i.e. operation costs are essentially the same if 10 or 1000 kwh are produced. So renewables are in that sense a lot like software, high cost for copy 1 and essentially free (the cost of disk space, a server farm, and an internet connection for the download) for all other copies. (From a micro point of view however)
*but at what cost to the environment?
Solar does require more labor, as AEI indicated, but the 79 times is not really correct (see other comments). The solar number includes new plant construction, and their is no construction in the coal sector. However, coal, natural gas include other costs for fuel that are not labor related; including cost of the land for extraction, land fill (coal), profit on fuel sales, transportation costs (nat gas is very little labor but pipeline charges), depreciation on fuel assets, plus many others. These other items are costs, but don’t create any (or many jobs).
“Considering that all three sources – sunlight, coal, and natgas – are essentially free in their natural state. It’s is the labor and capital required to retrieve them and convert them to a usable form of energy that costs money.”
Hence, the apples-to-apples comparisons would be:
1. Labor to build a solar plant versus labor to build a coal plant, or
2. Labor to maintain an existing solar plant versus labor to maintain and supply an existing coal plant.
The article uses an apples-and-oranges mix-and-match of these two to derive a meaningless ratio.
Marcus
1. Labor to build a solar plant versus labor to build a coal plant, or
You would probably want to include the labor and toxic waste costs associated with solar panel manufacture and recycling as well.
I did a blog post on this a little while ago. It’s a great argument against solar power that the proponents think is for it:
https://force4good.me/2017/03/30/the-case-against-renewable-energy-as-presented-by-bernie-sanders/
As an aside, I am willing to bet many of the people who support Trump’s tariffs on the grounds they “create jobs” will also oppose solar energy subsidies, not realizing the argument for and against both is exactly the same.
Lazard v10 analysis indicates that the unsubsidized levelized cost of electricity from utility photovoltaics and wind are equal to or less than natural gas or coal:
https://www.lazard.com/media/438038/levelized-cost-of-energy-v100.pdf
Over reaching by at least a factor of 5.
Pie chart from page 38 of DOE report states that ~20% of the solar labor force works utility- scale.
Many solar workers are in construction building out generation capacity. Is there any coal capacity being built today? In other words, you have a boundary issue.
I would also verify your natural gas jobs number. It seems too high.
marmico
“I would also verify your natural gas jobs number. It seems too high.”
Let us know what you find.
See Table 1 of Dept. of Energy report: https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/2017%20US%20Energy%20and%20Jobs%20Report_0.pdf and NYT article https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/25/climate/todays-energy-jobs-are-in-solar-not-coal.html?_r=1 both show natural gas jobs as 398,235.
Yes, but the power sector only consumes ~40% of natural gas production whereas it consumes ~95% of coal production.
The pie chart says that natural gas mining is 50% of 398,000 jobs. Call it 200,000 jobs in fuel. But the oil and natural gas extraction (fuel) sector is 393,000 jobs of which the oil sector predominates.
It seems to me that the mining component is substantially overstated for both reasons in the DOE analysis and there is likely little difference between coal and natural gas in output of electricity per worker.
That’s possible. Using the Dept. of Energy employment data, it’s hard to tell, because they don’t break nat gas jobs down in detail… But you could be right, productivity of coal and nat gas workers could be about equal……
Apparently, in the case of coal, nature has already done 78/79ths of the necessary work for us by concentrating raw sunlight into a highly efficient form of energy.
Yes, probably the case, but the cost of electricity includes the cost of buying the scare resources ‘produced by nature’ and disposing of the waste in landfills.The reason why there are more jobs with renewable energy is to overcome the lack of fuel requirements. Solar and wind have zero fuel costs. Fossil fuel generation creates less jobs but has to pay for the “valuable” and finite resource. If you look up the Lazard unsubsidized electricity cost studies that are produced annually, solar and wind now are the cheapest source of energy AND they create more jobs. This isn’t just in the US but worldwide.
Kevin
I’m pretty sure the jobs numbers in the graphic above include those in mining and extraction. The comparison is the number of megawatts of electricity produced per worker for each of the three types of fuel used.
The value of the finite resources (coal and gas) is the same as the cost of sunlight at $0.00. They have no actual value until they are extracted from the ground.
Surely the big difference is that solar and wind energy are delivered to the generation point with zero production and delivery cost.
The associated production and delivery cost of oil, gas and coal energy is never going to be zero.
“Value’ and ‘cost’ are not the same thing.
Allowing stored carbon to be classified as having no value does not take into account the environmental impact which is very costly to a broad range of industries, groups and species.
Indeed, and under the same logic “reserves” should have a zero value.
Jered
How is coal that is 2 miles underground costly to a broad range of industries, groups, and species?
Aren’t all costs associated with extraction and transport?
Nigel
“Indeed, and under the same logic “reserves” should have a zero value.”
That’s right. They have potential value, having been located and estimated. This information has value to those in the business of extracting fossil fuels, and they will bid on the right to use the land needed to extract them, if they don’t already have that right. But the fuels themselves, while still in the ground, have no value.
Every step of the journey from deep underground to the generating plant adds value to the fuels.
Note coal mines don’t go much deeper than 3000 feet because the coals become a lot more gasey and more caveins happen because of the weight of overburden. However coal that deep can be used as a source of coal bed methane however. (Here by pumping out the formation water you get methane out, methane has been a problem with coal mines since they started.
BTW note that underground mines are slowing dying off much faster than the western surface mines which have worker productivity much higher than underground mines.
See my answer above, but your statement on gas/coal having $0 costs is not really the case. For example to buy natural gas rights/land for drilling costs real money, even if you never drill. Even the drilling has a lot of non-labor costs (depreciation on equipment and land). Once you extract gas you have to pay substantial amounts for pipeline transportation, which has very little labor. Plus everyone in the chain is charging profits on all stages of fuel land, discovery, equipment, transportation. Nobody is charging or marking up for profit on solar fuel.
Kevin
“For example to buy natural gas rights/land for drilling costs real money, even if you never drill.”
That’s correct, as does buying or leasing land rights for solar or wind power collection even if it is never developed.
“. Once you extract gas you have to pay substantial amounts for pipeline transportation, which has very little labor. ”
Ditto for collection and transportation of electric energy from solar and wind collection points to existing grid networks.
“Plus everyone in the chain is charging profits on all stages of fuel land, discovery, equipment, transportation.”
Ditto for wind and solar power (except for discovery).
“ Nobody is charging or marking up for profit on solar fuel.”
You’re kidding, right? Why else would anyone do those things? How do YOU think utility level solar or wind power gets from the sky to your electric meter?
Lazard is terribly wrong on unsubsidized LCOE, particularly wind energy.
They report unsubsidized wind at $30/MWh yet in Michigan we pay a subsidized $45-60 or $70-85/MWh according to MPSC.
The cheapest subsidized wind contracts in the US are just under $20/MWh but again, adding in the PTC takes them well above $30.00.
These facts mean absolutely nothing to the ‘Progressives’. The solar numbers could be 100x bigger and it still wouldn’t make a difference. Data is meaningless to these people as they are ‘saving the earth’.
In particular the rooftop scale solar takes a more workers than utility scale solar. I do think we do need to separate construction and operation employment. Just like Keystone XL employed a lot of folks during construction but few once operating. (note only utility scale solar is cost competitive, but of course the folks that hate big companies want to continue the strong subsidy to rooftop solar with net metering and paying the retail price for electricity the roof top plant sends back to the grid, instead of the more proper wholesale price i.e. the price the retailer pays for the electricity at the substation. (Note economics etc are very different in non vertically integrated states than states that still have vertically integrated utilities, which is why nuclear is only economic in vertically integrated states not non vertically integrated states)
However, with little maintenance solar will keep producing for 25-50 years.
Once its burnt its gone, well except the mess…
Dont worry about jobs for Keystone, it will produce jobs everytime it leaks over the next 50+ years.
“Don’t worry about jobs for Keystone, it will produce jobs everytime it leaks over the next 50+ years“…
so null the public doesn’t have to worry about rail accidetns?
total POS system still in use here
Lyle
Net metering is only a problem if a system consistently returns overall net electricity to the grid over a given period of time, usually a year I believe. otherwise the system just allows your meter run slower.
I’m not sure many rooftop systems are installed with the intent of making money as an electricity producer. I suspect most people just want their electric bill to be much lower.
Whenever it is proposed to change netmetering to a wholesale rate folks say you are trying to kill rooftop solar off. So it must be a major selling point, in particular if you upsize the array and the ac is not running full time.
lyle
Well yes, it’s a major selling point, but it actually means very little.
If part or all of your load is being powered by rooftop solar, you meter runs less, and you are charged that much less, at the retail price, for the electricity you didn’t take from the electric company.
There is no way to measure exactly how much electricity you didn’t use, so your bill is some amount lower at the retail price.
Only when you actually supply the grid with power, as measured by the amount your meter runs backward, can you be paid at either the retail or wholesale price. Such amounts are typically tiny, so the rate at which you are paid is not important.
My daughter and son-in-law earned a whopping $14 last year. I don’t know whether that’s at the retail or wholesale rate.
You understand the utility companies DON’T WANT people supplying power, as they then have no control direct control and have trouble load balancing.
It appears that the change to wholesale netmetering is why several rooftop solar outfits pulled out of Nevada when the rules changed. It appears that the economics of rooftop solar don’t work without exporting energy some time. Note that the utility on Ohau will be the one to solve the problem since electricty there is $.33/kwh.
I suspect that without the netmetering the economics of rooftop solar won’t work in many places (it does work in Hawaii, and due to the bizzare electric rates in Ca in Ca). For example I live in Tx and if I figure out what the payback time for rooftop solar is with our .07/kwh electric it comes out to more than 20 years, let alone that due to hail you would probably have to replace the panels at least once. In Ca the economics may differ.
Is gas fired electricity generation actually cheaper than coal fired electricity generation ?
Yes plus gas plants can change power generation rates in minutes where coal plants need hours to do so. Current figures show at least a 2 cents/kwh differential in price.
You really missed the mark here. The reason why there are more jobs with renewable energy is to overcome the lack of fuel requirements. Solar and wind have zero fuel costs. Fossil fuel generation creates less jobs but has to pay for the “valuable” and finite resource. If you look up the Lazard unsubsidized electricity cost studies that are produced annually, solar and wind now are the cheapest source of energy AND they create more jobs. This isn’t just in the US but worldwide. Your fighting a transparent and losing battle, although the fossil fuels subsidies (billions and for many decades) are well embedded in the tax codes. Do your homework….
Inconvenient Fact: Government policies have subsidized the solar industry nearly 350 times more than fossil fuels per unit of electricity production!
Mark Perry, first of all you are to be commended for engaging in dialog with those who comment.
I would appreciate you sharing your research into the your statement that solar is subsidized 350 times more than fossil fuels.
And you failed to mention that solar subsidies are phasing down to a 10 investment tax credit (wind phasing out) the next few years. And according to financial advisory firm Lazard, solar is now on par with coal and natural gas without subsidies on a levelized cost basis: https://www.lazard.com/media/438038/levelized-cost-of-energy-v100.pdf
So why does the number of workers matter if solar is equal or lower cost than fossil fuels for new generation?
Oops, left out the percent sign–10% investment tax credit.
“On a per dollar basis, government policies have led to solar generation being subsidized by over 345 times more than coal and oil and natural gas electricity production, and wind is being subsidized over 52 times more than the more conventional fossil fuels on a unit of production basis.”
Source: Institute for Energy Research here: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/eia-subsidy-report-solar-subsidies-increase-389-percent/
See also this: “The Real Numbers On Energy Subsidies”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2015/12/02/energy-subsidies-2-real-numbers/2/#66806f166450
Thanks for the response. I didn’t spend much time on the EIA’s analysis but I do question Michael Lynch’s comparing subsidies on a btu produced basis.
For thermal production of electricity the heat rate or efficiency must be considered. Renewable sources deliver the finished product while thermal sources lose 1/2-2/3 of the btus in the conversion.
Thus with electricity’s heat rate of 3414 and natural gas’s 7878, as of 2015 according to the EIA, winds relative subsidy on Lynches table should be 30 vs. his listed 69, for example, and a number close to what my research indicates.
As mentioned previously, all this will be moot for wind by 2020 and greatly reduced for solar as the subsidies phase out/down–something that can’t be said for the other energy sources.
What’s your opinion of Lazard’s estimates of unsubsidized levelized costs of new generation indicating wind and solar on par with natural gas?
Wind and solar have orders of magnitude higher subsidies and you want to quibble about a factor of 2 or 3?
Lazard has been claiming grid parity for years now and yet every time the PTC and ITC come up for renewal wind and solar projects come screeching to a halt until they get their subsidy renewed. But even more telling is that they don’t include any costs for backup or the implicit subsidy of net metering for rooftop solar.
Finally, it’s hardly a coincidence that Denmark and Germany have both the highest penetrations of greed energy and the highest electricity costs in Europe.
Ha. Those are completely made up numbers and look at per unit numbers for one year. Fossil fuels have been subsidized for 100 years. So all those years are conveniently left out of the calculations. In the early stages fossil fuel subsidies were huge per unit of energy generated, plus they are still getting subsidized. Wind and solar subsidies have only been for a few years, and a few years from now will be gone. It’ll be a solar world my friend.
“It’ll be a solar world my friend.”
Oh dear, that’s what I was afraid of.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
No “costs” here, I guess. And what will happen to used panels at end of life?
“Oh dear, that’s what I was afraid of.”
You worry about pollution from photovoltaics…but you don’t mind the pollution from coal?
“You worry about pollution from photovoltaics…but you don’t mind the pollution from coal?”
Nice strawman. What concerns me is that these costs involved in the manufacture of solar panels are often left out when comparing the costs vs fossil fuels. Maybe that’s because those costs are incurred half a world away where most of us don’t see them, but they are very real nonetheless. When the safe disposal of toxic and radioactive waste becomes part of the process and the costs are included, fossil fuels may not look so bad in comparison.
In addition there is the problem of recycling costs for solar panels that is seldom mentioned because it’s not much of an issue yet. But as larger numbers of existing panels begin reaching end of life in the not too distant future, there will be a massive and ongoing recycle cost, as well as the ongoing manufacturing costs.
Many solar enthusiasts paint a picture of clean, shiny panels being installed, and then free electricity flowing forever, but it’s not like that at all. There will be an ongoing process of manufacture, installation, and disposal of panels. those costs should be included when comparing to fossil fuels.
“. Fossil fuels have been subsidized for 100 years. ”
And of course we have had electricity from fossil fuels for 100 years. We can add that value to the plus side of the balance sheet.
Please quit torturing the numbers.
You say solar and wind are the cheapest source of energy, while coal mining has to pay for the finite resource. It sounds like you are saying that sunlight and wind are free, while you have to pay someone to dig coal out of the ground. Why does this obvious truth matter?
kevin-
the same is true of solar and wind, they just use different resources.
wind, in particular, uses many of the scarcest resources on earth (like neodynium) it also generates hideous wastes including radioactive ones.
a 2mw turbine contains around 900 pounds of rare earths and each ton of these that are mined and refined creates about 1 ton of radioactive waste.
solar is not as awful, but also uses lots of rare stuff such as indium, gallium, and rutherium many of which do not even really exist as primary ores.
you can get around some of that with thin films deposited using CVD, but then you drop efficiency to around 11%.
but even that uses tellurium.
so, this idea that somehow wind and solar are not using finite resources or doing massive environmental damage is simply not accurate.
both use far more limited resources than fossil fuels.
it’s doubtful either can scale to tera watt levels without significant new technological breakthroughs.
worse, neither can ever be a real source of baseline power as wind is inconsistent, and sun only shines some of the time and only makes economic sense in some latitudes.
solar and wind will always be bit players.
if it takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker, then why is solar so cost competative?
shouldn’t solar, with costlier materials and labor, cost more?
Dr. Perry answers this above, by noting that solar receives 350 times more subsidies per unit of electricity generated, i.e., the costs are not competitive, but are hidden in taxes, so prices appear to be competitive.
This is comparison is not based on a logical understanding of what is happening. Today’s solar workers are building the solar plants that will operate with very minimal maintenance, and zero fuel, for 25+ years. How many workers did it take to build the coal plants and then dig up the fuel (coal) every year since they have been built?
This analysis does not differentiate between capital investment in future production from the cost of current consumption. Any Austrian economist who has read Mises should understand this. I have Solar panels on my roof that had a big upfront capital cost but will produce electricity for the next 20 years at almost zero cost. The payback period is about 7 years. I suspect ten years from now, solar will be far cheaper than coal or natural gas. The rate of innovation is breathtaking. I usually really like aei but this analysis is sloppy and beneath you.
The only way your payback is in 7 years is due to massive subsidies. That is the entire point of the post. And I’m guessing you have net metering which means that your neighbors get to pay to subsidize the backup power that keeps your lights on at night.
Wow! The solar trolls are out in force today.
First, neither solar nor wind are free unless you’re getting a tan on a windy day at the beach. It costs a lot lot of money and fossil fuels to convert that “free” solar and wind to electricity. Solar panels have to be built, copper and aluminum wire made, steel towers have to be erected and generators constructed. All of that is done off stage using fossil fuels. I doubt there’s ever been a windmill made that even returned its cost much less generated a surplus.
It’s a scam all the way down.
The difference between renewables and fossil fuel plants extends even to hydropower. In all cases the main costs are capital costs for renewables there being little to no fuel cost involved. For wind turbines break even on energy after between 5 and 8 months, according to this story:https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140616093317.htm and last 20 years.
It should be noted that even hydropower is not completely dispatchable over long periods see Ca and the drought for an example.
Yet wind O&M according EIA is arund $14/MWh and steadily rising as their look-back includes more and more aging units.
That’s not free. The wholesale value of electricity in MISO is only $25.00.
Scam??? If this is true, then why would Warren Buffet’s company, MidAmerican Energy, invest $3.6B to build a wind farm of 1,000 wind turbines in Iowa producing 2,000 MWs of power to attain its goal of 100% renewable energy for its Iowa customers. No scam according to Warren.
Here’s the link – http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/iowa-board-approves-36-billion-midamerican-wind-farm-20160829
Warren Explains precisely why he builds wind:
“I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/nancy-pfotenhauer/2014/05/12/even-warren-buffet-admits-wind-energy-is-a-bad-investment
Here is a link to a Bloomberg article on energy sources:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-26/the-cheap-energy-revolution-is-here-and-coal-won-t-cut-it
Note the charts showing the cost features, Note also as US coal production moves to surface mining in the west output per worker hour more that triples over underground mines. Note the chart that shows excluding large hydro 9% of us electricity is from renewables, and the 20% + numbers from Europe.
For the sake of comparison, the article should consider the “point of delivery”.
It means that a rooftop PV is at the end of the power supply chain and a natural gás or coal power plant is at the very beggining. Accordingly transmission and distribution costs should be accounted.
Let us compare apples with apples!
How about “time of delivery?”
Coal and natural gas electric power can be produced when needed as opposed to wind and solar. So by all means, let’s compare apples to apples.
Consider “Point in time.”
Coal and Natural Gas generated electricity can be generated when we want them as opposed to when the sun shines or the wind blows.
So yes, let’s compare apples to apples.
Indeed, Prof. Perry, your comparison is too facile. All of those people bolting solar panels to residential rooftops are counted in the “solar industry” jobs, but none of the people stringing and maintaining power lines are counted in the “coal industry” jobs. Similarly, people building the digging and transportation equipment used in the coal mines are not counted as “coal industry” jobs either, while the people building the solar panels are “solar industry”.
It is likely not feasible to do a useful comparison by classifying jobs then counting the people who do them, because of problems with boundaries and definitions. However, you shouldn’t make comparisons that are obviously wrong. Looking at the relative prices of electricity from solar and electricity from coal is more accurate.
I think the concerns of many commentators with regards to the employment impacts of the new facility construction are reasonable. For example, the 2017 US Energy and Jobs Report had this to say about solar employment levels:
“Proportionally, solar employment accounts for the largest share of workers in the Electric Power Generation sector. This is largely due to the construction related to the significant buildout of new solar generation capacity.”
At the same time, total electricity generation from coal plants has been decreasing. (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_01)
So, it does look like some of the employment differences is due to the new construction of solar, while coal production is generating electricity based on past capital investments.
That being said, however, I don’t think this is the complete explanation for the differences. Natural gas electricity generation has been increasing faster than solar electricity generation. From 2014 to 2016, natural gas electricity generation increased by approximately 253,686,000 MWH. For solar, utility and small scale generation increased by 26,351,000 MWH. At the same time, the Energy and Jobs report estimates total natural gas employment was approximately 392,869 in 2016, which includes mining, construction, generation and all other services. For solar, the report says total employment was approximately 373,807. If expanding production was the only explanation for the above average employment in the solar industry, would we not expect natural gas employment to be higher? Especially given that it increased 10 times faster than solar and produced 26 times as much electricity?
Mark Perry wrote: ““As Milton Friedman explained nearly 40 years ago, the appropriate economic objective is to have the fewest number of workers producing the greatest amount of output. ”
Respectfully disagree: the appropriate economic goal should be to have the GREATEST number of workers producing the greatest amount of output.
We can’t seem to be able to do this because we are stuck in a consumption trap because consumers who are also producers are getting screwed by a system that favors consumers who are not producers.
“the appropriate economic goal should be to have the GREATEST number of workers producing the greatest amount of output.”
So the goal, in your opinion, is not to be not as efficient as producers in other countries? No wonder you are for the imposition of tariffs. You do not understand basic economics.
Matt
Warren has an agenda and enjoys trolling this blog.
You’re right, he seems not to understand basic economics, but that may just be him pretending.
Trolling this long for one’s own entertainment is understandable. Persisting in being wrong for so long, isn’t.
Ron H.,
I’m not so sure. I used to think that politicians knew better but were just pandering for special interest group votes. And, I thought that most of their supporters were the same. But, I am not so sure any more. I am beginning to think that the ignorance of economics is much worse than I thought.
Nobody really understands economics. It is a complex and chaotic system. The most telling sign of ignorance is when you see them accusing someone else of not understanding economics. Classical economics had an important goal of increasing the amount of productivity per unit of labour. This has been successful, but another increasingly important issue is access to the products, and right now a serious problem in the world is that an increasingly small minority has an increasingly large control over the means of production. Renewable energy is a way to democratise production of electricity, and has been steadily increasing in productivity and reducing in cost. So if I was a body representing fossil-fuel producing industries, I’d probably be really scared and resort to desperate measures. Like showing comparisons of work for LAST YEAR’s fossil fuel consumption compared to work last year INCREASING solar INFRASTRUCTURE which could last half a century. I wouldn’t put up a graph comparing, for example number of workers involved transporting fuel to the generators.
Nobody really understands economics. It is a complex and chaotic system. The most telling sign of ignorance is when you see them accusing someone else of not understanding economics. Classical economics had an important goal of increasing the amount of productivity per unit of labour. This has been successful, but another increasingly important issue is access to the products, and right now a serious problem in the world is that an increasingly small minority has an increasingly large control over the means of production. Renewable energy is a way to democratise production of electricity, and has been steadily increasing in productivity and reducing in cost. So if I was a body representing fossil-fuel producing industries, I’d probably be really scared and resort to desperate measures. Like showing comparisons of work for LAST YEAR’s fossil fuel consumption compared to work last year INCREASING solar INFRASTRUCTURE which could last half a century. I wouldn’t put up a graph comparing, for example number of workers involved transporting fuel to the generators.
The appropriate economic goal should be to have the GREATEST number of workers producing the greatest amount of output.
Labor is a cost, not a benefit. Think of farming: We want the greatest output with the fewest workers possible (and other inputs, e.g., the smallest amount of farm land, or the largest amount of milk output with the fewest dairy cows).
According to your “logic” we should want the most farm output, with the MOST workers and the MOST land and other inputs, e.g. the most milk output with the greatest number of cows???
If the goal is electricity-generation jobs, imagine how many people we could employ by having people ride stationary bicycles coupled to generators.
Respectfully disagree: the appropriate economic goal should be to have the GREATEST number of workers producing the greatest amount of output.
Could not disagree more. This is the doctrine of scarcity; this is scarcity itself. Is it best if the farmer employs 1,000 hands to work 1,000 acres for 1,000 bushels of wheat, or 10 hands to work 10 acres, for 10,000 bushes of wheat? Those who wish scarcity upon the land say the former; those who wish abundance upon the land say the latter.
But, lest no one say anything else, at least you are consistent, praising China (who needs 7 workers to give the same output as 1 US worker).
We can’t seem to be able to do this because we are stuck in a consumption trap because consumers who are also producers are getting screwed by a system that favors consumers who are not producers.
Well, this statement simply makes no sense. Add some Jean-Baptiste Say to your reading list.
“Could not disagree more. This is the doctrine of scarcity; this is scarcity itself. Is it best if the farmer employs 1,000 hands to work 1,000 acres for 1,000 bushels of wheat, or 10 hands to work 10 acres, for 10,000 bushes of wheat? Those who wish scarcity upon the land say the former; those who wish abundance upon the land say the latter.”
You got it backwards. Those who wish abundance would keep the 1,000 hands, and increase acreage to 100,000 acres, and produce 100,000,000 bushels of wheat.
IOW, the main reason agriculture employment declined is not really because of automation, it’s simply because there is a limited supply of agricultural land, not to mention there is only so many calories a human can eat.
Same goes for manufacturing employment. If you have 10 million workers, and their productivity increases by a factor of four, so then half of them get laid off, you guys will say that’s a great thing: production is up by a factor of two, even though employment is down by half–look at all widgets that consumers w/o jobs can now buy (not to mention the great profits for the capitalists).
But the true purveyor of abundance would say we screwed up: we should have kept all 10 million guys working, and then we could have increased total production by a factor of 4, instead of 2.
Those who wish abundance would keep the 1,000 hands, and increase acreage to 100,000 acres, and produce 100,000,000 bushels of wheat.
According to you, that would be a bad thing. You were calling for a 1-to-1 ratio. This is a 1-to-100,000 ratio. This is using less labor for more output. That’s exactly what I said was desirable and what you said was “backwards.”
IOW, the main reason agriculture employment declined is not really because of automation, it’s simply because there is a limited supply of agricultural land, not to mention there is only so many calories a human can eat.
I don’t know what you mean by this. Be more specific.
But the true purveyor of abundance would say we screwed up
Only were he a moron.
and then we could have increased total production by a factor of 4, instead of 2.
And what if the demand weren’t there? Then it’d have all gone to waste, and the millions of jobs created never would have appeared.
“1. This is using less labor for more output
2. don’t know what you mean
3. And what if the demand weren’t there? ”
1. No. I was proposing using the SAME labor for EVEN more output.
2. Consider if the USA had the population it had in 1803, but with the same geographic area we have today. In those days, a high percentage of people were employed in agriculture, but the percentage of available acreage devoted to agriculture was small.
Thus, given the same technological improvements over time, the absolute number of farmers and the percentage of people employed in farming could be the same. The only thing that’s changed is the number of acres planted.
See what I mean?
3. My point exactly. Unemployed people do not consume very much.
1. No. I was proposing using the SAME labor for EVEN more output.
Ok. That’s the opposite of what you said in your original post and exactly what I said in my post.
Thus, given the same technological improvements over time, the absolute number of farmers and the percentage of people employed in farming could be the same.
No, that’s not true at all. That would mean no technological improvement.
Part of your issue is you’re confusing absolute and relative figures.
3. My point exactly. Unemployed people do not consume very much.
Um…if you think that refutes what I said, or supports what you said, you don’t understand either.
Warren –
Let me ask you a simple question:
Which would be preferable: Using 100 people to produce 100,000 bushels of wheat on 10 acres, or using 10 people to produce 100,000 bushes of wheat on 10 acres?
1. Let’s be clear: what you said was that it is better to employ 10 hands working 10 acres at 1,000 bushels/acre than it is to employ 1,000 hands working 1,000 acres at 1 bushel/acre. This is in line with Milton Friedman’s idea. What I’m saying is it’s ultimately best to not reduce the labor force by 99%: keep them all hired at the higher productivity rate, and make a million bushels.
2. What I’m trying to say went right over your head. Let me try again. There are about 6 million people currently working in farming and ag manufacturing (non-retail). But back in 1803 there were only about 6 million people in the whole USA. So what if Americans in 1803 followed Adam Smith’s advice, rather than Alexander Hamilton’s, and decided to specialize in their comparative advantage: mechanized agriculture. And, assume that instead of throwing people at problems, they kept the population exactly the same: no immigration, 2.1 children per couple. Consequently, if 100% of the economy was agriculture in 1803 and 2016 and the population was the same (6 million), then we would still have the same ag production as today: $992 billion. This would be our total GDP: much less than now, but our per capita GDP would be $168,136. (Guess we should have listened to Adam Smith! 🙂 )
So, the absolute number of ag workers stays the same, 6 million, and the relative number workers stays the same, 100%.
Now what has happened to the argument that automation killed agricultural employment? It’s not there anymore.
3. As for demand, this is the problem Friedmanian idea: we are shooting ourselves in the foot when the goal is minimize labor’s share of the GDP. If you don’t see why that is, it is you who does not understand.
Wow…uh ok. You’re even more confused than I thought.
Here’s your reading list for the next month: chapters 1-6 in Krugman, with the questions at the end of the chapters done, too. I have the 4th edition, but any edition will do.
Specifically I want you to focus on the sections on trade offs (chapter 2 I think), specialisation, supply, and demand.
It would also be helpful to write out the definitions of the terms he uses in the book, but I won’t require that for you.
When I was learning this stuff, I found it helpful (and still do) to draw the diagrams. You may find that helpful, too, but I’ll not require it.
Also, grab a copy of Frederic Bastiat’s Economic Sophisms (it’s free online). Read chapters 1-4 and write responses to his arguments. They can be as long or as short as you think it takes to make your case, but you must make your case.
Submit all this via Dropbox to me by June 6 for review.
You two guys are hilarious! Is this a scripted comedy routine?
“But the true purveyor of abundance would say we screwed up: we should have kept all 10 million
guysgals working, and then we could have increased total production by a factor of 4, instead of 2.”But “we” could only consume twice as much production, so anything more than that will rot on the shelves. Perhaps the 10 million workers can work for half as much pay or for half as many hours/day.
Your True Purveyor needs to find a new line of work.
Note to self: Recommend some reading to Warren on the subject of diminishing marginal utility.
I’m putting together homework for him from his Krugman textbook
“Those who wish abundance would keep the 1,000 hands, and increase acreage to 100,000 acres, and produce 100,000,000 bushels of wheat. ”
I can’t believe your writing this nonsense. Even you must know better than this.
Where would the other 90,000 acres come from?
If they are available, what would NOT be done with those 90,000 acres if wheat was grown instead? Is growing wheat the best use of the acreage?
Who would buy the 100 MM bushels of wheat? Would the price of wheat drop dramatically if there was a surplus of wheat?
If wheat prices dropped dramatically due to an overabundance would the grower be able to continue paying 1000 workers to grow wheat at the lower prices?
You were right, Jon, Warren doesn’t appear to understand supply and demand.
This just has to be intentional trolling.
“It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker”
If the alternate energy business is so heavily subsidized with excess labor, then maybe U.S. productivity is stalled by sustainable excesses.
But, all the solar workers are said to have nifty sunny dispositions.
Compared to what? Horses and manual labor?
“With fossil fuels, it’s the cost to mitigate climate change.”
The climate is always changing. We should not be wasting money chasing nonexistent demons to slay.
Sure, but the current rate of anthropogenic change far exceeds the natural rate of change.
Using models that have failed to predict anything. The “science”, from front to back, is based on a lot of shaky assumptions.
The models for the future are based on the models of the past, which, as pointed out, are based on a lot of shaky things. If the models for the future are so bad, there’s no reason to think the models for the past are any good.
That you confidently make the above statement shows just how silly you are.
Since 1970, HadCRUT4 shows warming 0.174 ±0.028 °C/decade.
Thank you for providing a strawman, where you react to what you wished I’d said, while ignoring what I actually said. I clearly said the “models … have failed to predict anything” (emphasis added). Ignoring the catastrophic failures of the predictions of models, you talk about a data set of observed temperature readings, something I didn’t say anything about. At least you’re consistent in your intellectual dishonesty.
Greenhouse warming is based on fundamental physics
Greenhouse warming is based on elementary school level experiments with all but a few variables controlled. The actual atmosphere has, literally, thousands of variables, and is incredibly non-linear. Claiming that the settled science of an incredibly simple fifth grade experiment (which ignores most relevant variables and all feedback loops) directly applies to crazily complex atmosphere, again, shows your consistent dedication to intellectual dishonesty.
Global temperature, last 2000 years
Yet another extension of your intellectual dishonesty. While every single model used to predict future temperatures failed, somehow all models used to estimate past temperatures are spot on, despite being largely based on the same “science” that failed to predict anything about future temperatures. Heh.
If someone wrote a fiction book with a character that was poor a thinker as you, who is as dishonest as you, everyone would talk about how unbelievable that character is. And yet here you are in real life. Makes me smile.
Z:
Yes, indeed. Let’s not forget the benefits of increasing global vegetation and enhanced food production made possible by additional CO2 emissions.
What’s wrong with plants?
Plants are the basis of the food chain
So you’re upset that increased atmosphereic CO2 would increase the supply of the basis of the food chain? Heh.
Considering you haven’t provided any facts, Zac, libertarianism is doing just fine. Let’s look at some real facts:
No trend in Palmer Drought Index
No trend in severity or count of US tornadic activity
No trend in ACE
Stable to increasing polar bear populations
Increasing Antarctic ice mass (GRACE)
Increasing cereal yields
Increasing biomass productivity (15% in the last 30 years)
Greening of the sahel
Deaths due to cold still outnumber deaths due to heat by over 2:1, so warmer is better, particularly the type of warming we should get with AGW, i.e. warmer evenings and winters and not daytime and summers
Essentially the same 1.5-3mm/yr MSL rise we’ve seen since the end of the LIA
Facts are stubborn things that don’t yield to your religion.
Zach,
for humans the negative effects far exceed the positive effects when anthropogenic greenhouse warming causes the Earth’s temperature to rise more than 2°C or so.
I’ve been hearing about predictions of excessive damage human activity will have on humankind my whole life. ALL of those predictions have proved false. Given the flimsy “science” and the near boggling number of assumptions used to make such predictions, including yours, it’s no surprise you and your kind have so consistently proved wrong.
Obama’s EPA admitted that it takes 3X as many workers per kilowatt hour for “green” energy than it does for fossil fuels. They thought it was a good thing. I just sat here shaking my head. Every real business knows that you want to produce more with fewer employees. Btw, looks like Obama’s EPA underestimated the numbers.
zach-
i’ll take trace emissions of plant food any day over the mass production of radioactive waste that comes from making windmills.
try looking up what goes into the manufacturing of neodynium magnets one day and ask about the massive lakes of radioactive waste it’s creating.
then take a look at what goes into making the rare ores for solar and the contents of a better for an EV.
i think you’ll rapidly find that if one wishes to avoid poisoning the environment, fossil fuels are, at present, the way to go.
a prius does FAR more environmental damage over the lifecycle of making one, driving it 100k miles, and disposing of it than even a humvee.
the irony is the the “environmentalists” lobbying for “green energy” are nothing of the sort. they are simply ignoring the vast and far worse damage done by their technologies, mostly out of utter ignorance, but likely also out of sheer cupidity and a desire for special interest cash. (yes elon musk, i’m looking at you…)
Z:
“ The locally releases of radioactive waste due to the mining of rare earths can be controlled with better technology. Most rare earths are currently mined in China which has lax enforcement of environmental regulations. ”
Of course. anything is possible, but what does better controlling toxic waste do to the cost estimates presented by so many starry eyed wind and solar enthusiasts on this thread?
Z:
“Low compared to the human cost due to poisoning.”
And high when compared to the human cost due to poisoning from natgas operations.
Most comparisons ignore the human costs of solar and wind power because they occur out of sight on the other side of the world.
The net externalities are positive.
The science indicates dangerous global warming
You mean the “science” that has predicted far more warming over the past two decades than has actually occurred (no warming in the last two decades, known as “the pause”)? Only for the faithful, who pay no attention to what has actually happened, but continue to pretend what was predicted to happen will happen, despite those predictions already failing pretty spectacularly.
Additionally, that warming would be “dangerous” is exactly what in contention. Of course, when you simply assume that warming has to be “dangerous” and deny any benefits (and the long history of failed predictions based on the “Science” to which you refer), then it’s easy to make the type of absurd statements you continue to make.
And the satellite record shows a third of the rate of predicted warming by the models. In addition the models demonstrate no skill at all at predicting precipitation not to mention the lack of the modeled tropical tropospheric hot spot and the continuing increase in Antarctic ice mass.
So in response to this devastating empirical data what does IPCC do? Why they open up the lower ECS bound to 1.5C, remove any mean estimate for ECS, AND have the audacity to claim that they are even MORE certain that the majority of warming since 1950 (we’ll ignore the 0.3C warming from 1910-1940–too inconvenient) is of human origin. In most branches of science when you have to increase your confidence intervals that’s a sign that your uncertainty has increased. Not so in climastrology.
Since 1998, HadCRUT4 shows warming of 0.136 °C/decade.
Thank you for consistently ignoring what I said. Rather than acknowledge the models have failed to predict anything, you talk about a dataset … containing a lot of data that is derived using the same flawed “science” that failed to predict anything. Pro-tip: if the “science” you use can’t predict the future with anything said to be accurate, it can’t be used to accurately estimate previous temperatures.
Since my state legislators just last night told me they were working on a renewable-portfolio standard, I initially thought to use this post as a counterargument. And, if both fossil-fuel generation and solar were operating at a steady state, with new installation and plant retirement being equal, I could have.
Since solar use is increasing at such a high percentage rate, though, the failure to distinguish between workers per megawatt to manufacture and install and workers per megawatt-hour to generate makes these numbers too misleading for me to use.
I hope I find some more-informative numbers.
I didn’t see anything mentioned about Tesla’s plan to use solar roof panels to charge a Tesla battery that in turn charges the Tesla car. Seems so efficient but if the state won’t allow the extra energy to be sold back to the power grid then the electric grid power company probably has too much lobby power in that states legislature. This is how big money and political power stands in the way of progress. Think about it, how did we loose the whole solar panel industry to China is where those 79 jobs went to ?
The wind and solar power industries are energy parasites that consume more energy in their construction, maintenance and infrastructure than they can ever produce with their grotesque wind turbines and solar panels. In addition, they are environmental disasters that kill millions of birds and bats, destroy acres of wildlife habitat, and whose rare earth metal mines pollute vast amounts of ground water. There is nothing “green” about wind and solar power.
If your heart bleeds for the “birds and bats”, why are you on the computer instead of out with a shotgun to cull the stray cat population?
Marcus
I see you didn’t address the substantive points in MikeW’s comment.
As to your response, I’m not sure hearts bleeding for birds is an issue, but there is a dual standard at work here that allows wind machines to kill millions of birds, including some that are endangered, with impunity, while other energy sources pay huge fines for killing a few ducks.
Besides I don’t think stray cats pose much of a danger to bald eagles, golden eagles, or California condors, but may instead be an important food source. Be careful what you wish for.
It would be interesting to discuss the respective histories of each industry e.g. When coal industry was getting establish (like solar now), how inefficient was it then and how how was it subsidized. The coal industry has had many years to improve inefficiencies, as solar is doing now. What about the costs of other “externalizes” such social costs of medical, health, and safety of workers, depletion of a limited resource, and impacts to changing global climate. A fuller consideration of all these issues would likely include shift the “economics” of energy production in favor of solar.
Coal was efficient compared to the alternatives. Solar is not.
Depletion of a limited resource isn’t an externality. It’s priced in by the market.
depletion of a limited resource
Paul Ehrlich thought the same thing and was publicly humiliated by Julian Simon. The rest of your comment is as fact free as the above false assertion.
I’m guessing if a site like ProPublica or FiveThirtyEight got a hold of this, they’d rip up the biased math to pieces and destroy it.
Not to mention the inadvertent stupidity of the claim. Given the fact that Trump is in bed with the coal industry, and Trump is a big blowhard about “jobs, jobs, jobs,” then according to Perry, Trump should be making his deals with the solar industry instead. Correct?
No. This is economics, not politically correct polling and pseudo-journalism. Please look for the Daily Kos and HuffPo for your daily dose of politically correct nonsense.
You left out a metric: According to the Chinese government their coal burning pollution kills about a million people annually. And Trump wants us to go that route as well!
Another ignored element is resilience. Milton Friedman did indeed set us on the road to economic efficiency and profit driven capitalism, but a critical foundation of resilience is redundancy. That means more people doing the same thing. It provides competition for the market. Another foundation is diversity. That means energy from diverse sources.
America has excelled at resilience, but Friedman is not helping.
“ That means more people doing the same thing. ”
Who should decide these things?
Another foundation is diversity. That means energy from diverse sources.
False.
I own shares in a company who makes solar panels. I see the budget of this outfit and to tell you the truth it is a total scam. They are posting a loss all the time while they are seeing to it the board is very well paid with 7 digit salaries. But rest assured their lifespans won’t be shortened to the extent coal miners lives are shortened. Eventually we will run out of people who want a short life of daring adventures going deep underground to dig in the dirt.
I assume you are working full-time, masks off, with all your “daring”, climate denial friends, in a coal mine, for life? Be sure to send proof. Otherwise, zip it, hypocrite.
Ha! I love it when someone tries to be biting and ends up writing something nonsensical.
To me this seems like comparing the output of men manually pumping well water to men digging wells. Where is the accounting for 25 years of ongoing energy output?
The author overlooks something that should be obvious – those coal plants, once built, require people to keep them running and miners to keep them fueled for the lifetime of the plant.
In contrast, utility-scale solar power systems require next to no one to operate them (and none at all for residential and commercial systems) and the fuel comes for free – talk about economically efficient!
The EIA data linked to reveals another interesting fact – while the output from solar is still small, it grew by a staggering 44% YoY, whereas coal declined by 9%. At those rates of “growth”, solar will surpass coal in 8 years.
That should make any economist sit up and say, “Wow!”
“. At those rates of “growth”, solar will surpass coal in 8 years.”
At these growth rates. Hmm. I’m sure we can count on that.
In other news, if global population growth continue at the current rate there will be only a square foot of dry land for each person in only 384 years. Those on the coasts will have to lock arms to keep from being pushed into the sea.
Extrapolation is fun, eh?
44% of nothing is still nothing.
Way to cherry pick the data and apply it unevenly and inconsistently.
Don’t know about the US, but the PV on my European roof has worked autonomously, year after year after year. No staff has been required, other than me removing some algae every 2 years.
Solar did not work for Germany.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/problems-prompt-germany-to-rethink-energy-revolution-a-852815.html
You’re quoting a five-year old Der Spiegel article? (August 29, 2012)
“You’re quoting a five-year old Der Spiegel article? (August 29, 2012)”
Has something changed since then?
No.
Has anything change in five years? Quadrupled installed solar power. Half the cost. Climate science eradicated from the White house. 85% of German electricity generated by renewables last week.
No, you’re right no change. (Slightly muffled since my head is buried in sand.)
If you want to tell us what is happening in Germany, don’t give us a prediction from five years ago.
Wow. By this logic, the author must be a big fan of slavery and dictatorships, too…
Heh. Again, you show what a failure you are at biting commentary.
Why exclude the amortized costs of a fossil fuel plants site and it’s construction? It’s life cycle costs that are relevant and that comparing an operating industry (fossil fuel energy generation) to an industry being built as well as operated (renewables).
It takes one ‘Solar-PV worker’ (Me) 9 days to instal 15 panels on a local roof in SD ($4500 ~ $60/hr.). Those 15 panels = 315 watts X 6 hrs/day X 364 days X 20 yrs. == 210,000 Kilowatt-Hrs of energy (minimum). Total work and equipment is about $17,000, and the cost is still less than half what the local utility would charge for the same amount of energy delivered, at todays prices. If I could work that job all year, I’d produce about 26 times that, or about 5,694,000 Kilowatt-Hours (KwH) of energy per year.
I’m not sure how much a ton of coal costs or delivers in terms of KwH, but lets be generous and say that it’s $50/ton, and 2000 KwH/ton. That’s cheap fuel! Until you factor in the environmental costs. If you include forest and mountain top removal, slurry ponds and stream kills, cancer, carbon-pollution, climate change, the transportation, the mercury and heavy metals, the smog, the species killed by global warming, etc. (don’t factor in the cost to our political society). Say that a coal worker can use machines in the USA to mine 200 tons a day? Then he can produce the energy each day, that I do in two weeks. One to 10 ratio. (not including environmental costs). Of course, that coal miner gets paid maybe $30/hr. While the CEO of the company gets paid $3,000,000+/yr.
How do these compare?
So then, you agree that the coal miner is much more efficient in producing energy than solar energy. Thanks!
Coal miners are not producing energy. The energy is in the coal, actually stored from ancient solar energy. The coal miners are just transporting the energy from one place to another. Solar panels are converting solar energy in real time. Zero transportation costs for the energy. It’s a different paradigm, and very difficult to compare. Your perspective will change a great deal whether you’re sitting in the board room of a fossil fuel company, or living under a solar power plant!
Mark
“ The coal miners are just transporting the energy from one place to another.
That’s correct.
Solar panels are converting solar energy in real time. Zero transportation costs for the energy.”
That would only be true for rooftop solar installations, the least efficient method of providing solar energy. Utility scale solar suffers collection and distribution problems similar to every other major energy source. In addition there’s the unaddressed problems of storage, load leveling and peak power demand.
If you’re a wholesale electricity provider, then rooftop may be the least efficient. If you live under the roof, and have to buy electricity retail, the economics are very different. They also provide people with some energy security, which will not provide 24/7 power, but may provide some power in case of disasters. The forecast is for more storms and more floods, but some sunshine will still shine through!
Wherever the solar panels are, the energy is getting to them for free, which is not true wherever you are burning coal. People are much more willing to live and work near solar panels than thermal power stations, so transmission losses will likely be less.
You are right that there are storage and leveling issues but they are not unaddressed, merely unresolved. I’m sure technology will develop to work these problems out, and as it often does, make itself available to solve other problems.
I am reminded of another heavily-subsidised government project that had spinoffs in both energy production and computer development: the Manhattan project. At least these solar panels aren’t designed to kill people!
Mark
“ They also provide people with some energy security, which will not provide 24/7 power, but may provide some power in case of disasters.”
No they don’t. By design, rooftop systems are disconnected when electric company power is out. It’s a safety feature to keep workers from being zapped when they work on power lines and equipment they assume is not live, because they have already removed the power source.
Your 7500w portable gas generator will supply you with reliable backup power both day and night.
“By design, rooftop systems are disconnected when electric company power is out. It’s a safety feature to keep workers from being zapped when they work on power lines and equipment they assume is not live, because they have already removed the power source.
Your 7500w portable gas generator will supply you with reliable backup power both day and night.”
Doesn’t your gas generator turn off when the power grid is down? Or, if not, do you have insurance that will cover the lawsuit when it zaps some hapless power-line worker?
Marcus
“Doesn’t your gas generator turn off when the power grid is down? Or, if not, do you have insurance that will cover the lawsuit when it zaps some hapless power-line worker?”
No it doesn’t. I start it manually when necessary and turn off the main breaker at the house to protect line workers.
You must be unfamiliar with commercial un-interruptable power supply systems used for hospitals and computer centers where power must be available at all times. Such a system can be designed for individual homes, but the cost is probably higher than any benefit of never losing power.
The Venn diagram is quite dishonest. Like empty seats on an airliner, human labor hours are a wasting asset. If they are not used today, they cannot be saved up for use tomorrow – the day is gone. Employing people to produce and install solar systems does not destroy the people. The solar workers are still there the next day. If they were not doing solar work, they would be doing something else. For these reasons, there is no conservation issue.
Natural resources such as forests and lakes are not wasting assets. Cutting down a forest for paper, fuel, or cropland means there is not a forest there tomorrow.Polluting a lake with toxic chemicals renders it unusable for drinking water and recreation for years to come.
Others have already raised the amortization issue. If I install solar panels on my house this year, it is true they will produce relatively little electricity per labor hour expended on their manufacture and installation. But next year, and for many years thereafter, they will produce the same electricity for zero labor. The more panels that are built and installed, the more electricity per worker will be generated.
Back when the coal plants were first being built, you could have shown terrible results for them as well – hundreds of labor-years expended for whatever electricity was produced in the first year of operation. But once the plant construction was competed, the labor required dropped drastically – just as it does for solar once the panels are manufactured and installed.
“. Like empty seats on an airliner, human labor hours are a wasting asset.”
Labor hours are an expense, Michael. Not using them today means you don’t have to pay for them. Ever. The day is gone.
People SPEND hours working in exchange for things they value more.
@Ron H – Your comment is in no way relevant to my point. I was addressing the claimed intellectual inconsistency of conserving natural resources but expending scarce human labor. People do indeed spend hours working in exchange for things they value more. But if they don’t work those eight hours today, they can’t work 16 hours tomorrow and still have 16 hours left the same day to do housework, leisure, sleep, and other unpaid (but still desirable) activities. Forests can be conserved for tomorrow. Labor hours not used today cannot be saved up to make tomorrow have more available hours in it. Since labor hours cannot be conserved for tomorrow in the same way as forests and lakes, the claimed intellectual inconsistency does not exist.
And as was pointed out by both myself and others, labor to build generating capacity (solar) is not comparable to labor to fuel and operate existing generating capacity (coal). It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Inconveniently the article is BS. Solar electricity does not cost 79x the cost of coal fired electricity.
There are real issues with over subsidies and not fairly paying utilities for the cost of maintaining the electricity network. It is a shame that such biased writing should obscure the real issues that face the American voter. Offensive really.
Guy
“. Solar electricity does not cost 79x the cost of coal fired electricity.
Did you intend to erect that strawman, or did you not read the article carefully?
BTW don’t you believe American consumers should vote with their dollars for their preferred energy source? Why should voters make choices for everyone?
Should have included all the energy sources; wind, nuclear, and hydro.
This is an inefficient report. What is the definition of a “solar worker”? What is the definition of a “coal worker”? Are we talking about a single coal miner vs. how many people it takes to manufacture a single solar panel? Are we including in the coal assessment the cost of transportation (done mostly by railroad workers, not coal workers, unless you are considering railroad workers as coal workers) and additional costs like the cost of limestone which has to be added to the coal to make it burn more efficiently? Are we adding the workers at the coal powered electric facility to the coal worker pile? Sorry. but unless you include the data from the research, the numbers seem arbitrarily pulled out of the air. Get some facts behind you and maybe you’ll convince me coal is a better alternative. Right now, natural gas is cheaper. Coal and gas are finite, solar is not, so eventually solar will be cheaper. By then, though will we have polluted the planet beyond redemption? Time will tell…
“By then, though will we have polluted the planet beyond redemption? ”
If you feel the planet is polluted now, you should go back to the 1960s.
The article’s data on worker comparison is completely sensationalized however the point is valid. Solar and wind power is not nearly as productive as coal and ng. Solar requires a lot of resources to get it’s output. Panel construction and installation are no small effort. Yes, solar will give a return for say 20 years but does not come even close to what we get for spending our productivity (labor and resources aka money) on coal. To add, little is mentioned by solar advocates of the eventual replacement of panels and their disposal. There is also the creation and disposal of battery storage systems for those select installations. Anyone thinking that solar gives comparable economic output as coal is delusional. If those solar advocates think we should be spending our economic resources on solar due to the dangers of global warming, now climate change, or whatever terminology our present politics want to use – that’s a separate discussion.
Solar has mixed usefulness. For one It costs 100 times as much to bring electricity to rural locations in which there are still places in this country that it may be cheaper to stock with solar panels than to spend the $80,000 to bring electric wiring to the sites. In Some cases in rural zones solar is dramatically cheaper then in urban or suburban locations.
As noted there are areas in the US (let letalone otherareas, where solar is cheaper) Start with Hawaii and the USVI where oil fires their power plants. Also most other Caribbean Islands are in a similar situation to the USVI. Note that power in HI varies from 30 to 40 cents per kwh depending on the island.
In addition in remote areas in the lower 48 the cost of extending a power line to a point of use could be higher than the cost of solar, batteries and if desired a propane backup generator. Just like there are places where land lines never ran because of the cost of extending the wires.
Empoying more Americans is a bad thing? That’s a novel idea, but not likely to gain a lot of support.
Who cares? I mean that literally. If I ran any business with 1 worker vs 78, I am more profitable. I care as a business owner. As a consumer, I care about my own cost. Solar, if provided by the utility company, is for them to decide if it’s profitable. For the consumer, buying solar panels results in cheaper per KWH cost in most of the country, clearly in parts where the sun shines more hours and where a KWH is most expensive. The labor behind the panel is transparent to me.
On another level, to compare the labor behind mining a raw material vs providing an ongoing source of power is a pretty bad case of apples to oranges, and is a case of sophistry as its worst.
Even a climate change denier would have a tough time arguing something as simple as “pumping smoke into the air 24/7 is a bad thing.” Not just the coal worker (to whom I’d be happy to say “you did your job, here’s a retirement package w/health plan” for the older ones, or retraining into new jobs for younger) but all the lung issues caused by the quality of our air in industrialized areas. Ever been to parts of China where you need to wear a mask? That’s coal, sir.
The number of coal miners will continue to fall over the next decade or two. Soon Mark Perry may even get his wish of minimizing coal-energy employment.
Mr. Perry’s statement of the economic goal of producing energy:
“Rather, the economic goal is to produce as much electric power as possible at the lowest possible cost, and that means we want the fewest number of energy workers!”
He overlooks one of the major costs and economic impact of using these fossil fuel energy- Air Pollution.
There dozens of credible studies about the impact of pollution. Theses include the World Health Organization, National Instiute of Health and the CDC.
The estimates of worldwide premature deaths from air pollution range from 3 to 6 million people per year. The estimates in the US range between 200,000 to 300,000. These include the usual suspects of heart disease, cancer, CPOD, etc. There are millions of people who suffers from these chronic illnesses for years before they die prematurely.
Would not it be reasonable to add the cost impact of the contribution of coal and natural gas of these deaths and prolonged illnesses?
Also, this one slips beyond economic analysis into the world of “Morality”. The United States is second to China in producing air pollution. How much money should the United States devote to ending premature deaths from pollution and helping the hundreds of thousands of people who are suffering everyday from the effects of pollution?
Perhaps Mr. Perry should consider all these costs and venture into the world of morality.
Wade
“The estimates of worldwide premature deaths from air pollution range from 3 to 6 million people per year. The estimates in the US range between 200,000 to 300,000. These include the usual suspects of heart disease, cancer, CPOD, etc. There are millions of people who suffers from these chronic illnesses for years before they die prematurely. ”
Citations please. From the dozens of studies available from CDC, NIH and WHO, please include some that specifically address premature deaths caused by pollution from energy production in the US, as that’s the topic of the blog post.
Ron,
Sorry for the late response. I had pollution related bronchitis.
(Come on, I know you can take a joke!!!)
I really think the question should be “What is the cost to reduce deaths from 200,000 to 100,000 in US?”…And sickness related to pollution. Complicated questions since a good deal of our pollution comes from animals but also electricity.
China is the worst polluter in the world. Much of their pollution is produced by making goods bound for the United States. Also,Europe receives the goods that create pollution.
Unpopular with America first but “Should we feel some responsibility for China’s pollution?” Especially since their pollution eventually affects us all.
At some point, morality must kick in.
MIT Study on US pollution Deaths
http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829
Article quotes sources
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cutting-emissions-could-prevent-nearly-300000-us-air-pollution-deaths
WHO worldwide study
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/
I’ve solar panels on my roof for fifteen years now. Wow. Zero labor. I do not only have to clean them. The panels, once properly installed, require as little labor as roof tiles.
They are reaching the end of their economic (not their technologcal) life span, as efficiency has dramatically increased while costs have, even more dramatically, decreased. Which means that, soon, in about five years or so, some labor will be needed to replace them and to build, transport and install new panels – which however will have a production which will be 20 to 25% higher than that of the old ones…
Just a question on a year average do you produce or consume energy? The reason I ask this is that this is the basic issue in net metering. If you net produce energy how would the economics be affected if you were paid at the wholesale rate for produced electricity. (You are always effectivly paid at the retail rate for power you generate and use at home)
Hi Mark,
How do you explain the Lazard v10 analysis indicating the unsubsidized levelized cost of electricity from utility photovoltaics and wind being equal to or less than natural gas or coal, if the employment differential is so large?
https://www.lazard.com/media/438038/levelized-cost-of-energy-v100.pdf