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Page added on June 3, 2016

A Renewable Energy Economy will Create More Jobs

In a tidal wave of good news stories, infographics and Facebook memes about renewable energy job creation, the implicit, unquestioned assumption is that More Jobs = A Healthier Economy.

A popular Facebook meme, based on the Stanford University Solutions Project, celebrates the claim that in a renewable energy-powered Canada, 40% more people will work in the energy sector.

From the Environment Hamilton Facebook page.

From the Environment Hamilton Facebook page.

In elaborate info-graphics, the Solutions Project provides comparable claims for all 50 US states and countries around the world – although “assertion-graphic” might be a better term, since the graphics are presented with no footnotes and no clear links to any data that might allow a skeptical mind to evaluate the conclusions.

From The Solutions Project website.

From The Solutions Project website.

And Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and one of the proponents of The Leap Manifesto, cites the Energy Transition in Germany and notes that 400,000 new jobs have already been created. In her hour-long talk on the CBC Radio Ideas program and podcast, Klein gets at some of the key issues that will determine whether More Energy Jobs = A Good Thing, and we’ll return to this podcast later.

To start, though, let’s look at the issue through the following proposition:

The 20th century fossil-fueled economic growth spurt happened not because the energy industry created many jobs, but because it created very few jobs.

For most of human history, providing energy in the form of food calories was the major human occupation. Even in societies that consumed relatively high amounts of energy via firewood, harvesting and transporting that wood kept a lot of people busy.

But during the 19th and 20th centuries, as the available per capita energy supply in industrialized countries exploded, the proportion of the population employed supplying that energy dropped dramatically.

The result: instead of farming to provide the carbohydrates that feed humans and oxen, or cutting firewood to heat buildings, nearly the whole population has been free to do other activities. Whether we have made good use of this opportunity is debatable, but we’ve had plenty of energy, and nearly our entire labour force, available to run an elaborate manufacturing, consumption and service economy.

Seen from this perspective, the claim that renewable energy will create more jobs might set off alarms.

What’s in a job?

Part of the difficulty is that when we speak of a job, we refer to two (or more) very different things.

A job might mean simply something that has to be done. In this sense of the word, we don’t usually celebrate jobs. If we need to carry all our water in buckets from a well five kilometers from home, there are a lot of jobs in water-carrying – but we would probably welcome having taps right in our kitchens instead. Agriculture employs a lot of people if the only tools are sticks, but with better tools the same amount of food can be raised with fewer people working the fields.

So when we think of a job as the need to do something, we typically think that the fewer jobs the better.

When we celebrate job-creation, on the other hand, we typically mean something quite different – a “job” is an activity that is accompanied by a pay-cheque. Since in our society most of us need to get pay-cheques for most of our lives, job-creation strikes us as a good thing to the extant that pay-cheques are involved.

Here’s the wrinkle with renewable energy job creation: the renewable energy transition will likely create jobs in the sense of adding to the quantity of work that must be done (which we normally try to minimize) and jobs in the sense of providing pay-cheques (which we typically want to maximize). The two types of job-creation are at cross-purposes, and the outcome is uncertain.

Allocation of energy surplus

Widespread prosperity depends not only on what work is done and what surplus is produced, but on how that surplus is allocated and distributed.

In the middle of the 20th century in North America and Europe, only a few people worked in energy supply but they produced a huge surplus. At the same time, the products of surplus energy were distributed in relatively equal fashion, compared to the rising levels of inequality today. The mass consumption economy – a brief anomaly in human history which is ironically referred to as Business As Usual – depended on both conditions being met. There had to be a large surplus of energy produced (or, more accurately, extracted) by a few people, and this surplus energy had to be widely distributed so that most people could participate in a consumer economy.

Naomi Klein gives prominent emphasis to the second of these two conditions. In her CBC Radio Ideas talk, she says

There’s a group in the US called Movement Generation which has a slogan that I quote a lot, which is that “transition is invevitable, but justice is not.” You can respond to climate change in a way that people putting up solar panels are paid terrible wages. In the US prison inmates are making some of the solar panels that they’re putting up. … There has to be a road map for responding to climate change in an intersectional way, which solves multiple problems at once.”

She cites the German Energy Transition as an encouraging example:

There are 900 new energy co-operatives that have sprung up in Germany. Two hundred towns and cities in Germany have taken their energy grids back from the private companies that took them over in the 1990s, and they call it “energy democracy”. They’re taking back control over their energy, so that the resources stay in the communities and they can use the profits generated from renewable energy to pay for services. They’ve also created 400,000 jobs as part of this transition. So they’re showing how you solve multiple problems at once. Lower emissions create good unionized jobs and generate the revenue we need to fight the logic of austerity at the local level.”

In Klein’s formulation, democratic control of the energy economy is a key to prosperity. Because of this energy democracy, the new jobs are “good unionized jobs” which “fight the logic of austerity”. But is that sustainable in the long run?

As Klein says, in Germany’s “energy democracy” they use “the profits generated from renewable energy to pay for services”. But that presupposes that the renewable energy technologies being used do indeed generate “profits”.

It remains an open question how much profit – how much surplus energy – will be generated from renewable energy development. If renewable energy developments consume nearly as much energy as they produce, then in the long run the energy sector may produce many pay-cheques but they won’t be generous pay-cheques, however egalitarian society might be.

Energy sprawl

Tim Morgan uses the apt phrase “energy sprawl” to describe what happens as we switch to energy technologies with a lower Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI).

‘energy sprawl’ … has both physical and economic meanings. In physical terms, the infrastructure required to access energy and deliver it to where it is needed is going to expand exponentially. At the same time, the proportion of GDP absorbed by the energy infrastructure is going to increase as well, which means that the rest of the economy will shrink.” (Life After Growth, Harriman House, 2013, locus 2224)

As Morgan makes clear, energy sprawl is not at all unique to renewable energy transition – it applies equally to non-conventional, bottom-of-the-barrel fossil fuels such as fracked oil and gas, and bitumen extracted from Alberta’s tar sands. There will indeed be more jobs in a renewable resource economy, compared to the glory days of the fossil fuel economy, but there will also be more energy jobs if we cling to fossil fuels.

As energy sprawl proceeds, more of us will work in energy production and distribution, and fewer of us will be free to work at other pursuits. As Klein and the other authors of the Leap Manifesto argue, the higher number of energy jobs might be a net plus for society, if we use energy more wisely AND we allocate surplus more equitably.

But unless our energy technologies provide a good Energy Return On Energy Invested, there will be little surplus to distribute. In other words, there will be lots of new jobs, but few good pay-cheques.

An Outside Chance

34 Comments on "A Renewable Energy Economy will Create More Jobs"

Davy on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 7:31 am

We can have our cake and eat it and we can do this because we are clever. No other species can do this. Humans are exceptional and possess a special brilliance. Time is not a factor nor are resources. We can substitute any resource in shortage. We have the ability to do things ever more efficiently and intelligently. We can meet challenges swiftly because of our exceptional ability to organize under pressure. We can do it and we have shown we can do it. Just look at our past history. We went to the moon and look at the Manhattan project. We can do all these things and more because we have a special condition of knowledge building on knowledge, converging markets, and creativity in innovation. We have the beginnings of artificial intelligence a vast global web of computing power. Behold we are human and the greatest thing the earth has ever witnessed!

makati1 on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 7:33 am

More bullshit with pretty pictures and charts. Another book ad.

Hello on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 7:44 am

Finally somebody with an understanding of energy above the generic doomer’s.

shortonoil on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 8:09 am

Requiring more people to do the same thing is good for the economy? Obviously, once they get rid of that Cotton Gin things will boom. We can also put slavery back in place because they weren’t very productive. It took a lot of them to get anything done.

It sure looks like a bright future!

PracticalMaina on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 8:32 am

Shortonoil, it will give the people who are axed due to automation something to do, when my mother was in school they taught golf in PE and told them they were gonna need hobbies because robots were going to do all the heavy lifting. Now we are finally getting to that point.

Boat on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 8:33 am

Lets look at nat gas fracking. They have cut most of their drilling crews while supporting a fast growing market. At the same time nat gas in the US is eliminating coal jobs.

Lawfish1964 on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 8:36 am

What a corn-porn piece of crap. PV will never rival ICE transportation. As John Michael Greer puts it, we’re simply going to have to learn to live on a small fraction of the energy we live on today. End of story.

PracticalMaina on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 8:41 am

The author questioning the relevance of Union jobs is pretty interesting, unemployment is very low in Germany right now, so Union or not, important jobs involving energy infrastructure, in a wealthy industrialized nation, are gonna demand high compensation.

“As Klein says, in Germany’s “energy democracy” they use “the profits generated from renewable energy to pay for services”. But that presupposes that the renewable energy technologies being used do indeed generate “profits”.”
Well considering Peabody energy was losing 10 million a day, 2 nuke plants are losing 800 million over several years, and the owners say they are the more efficient plants. I have faith in the EROEI of renewables, because they are not folding as fast as fossil fuels.

ghung on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 8:55 am

Lawfish1964 posted; “As John Michael Greer puts it, we’re simply going to have to learn to live on a small fraction of the energy we live on today. End of story.”

Living with PV teaches one to live on less energy. Of course, it only works if you are off grid. Gridweenies (most westerners) don’t do well with limits. They spend more of everything because they’ve been living in an age of surpluses, even if those surpluses are artificial (i.e. credit), and their expectations don’t include less of anything.

If I had those expectations, my power would go out. Then, again, on days like today, I’ll have a surplus of energy and water to do things with. Maybe I’ll wash the cars and groom the dogs; bake a cake perhaps.

GregT on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 9:13 am

Ghung,

In my search for an MPPT controller, I came across a review from you, I believe. Eco-worthy ring a bell? If so, how is it holding up for you? I’m working on a back-up system at the moment. I’m also looking at the EPsolar line, and hooking up 4 100W in series. Thoughts?

Davy on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 9:18 am

G-hung is totally correct. Alternative energy is really about attitudes and lifestyles. Grid power is for the lazy. Anyone who has solar knows the power has to be managed. Our whole modern civilization has deep issues of lack of accountability and responsibility. Sure we have some of that in trade and relationships or you don’t have civilization but or problem is with Nature and the ecosystem we inhabit.

We must change attitudes and lifestyles that reflect limits. Even more to the point attitudes and lifestyles that reflect a coming collapse of modern life. I have been following g-hung for years and he is on the right track. It is not the only track but it is one of the right tracks.

Kenz300 on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 9:19 am

The world is moving to a more sustainable future……..
Electric cars, bikes and mass transit are the future…..fossil fuel ICE cars are the past…………..
Think teen agers vs your grand father…………………. cell phones vs land lines…….

NO EMISSIONS……..climate change is real………

Save money……no stopping at gas stations…..no oil changes……..less overall maintenance……

Paris Goes Car-Free First Sunday of Every Month
http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/17/paris-goes-car-free/

The transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources continues…………

Germany Achieves Milestone – Renewables Supply Nearly 100 Percent Energy for a Day
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/05/germany-achieves-milestone-renewables-supply-nearly-100-percent-energy-for-a-day.html

Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 4 consecutive days last week
http://electrek.co/2016/05/16/portugal-ran-entirely-on-renewable-energy-for-4-consecutive-days-last-week/

Harquebus on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 9:19 am

Renewable energy collectors will never power our industrial civilization or any other civilization for that matter. Those that say they can have no understanding of basic physics.

“Whenever somebody with a decent grasp of maths and physics looks into the idea of a fully renewables-powered civilised future for the human race with a reasonably open mind, they normally come to the conclusion that it simply isn’t feasible.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/

onlooker on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 9:45 am

Nothing needs to be added everyone here knows the deal just more wishful BS.

Plantagenet on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 10:05 am

Where are all the high paying jobs in green industry that Obama promised in 2008?

This is the exact same promise as was made 8 years ago. What actually happened is an explosion of part-time low wage jobs in the US.

So what have we learned?

Yes, the US is going to s l o w l y switch to renewables.

No, this doesn’t mean more high paying jobs.

PracticalMaina on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 10:11 am

Plantagenet, I know many who are in the field doing well. They aren’t becoming millionaires overnight, but they are receiving a decent living wage.
Harquebus, the bosses at google must not have listened to those 2 engineers, because they currently run all of their operations on 35% renewables. https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/renewable/

GregT on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 10:17 am

“Where are all the high paying jobs in green industry that Obama promised in 2008?”

In Asia planter, but most are not high paying.

penury on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 10:50 am

If only reality would follow the charts drawn up by the researchers at Unis the world would be a wonderful place. Reality sucks.

Davy on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 11:13 am

“The Structure of Collapse: 2016-2019”
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-structure-of-collapse-2016-2019.html

“Leaders face a no-win dilemma: any change of course will crash the system, but maintaining the current course will also crash the system. The end-state of unsustainable systems is collapse. Though collapse may appear to be sudden and chaotic, we can discern key structures that guide the processes of collapse.
1. Doing more of what has failed spectacularly.
2. Emergency measures become permanent policies.
3. Diminishing returns on status quo solutions.
4. Declining social mobility.
5. The social order loses cohesion
6. Strapped for cash as tax revenues decline, the state borrows more money”

“The status quo’s primary imperative is self-preservation, and this imperative drives the falsification of data to sell the public on the idea that prosperity is still rising and the elites are doing an excellent job of managing the economy. Since real reform would threaten those at the top of the wealth/power pyramid, fake reforms and fake economic data become the order of the day.”

Boat on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 11:30 am

“Where are all the high paying jobs in green industry that Obama promised in 2008?

Ask ape how to Google. He claims he’s very good at it. mak is good also, he claims 70 sites a day with no msm.

yoshua on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 11:37 am

The majority of us will be pushing renewables when we run out of oil.

GregT on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 11:37 am

The 4 new 100W solar panels that I just purchased? ——-made in China.

The charge controllers (American branded or not)?———manufactured in China or Taiwan.

The inverter?———————————————-made in China.

The cables?———————————————–made in China.

The connectors?——————————————made in China.

The batteries?——————————————–manufactured in Canada, using parts from China.

Where are all of the high paying jobs? ——————–Importers of Chinese manufactured stuff.

ghung on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 11:51 am

Plant asks; “Where are all the high paying jobs in green industry that Obama promised in 2008?”

“Solar: According to Environmental Entrepreneurs, the solar industry was the top performer in 2013 for generating clean energy jobs. The Solar Foundation estimated there were close to 143,000 solar jobs in the United States in 2013, including 24,000 new jobs announced that year. The rate at which jobs were added in 2013 was more than 20 percent over 2012 levels.

Wind: In a 2014 report, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) indicated that the wind energy industry directly supported 50,500 full-time-equivalent jobs in 2013. AWEA cited a Navigant Consulting study it commissioned which predicted that if the Federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) were extended for four more years, it would support 54,000 additional jobs over that period, representing a 33 percent growth rate. The study also predicted a 50 percent cut in wind industry jobs in the absence of a PTC.

Hydropower: According to a 2014 report from the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), the hydropower industry supports 200,000 to 300,000 jobs in the United States, as well as a supply chain of more than 2,500 companies. A Navigant Consulting study found the industry could support an additional 230,000 to 700,000 direct and indirect jobs by 2025 and expand its capacity by 23,000-60,000 megawatts (MW) with policies supportive of hydropower development.

Geothermal: In a May 2014 report, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) found that the geothermal industry supported 35,000 direct and indirect American jobs from 2012-2013. The Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) estimated in a 2013 report that the geothermal industry is able to generate about 25,000 more jobs than the natural gas industry at a capacity level of 500 MW.

Wave & Ocean Power: The Brookings-Battelle Clean Economy Database found 371 people working in the wave and ocean power sector in 2010. The Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, published a roadmap for wave and ocean power in 2011 that found that if the industry grew to a capacity of 15 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, it would support 36,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Biomass: According to IRENA, the biomass industry supported an estimated 152,000 direct and indirect jobs in the United States during 2012-2013, including 15,500 direct jobs. According to the Biomass Power Association (BPA), the biomass power sector employs 18,000 people in the United States, mostly in rural areas. BPA estimates biomass power can generate 10 times as many well-paid jobs as a comparable conventional natural gas facility.

Waste-to-Energy: A 2014 report from ACORE on renewable energy in America reported that the waste-to-energy industry, defined as “energy generated from the sustainable management of municipal solid waste,” directly supported 5,350 jobs and indirectly supported 8,600 jobs – a total of close to 14,000 jobs. Government Advisory Associates estimated that each direct waste-to-energy job supports 1.6 additional jobs.

Fuel Cells: Fuel Cells 2000 estimated in 2011 that 10,845 jobs were supported by the fuel cell industry, including 3,615 direct and 7,230 indirect jobs. The U.S. Department of Energy estimated that with the rapid increase in the adoption of fuel cells, 180,000 new domestic jobs could be created by 2020, and 685,000 jobs by 2035.

#rewpage#

Biogas: The American Biogas Council (ABC) estimated in 2014 that there are currently 2,000 operational biogas systems, with a market potential for 12,000 additional systems. In June 2012, ABC Executive Director Patrick Serfass estimated there were more than 2,200 biogas-producing sites operating, including 186 digesters on farms, 1,500 digesters at wastewater treatment plants, and 576 landfill-based energy projects. Although there is no data available for current employment, ABC estimated in 2014 that the biogas industry could support 300,000 construction jobs and 20,000 permanent jobs……

More: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/01/fact-sheet-renewable-energy-job-numbers.html

Stuifzand on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 12:43 pm

Last year I had six 285W panels installed on my roof for 3000 euro all in. Every part Chinese. Last month I got a forecast that for 2016 I can expect a yield of 1500kWh. In 2015 and 2014 I both had 1650kWh consumption from the grid, so the panels almost cover my electricity needs on a per year basis (assuming feed-in).

I love to refresh the browser at work showing a page with data from the Trannergy inverter server and see if today is going to a record, 11 kwh so far and 2 more weeks to go until the yearly solar maximum. 🙂

Currently feed-in tariffs are 100%, which will likely decrease once the irreversible transition has set in.

Amount of work: 6 people busy setting up the scaffold and doing the work on the roof and crawling under my living-room floor for the cabling.

The Dutch government wants to see all 7 m roofs covered before 2020 in order to meet its climate change commitments. That’s 6 man days * 7 million roofs = 42 million man days = 183k man years, which is substantial.

Now that electricity is covered, heat is next. I have a garden in the middle of a 200k city of 130 m2 and a palisade of 20m2, directed towards SE.

Options I have to decide between:
– 20 m2 heat pipe solar collectors, delivering hot water at a temperature higher than conventional collectors can deliver
– simple black surface covered with glass for air heating; perhaps storage of heat by leading the (hopefully) hot air through 1 m3 of grit
– digging a hole of 2m deep for cold side heatpump
– digging in a Rikutherm storage vessel of 800 liter
http://ssmit.nl/duurzame-energie/warmteopslag/
– in the winter placing potentially 50 m2 glass “floor” on the soil, I use in the summer for vegetables, covering flat boxes with a black backside to simply absorb radiation, heat air and pump it into the living room.

This summer I am going to use to make up my mind about it.

shortonoil on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 2:28 pm

“About 147 gigawatts (GW) of capacity was added in 2015”

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36420750

By our calculations what will be lost from the reduction in petroleum production alone (not counting NG declines) by 2030 will amount to 24.52 trillion Kwhrs (83.70 quad BTU). Using the above 2015 growth rate for re-newables it will require 166.9 years to make up for the loss.

To maintain the present civilization (without growth) will require a growth rate for renewable energy which will be 12.4 times greater than the present rate. The chances are, that the world of 2030 will be unrecognizable to most present day inhabitants.

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/

PracticalMaina on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 2:45 pm

Shortonoil, those numbers of yours include tens of thousands of 6000lb vehicles hammering down the highway at 70 mph just because someone is bored and had to get out of the house. Someone doesn’t need to travel to the other side of the world just because they have a couple of grand and a free week.

PracticalMaina on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 2:51 pm

Not saying it is not going to be bad, just saying the essential basic emergency and food-water services to have bare necessity’s for the US would take a fraction of our current crony capitalism society’s “needs” we have today.

Davy on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 3:04 pm

PM, there is the inconvient problem of minimum operating levels, economies of scale, and velocity of money. Once society slows down it is heading into a dead state relatively quickly. This is a systematic thAng related to the conditions needed for globalism and the situation of being global. IOW globalism can’t slow down and all locals are dependent on it.

The process must involve a global collapse with a resulting local reorganization. Traditional thinking about what will or will not work does not work for the new reality of post globalism. This is uncharted waters. We left stability behind over the past 40 years by globalizing. We are now naked and chained to a system self destructing.

Harquebus on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 7:53 pm

Practical Mania.

While renewable energy collectors are manufactured using still relatively cheap fossil fuels, they are economically viable however, that ain’t gonna last. EROEI mate, EROEI.

Practicalmaina on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 9:28 pm

If EROEI was under 1 then it would never be viable no matter the price of the fuel. Yes renewables receive tax incentives, but they also generate profit for everyone from the producer to distributor to installer to owner.
The article you gave was 2 years old, there was a current article on the website about a massive hydro storage facility in the UK. The scale of whice is huge, they must have needed a feel good project to burn up there extra coal reserves. 😉

GregT on Fri, 3rd Jun 2016 9:31 pm

“The scale of whice is huge, they must have needed a feel good project to burn up there extra coal reserves.”

More like desperation.

Kenz300 on Sat, 4th Jun 2016 7:50 am

Climate change is real.. we will all be impacted by it….

Britain Gets No Power From Coal for First Time Ever, UK EV Drivers Soon to Sell Electricity Back to Grid

http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/11/britain-no-coal/

Sissyfuss on Sat, 4th Jun 2016 7:56 am