US green economy’s growth dwarfs the fossil fuel industry’s

Renewables, environmental, and efficiency industries grew 3x faster than fossil fuels.

Read the whole story

 

[Shudder]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

 

[Wickwick]

Courting "green power" doesn't endear Trump to disenfranchised middle-class white men in rust belt and coal-producing states. Higher growth in renewables is of no political advantage for him.

 

[mike_in_cinci]

Fun fact: The number of coal miners in the US is miniscule. 50,000.

 

[peterford]

It wouldn't be an easy thing to calculate, but I'd be interested to know the workers per GWh - to and post installation for different energy sources.

 

[Jeff S]

In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped measuring jobs in the green economy in March 2013 due to budget cuts.

Well, that's very convenient. A Republican congress refused to allocate a relatively minor amount of money to enable BLS to track green jobs. . . just as the green economy started really growing. I'm sure it's totally coincidence. Also, totally driven by budgetary concerns. I'm sure that part of the BLS budget was definitely bankrupting the country and fleecing the taxpayer.

 

[UserIDAlreadyInUse]

Good. As quiet as it seems, keep leading by example, America.

As for the climate change naysayers and the fossil fuel supporters, I wonder if part of the problem is this romanticized vision they have of salt-of-the-earth people heading down into the depths of the mines with strong workers at their backs, hewing the source of wealth and energy from the very bones of the earth. Or maybe the lone rigger on horseback in the American deserts, chewing thoughtfully on that stem of wheat and gazing at the drill whirling endlessly in the light of the setting sun, before heading home to a quiet life of satisfaction in the lives they help to make all the better?

If so, we should start something similar for renewable energy....hard-faced, competent, solve-any-problem wind farmers chivvying the windmills across the endless prairies or hardworking, solid folk harvesting the sunlight to power Jimmy and JuQu's long-distance relationship across the nation? Maybe that might help?

 

[Faeton]

TLDR: "green economy" definition is pretty nebulous

 

[mike_in_cinci]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

Publicly traded companies have lots of owners. Almost all traditional energy generating companies are publicly traded.

 

[Apotheoun]

Fun fact: The number of coal miners in the US is miniscule. 50,000.

They're pretty densely packed where they are though. Almost made the mistake of buying a house in a town with a coal economy. Would have been very very bad, as that house is now worth about 1/5th what they were asking 3 years ago.

As understandable as the move away from coal is, it's kinda sad to see an entire town shuttered basically overnight.

 

[Jeff S]

Fun fact: The number of coal miners in the US is miniscule. 50,000.

And yet, they have been a significant enough lobby to drive about 3 or 4 states voter loyalty.

At least the good news here is that the coal industry has contracted so much, I think they'll soon lose their political power - not enough money for bribes, not enough employees left to be a significant player in state or national politics, eventually. I'm sure they're still powerful in WV and KY, but even there, I don't think they will remain a power much longer, simply because of the contraction caused by natural gas and renewable energy.

"Just a flesh wound!"

 

[bruindrummer]

Shocking. Said no one with a brain.

 

[Wickwick]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

I’m in favor of clean energy, but all this language is misleading.

The correct way to view it that it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to generate our clean energy as our traditional energy requires.

This language of referring to the $1.3 trillion as a benefit and not a cost is straight out of pork barrel politics. “My projects (diversions of resources) generated thousands of jobs (unnecessary politically appointed work)”

We need clean energy, but let’s not fool ourselves about the costs by using misleading language. The costs are worth because they slow glisbal warming and provide a clean environment.

It doesn't matter what the manpower cost of renewables is. In the end, power is sold to the grid at a negotiated rate. The manpower cost is built into that market. Traditional fossil fuel plants are more capital expensive so power costs must include amortization. That's built into the market too. The only thing that isn't built into the market are the externalized costs of environmental impacts. If they were properly factored into the energy market, traditional fossil fuel power would be very expensive indeed.

 

[ChefJeff789]

Good. Glad to see that significantly more jobs are there, too. I'm still really curious about the impact of the different minerals required to produce renewable energy infrastructure (vs coal, gas, and oil). "Renewable" is still a bit of a misnomer (nothing stops entropy and all that).

 

[Kiddluck]

Courting "green power" doesn't endear Trump to disenfranchised middle-class white men in rust belt and coal-producing states. Higher growth in renewables is of no political advantage for him.

But it should. Unlike "teaching coal miners to code" retraining those disenfranchised blue-collar workers for jobs in the green energy industry would be more viable due to; greater availability of jobs in this sector across the nation (everyone needs electricity whereas tech hubs tend to be in coastal blue states), skills are more translatable/equivalent than coding, (you're already working with your hands), not to mention, being energy independent is good for national security. Also, as mentioned in the article, it's great for the economy, along with the world at large.

That being said, I do realize that the reason many of these environmental initiatives were rolled back is due to lobbying money. Also not naive enough to think that the current administration would do an about-face regarding green policy v fossil fuel policy.

The above is the messaging future candidates of both parties should adopt. This is why the green-new-deal is so appealing. Democrats are finally tweaking their marketing in the right direction, although they do have some more work to do to appeal to a wider base of swing voters.

Edit: typo

 

[NotYourUsername]

A few graphs from the original article which weren't included here (presumably for license reasons):

(Hotlinking is legal, at least under EU law)

 

[theSeb]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

I’m in favor of clean energy, but all this language is misleading.

The correct way to view it that it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to generate our clean energy as our traditional energy requires.

This language of referring to the $1.3 trillion as a benefit and not a cost is straight out of pork barrel politics. “My projects (diversions of resources) generated thousands of jobs (unnecessary politically appointed work)”

We need clean energy, but let’s not fool ourselves about the costs by using misleading language. The costs are worth because they slow glisbal warming and provide a clean environment.

We’ve heard for decades that going green will destroy the economy and jerbs. Here we see that it does not and can create more jerbs whilst being sustainable on the environment and the balance sheet. Your post sounds like a well veiled concern troll.... just saying.

 

[Wickwick]

Courting "green power" doesn't endear Trump to disenfranchised middle-class white men in rust belt and coal-producing states. Higher growth in renewables is of no political advantage for him.

But it should. Unlike "teaching coal miners to code" retraining those disenfranchised blue-collar workers for jobs in the green energy industry would be more viable due to; greater availability of jobs in this sector across the nation (everyone needs electricity whereas tech hubs tend to be in coastal blue states), skills are more translatable/equivalent than coding, (you're already working with your hands), not to mention, being energy independent is good for national security. Also, as mentioned in the article, it's great for the economy, along with the world at large.

That being said, I do realize that the reason many of these environmental initiatives were rolled back is due to lobbying money. Also not naive enough that the current administration would do an about-face regarding green policy v fossil fuel policy.

The above if the messaging future candidates of both parties should adopt. This is why the green-new-deal is so appealing. Democrats are finally tweaking their marketing in the right direction, although they do have some more work to do to appeal to a wider base of swing voters.

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

Functionally, yes it would be a better investment to provide retraining. But that doesn't get you electoral college votes.

 

[Tegid]

What is the subsidy size of the Green Economy? Serious question, seems like something a thorough analysis would cover.

 

[co-lee]

Fun fact: The number of coal miners in the US is miniscule. 50,000.

more nurses in West Virginia alone than coal miners in the entire country ...

 

[NotYourUsername]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5m) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1m) – that is, miners, electricity grid workers, infrastructure manufacturers and construction workers.

Is it just me, or is the article comparing apples and oranges here? I think a more oranges-to-oranges comparison would be to compare Renewable Energy and Fossil. According to this graph from the original article, the Renewable Energy sector makes for 308.77B USD and 2.9 million jobs, which is still more than fossil.

Also including the Low Carbon and Environmental sectors makes for the rest of the jobs and revenue, but judging by the names those are not a replacement for Fossil energy and would exist whether energy is created from fossil or renewable sources. I haven't looked the exact definitions of those though, so I could be wrong.

 

[artvandelayIIII]

Come for the promise of technology journalism

LEAVE because of the endless tedious politics.

If your worldview is so fragile that it can't accomodate new information without labelling it "too political"... maybe time to re-examine it? Or don't.

 

[theSeb]

New growth industry outgrowing established legacy industry! What a shocking revelation.

It's easy to grow fast in percentage terms when you're tiny and relatively young.

I have strong doubts that you actually read the article.

 

[Respice_Futurum]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

I’m in favor of clean energy, but all this language is misleading.

The correct way to view it that it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to generate our clean energy as our traditional energy requires.

This language of referring to the $1.3 trillion as a benefit and not a cost is straight out of pork barrel politics. “My projects (diversions of resources) generated thousands of jobs (unnecessary politically appointed work)”

We need clean energy, but let’s not fool ourselves about the costs by using misleading language. The costs are worth because they slow glisbal warming and provide a clean environment.

Why does it cost 10 times more? Citation please.

 

[Jeff S]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

Publicly traded companies have lots of owners. Almost all traditional energy generating companies are publicly traded.

Technically true. There is the possibility that older, established companies have a relatively small number of very wealthy owners who control a vast majority of the shares, and possibly newer, smaller companies might have a lot more people controlling a lot less percentage of shares each. Of course, no guarantee that's the case either. I don't have data handy.

 

[CRandyHill]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

I’m in favor of clean energy, but all this language is misleading.

The correct way to view it that it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to generate our clean energy as our traditional energy requires.

This language of referring to the $1.3 trillion as a benefit and not a cost is straight out of pork barrel politics. “My projects (diversions of resources) generated thousands of jobs (unnecessary politically appointed work)”

We need clean energy, but let’s not fool ourselves about the costs by using misleading language. The costs are worth because they slow glisbal warming and provide a clean environment.

It doesn't matter what the manpower cost of renewables is. In the end, power is sold to the grid at a negotiated rate. The manpower cost is built into that market. Traditional fossil fuel plants are more capital expensive so power costs must include amortization. That's built into the market too. The only thing that isn't built into the market are the externalized costs of environmental impacts. If they were properly factored into the energy market, traditional fossil fuel power would be very expensive indeed.

Which is why we should eliminate our regime of partial subsidies and costly regulations and impose actual emissions markets to properly price those externality costs. It will level the playing field for green energy, even types that are capital intensive.

The best example is a carbon emissions market. What carbon emitters pay for emission licenses doesn't just balance the playing field for green power by making fossil fuels more expensive, that license revenues would go directly to carbon sinks to more rapidly address global warming problems. Start by figuring out a sustainable carbon emissions level for now and slowly ratchet it down to zero, and we'd balance emissions vs. sinks in an environmentally benign way.

 

[DarthSlack]

What is the subsidy size of the Green Economy? Serious question, seems like something a thorough analysis would cover.

Less that the subsidies for the fossil fuel industry?

 

[Adam Starkey]

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

That's not entirely fair. That disenfranchised steel or coal worker might be smart enough to know that a 40yo with a two year 'certificate' behind them is not going to land a job in Software Engineering, and even if it could, they'd likely need to uproot their entire family, and get crushed on property value differentials.

 

[IntellectualThug]

Courting "green power" doesn't endear Trump to disenfranchised middle-class white men in rust belt and coal-producing states. Higher growth in renewables is of no political advantage for him.

But it should. Unlike "teaching coal miners to code" retraining those disenfranchised blue-collar workers for jobs in the green energy industry would be more viable due to; greater availability of jobs in this sector across the nation (everyone needs electricity whereas tech hubs tend to be in coastal blue states), skills are more translatable/equivalent than coding, (you're already working with your hands), not to mention, being energy independent is good for national security. Also, as mentioned in the article, it's great for the economy, along with the world at large.

That being said, I do realize that the reason many of these environmental initiatives were rolled back is due to lobbying money. Also not naive enough that the current administration would do an about-face regarding green policy v fossil fuel policy.

The above if the messaging future candidates of both parties should adopt. This is why the green-new-deal is so appealing. Democrats are finally tweaking their marketing in the right direction, although they do have some more work to do to appeal to a wider base of swing voters.

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

Functionally, yes it would be a better investment to provide retraining. But that doesn't get you electoral college votes.

Everything I've seen about these retraining initiatives seems to indicate that they're of marginal benefit, at best. As someone else said a 2-year cert is enough to land you a job as a glorified bug tester or call center drone for $13 an hour. That's a far cry from the wages of a union mining or millwright job.

 

[theSeb]

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

That's not entirely fair. That disenfranchised steel or coal worker might be smart enough to know that a 40yo with a two year 'certificate' behind them is not going to land a job in Software Engineering, and even if it could, they'd likely need to uproot their entire family, and get crushed on property value differentials.

We seem to be veering off topic. The post wick wick quoted mentioned that it would make far more sense for “coal workers” to be retrained in green energy stuff. I think we can all agree to that, apart from wickwick who appears to have not fully read the post he quoted.

 

[d0m1n1c]

Misleading article starts with a misleading title.

US green economy’s growth dwarfs the fossil fuel industry’s

Sounds a lot more impressive than

US green economy’s growth rate dwarfs the fossil fuel industry’s

The overall growth was miniscule by comparison.

Besides overtly leaving out the numbers for overall growth in the Fossil Fuel industry, while including it for "green energy."

Things like

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

are overtly manipulative.

I mean, really? "Green economy and its" entire "supply chain" employs more people than are employed directly in the fossil fuel industry. You don't say? One industry has less direct employees than the entire supply chain for a different, but related industry?