More solar jobs is a curse, not a blessing – ‘Underscores how wasteful, inefficient & unproductive solar power is’
Citing U.S. Department of Energy data, the New York Times recently reported that the solar industry employs far more Americans than wind or coal: 374,000 in solar versus 100,000 in wind and 160,000 in coal mining and coal-fired power generation. Only the natural gas sector employs more people: 398,000 workers in gas production, electricity generation, home heating and petrochemicals.
This is supposed to be a good thing, according to the Times. It shows how important solar power has become in taking people out of unemployment lines and giving them productive jobs, the paper suggests.
Indeed, the article notes, California had the highest rate of solar power jobs per capita in 2016, thanks to its “robust renewable energy standards and installation incentives” (ie, mandates and subsidies).
In reality, it’s not a good thing at all, and certainly not a positive trend. In fact, as Climate Depot and the Washington Examiner point out – citing an American Enterprise Institute study – the job numbers actually underscore how wasteful, inefficient and unproductive solar power actually is.
That is glaringly obvious when you look at the amounts of energy produced per sector. (This tally does not include electricity generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal power plants.)
* 398,000 natural gas workers = 33.8% of all electricity generated in the United States in 2016
* 160,000 coal employees = 30.4 % of total electricity
* 100,000 wind employees = 5.6% of total electricity
* 374,000 solar workers = 0.9% of total electricity
It’s even more glaring when you look at the amount of electricity generated per worker. Coal generated an incredible 7,745 megawatt-hours of electricity per worker; natural gas 3,812 MWH per worker; wind a measly 836 MWH for every employee; and solar an abysmal 98 MWH per worker.
In other words, producing the same amount of electricity requires one coal worker, two natural gas workers – 12 wind industry employees or 79 solar workers.
Even worse, whereas coal and gas electricity is cheap, affordable, and available virtually 100% of the time – wind and solar are expensive, intermittent, unreliable, and available only 15-30% of the time, on an annual basis. Wind and solar electricity is there when it’s there, not necessarily when you need it.
In truth, about the only thing solar and wind companies do well is collect billions of dollars in subsidies from taxpayers and billions of dollars
Why Big Oil wants Trump to stay in UN climate deal – Restrictions on emissions favor natural gas
by Matt Egan
Excerpt:
A BP (BP) spokesman told CNNMoney that it “welcomed the Paris agreement when it was signed, and we continue to support it…
“We believe it’s possible to provide the energy the world needs while also addressing the climate challenge,” BP said.
Chevron (CVX) told CNNMoney it “supports continuing with” the Paris deal because it “offers a first step towards a global framework.”
Exxon (XOM), the biggest US oil company that Tillerson used to lead, sent a letter to the White House last month hailing the Paris agreement as an “effective framework for addressing the risks of climate change.”
A Shell (RDSA) spokesman confirmed that the energy giant remains “strongly in favor” of the Paris deal.
…
At first glance, it might seem surprising to hear that Big Oil isn’t seizing on the shifting political environment to poke holes in a deal that undermines fossil fuels like crude oil.
After all, Trump himself has called climate change a “hoax” and blasted COP21 as a “bad deal” for the U.S. (Trump later told The New York Times he has an “open mind” about the agreement).
But these traditional energy companies have a vested financial interest in the Paris deal. That’s because COP21’s crack down on carbon emissions favors natural gas, which emits much less pollution than coal.
While Exxon, BP and Shell are primarily identified as oil companies, they are actually diversified energy firms that rely heavily on natural gas to make money.
For instance, 42% of Exxon’s total daily production last quarter was actually in natural gas, according to FactSet. BP and Shell also lean on natural gas for a large chunk of their output.
“These companies view natural gas as a key growth area going forward for them. It just makes sense for them to be at the table,” said Brian Youngberg, senior energy analyst at Edward Jones.
Natural gas production has soared over the past decade, thanks to the abundance of shale gas in North America.
And now there’s the added benefit that governments are cracking down on carbon emissions.
BP’s statement mentioned its commitment to “reducing emissions in the power sector by producing and marketing natural gas.”…
Leaked Gov’t Docs Show ‘Toning Down’ Global Warming Regs To Create Jobs
The UK will “tone down” global warming positions in international trade deals to focus on job and wealth creation, according to leaked government documents.
The documents, obtained by UK’s The Times and published Sunday, instruct British trade negotiators to shift focus less from global warming concerns and preventing the illegal wildlife trade to making the country “a great, global trading nation.”
“You have a crucial role to play in posts in implementing our new approach to prosperity against the huge changes stemming from last year’s Brexit vote,” reads the documents. “Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts — you will all need to prioritise developing capability in this area. Some economic security-related work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.”
The idea is to make it easier to sign trade deals with countries in Latin America and Africa. Trade arrangements with these countries regularly get bogged over concerns that environmental protections will be put ahead of economic prosperity.
High energy costs have caused British companies to leave the UK, killing off or threatening an estimated 40,000 jobs.…
New UK Govt Policy: ‘Less Climate Concern’ Key To Brexit Trade
New Govt Policy: ‘Less Climate Concern’ Key To Brexit Trade
http://www.thegwpf.com/new-govt-policy-less-climate-concern-key-to-brexit-trade/
Government papers reveal plan to tone down stance on environment in bid to win deals with Latin America and Africa Civil service documents, photographed on a train, reveal that Britain plans to scale down its concern over climate change and the trade in illegal wildlife to clear the way for post-Brexit trade deals. Details of the policy change were contained in the papers of a senior civil servant at the Department for International Trade (DIT) photographed by a passenger earlier this month. They include the speech notes of Tim Hitchens, the director-general of economic and consular affairs at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The notes show he will tell diplomats and trade negotiators that they need to change their focus if the UK is to fulfil Theresa May’s vision of Britain as “a great, global trading nation”. “You have a crucial role to play in posts in implementing our new approach to prosperity against the huge changes stemming from last year’s Brexit vote,” the notes say. “Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts — you will all need to prioritise developing capability in this area. Some economic security-related work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.” Hitchens was unavailable for comment but Whitehall sources said the change of emphasis will make it easier to sign trade deals with countries in Latin America and Africa. At the moment, trade and aid arrangements with these countries can get bogged down with clauses that put environmental protections ahead of economic prosperity. Full story
— gReader Pro…
Watch: ‘People’s Climate March’ organizer calls for violence at DC March ‘Somebody, & somebodies, are gonna need to go to jail’
On March 20, 2017, George Washington University student Aidan Johnston went undercover and attended the 2017 People’s Climate March planning meeting. The March is scheduled for Saturday, April 29 in Washington D.C.
“We wanted to see if this meeting was really about climate change and protecting the environment, or if it was actually about bringing down capitalism and advocating socialism,” said Johnston. “I had no idea that it was going to turn into advocating for violence.”
Reverend Graylan Halger of Plymouth UCC Church in Washington D.C. took to the microphone, called out “greedy” billionaires and the fallacies of capitalism, then threatened violence against those who got in the way of creating a new order.
“We need to jack up those who are trying to jack us up!” “We gotta put our bodies on the line. Somebody, and somebodies, are gonna need to go to jail. And somebodies, are gonna need to disrupt some things in this country.”
Those are just a few excerpts of the things that were said by Halger, all which were met by thunderous applause from the audience.
JOBS JOBS JOBS: Trump Signs E.O. Targeting Obama’s Climate Agenda – ‘It’s refreshing to have a new sheriff in town’
…Trump’s Order Undoing EPA Climate Regs Isn’t Anti-Environment: It’s Pro Jobs & Pro African/Hispanic-American
by Jeff Dunetz | Mar 28, 2017 | Climate, Economy
Sometime on Tuesday, President Trump will sign an executive order directing the EPA to begin dismantling Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Liberal politicians and the mainstream media (that’s redundant isn’t it?) will call it a blatantly anti-environment move, the truth is the order is another pro-job action by the new president, that will also support America’s minority communities
The Clean Power Plan was the centerpiece of Obama’s Climate Action Plan. It was announced in June 2013, and complies with his more recent pledge to the U.N. that the U.S. will cut its carbon emissions by as much as 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.
The plan, which places heavy restrictions on coal-burning power plants, has served to depress the coal industry, but it effects much more than the coal economy.
The plan is a disaster on so many levels, the most important of which is that it will kill jobs from all industries (and the U.S. labor participation rates already at disastrous low levels), the US economy will find it hard recover from these regulations. The EPA rule is looking to replace cheap energy with more expensive alternate energy, it not only raises the cost of energy for the individual households, but will raise the cost of goods for companies marketing their products resulting in higher costs for all products, but especially staple goods. The Obama created rise in the price of energy and resulting rise in the price of consumer goods, will place the heaviest burden on middle and lower economic class families. And that doesn’t take into account that the rule deals another Obama blow against business resulting in more unemployment, higher government costs, and energy price inflation.
It’s D-day for EPA climate regs. Bombs fall at 2 p.m.
President Trump will try to land a knockout blow on his predecessor’s sprawling climate agenda by issuing an executive order today targeting at least nine actions that form the foundation of U.S. efforts to cut emissions and prepare for rising perils.
The “energy independence” order, to be signed at 2 p.m. today, underscores Trump’s belief that the seriousness of climate change was overblown by the past administration and deserves to be set aside in order to revive a struggling coal industry and encourage an unbridled boom in the production of oil and gas.
A senior White House official, when asked yesterday if the president agrees with scientists who say that people are largely responsible for rising temperatures, told reporters, “Yeah, sure.”
But the administration appears deeply skeptical about the extent of potential damage that climate change might cause, and the order to be signed today would leave the administration seemingly free of any policy to address the risks — both environmental and economic — that scientists have warned about for years.
“I mean, to the extent that the economy is strong and growing and you have prosperity, that’s the best way to protect the environment,” the White House official said in a briefing about the order. “But certainly, natural gas is important. Clean coal’s important. Nuclear is important. Renewables are important.”
Today’s executive order sets EPA on the road to rescind the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era rule to reduce emissions at power plants 32 percent by 2030. The official said rescinding the rule could take up to three years and is bound to face legal challenges.
The order also eliminates Obama-era efforts to improve adaptation, embed climate risks in national security apparatuses, reduce agency emissions, expand the importance of climate impacts in the National Environmental Policy Act and freeze new coal leases on public land. It also begins a review of methane regulations by EPA and the Bureau of Land Management and a rule on hydraulic fracturing by BLM. And it will instruct agencies not to use the social cost of carbon when weighing the costs and
Sen. Inhofe says environmentalist policies undermine US economy and national security
By KEVIN MOONEY, CONTRIBUTOR • 3/23/17 2:19 PM
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has “some good news” for Americans who have been burdened by environmental regulations and the dubious scientific findings that have been used to justify those regulations.
“Obama’s war on fossil fuels is temporarily over,” he said during a video presentation this morning addressing scientists, economists, engineers, and policy experts who are taking part in the Heartland Institute’s 12th annual International Conference on Climate Change. Since 2008, the Chicago-based free market think tank has brought together more than 4,000 people from across the globe to participate in the conferences.
President Trump’s victory, combined with Republican majorities in Congress and in statehouses across the country, strongly suggests that most Americans are not beguiled by alarmist theories on global warming, top officials with Heartland have argued. Inhofe, who is one of the leading climate skeptics in Congress, drove this point home during his presentation. But at the same time, he also urged conference participants to “remain vigilant” in anticipation of coming political battles.
“The outlook for environmental activists and climate change alarmists is grim,” he said. “With significant losses in the White House, and Congress and the Supreme Court, and a persistently skeptical public, their political leverage and relevance has dwindled.”
Even so, Inhofe warned, that “liberal extremists are not going to give up.” During Obama’s eight years in office, the former president “built a culture of radical alarmists,” who will “be back,” Inhofe said.
America’s economic and national security posture deteriorated significantly under Obama as a result of climate change policies that absorbed vital resources that could have been better invested, Inhofe told the conference.
“Every administrative entity under Obama was forced to embrace climate change as a top priority and it was used as a convenient sounding board,” Inhofe said. “We’ve seen this with agencies such as the Department of Defense diverting resources away from their core responsibility of defending America.” Inhofe also quoted Obama as saying that “climate change is a greater threat than terrorism.”…
A dozen groups give Gov. Brown failing environmental grade
Twelve environmental and watchdog groups published a report blasting Gov. Jerry Brown’s so-called green credentials.
Is Jerry Brown California’s savior? – rstreet.orgA coalition of green and public interest groups has published a report that says Gov. #Jerry Brown (D-Calif.) was living up to his surname: he’s more ‘Brown’ than green. It accuses him of promoting the use of fossil-fueled power plants, allowing toxic emissions, and not limiting the state’s oil drilling. The 56-page report, written by 12 groups, pointed out #California now gets 60 percent of its electricity from fossil fuel facilities, a jump of seven percent since 2012.
Brown has been an enthusiastic supporter of solar and wind and is considered one of the country’s loudest global warming activists, second to Al Gore. One reason for the increase in natural gas power plants is the recent five-year drought that officially ended a few months ago. Many reservoirs didn’t have enough water to power hydroelectric plants, so the state turned to cleaner burning natural gas when permitting new power plants.
Power plant glut?
The report said Brown ‘encouraged’ a glut of power plants that has consumers paying for 20 percent more capacity than they need or will use. Some of the groups who co-wrote the report include the Food & Water Watch, Restore the Delta, Consumer Watchdog, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, and eight others. Restore the Delta opposes Brown’s plan to prevent freshwater from being dumped into the Pacific Ocean near the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta, approved by many residents.
Consumer Watchdog accused Brown of governmental corruption, a charge Brown has refused to comment on furthering speculation. Brown’s spokesperson said it was the “same drivel, different day,” with the claims being nothing new against the governor. Food and Water Watch was livid over Brown’s political appointees considering reopening the Aliso Canyon gas storage field but at one-third its previous levels.
“What Went Wrong At Porter Ranch?” In-depth reporting on that ginormous methane leak in southern California: http://www.laweekly.com/news/what-went-wrong-at-porter-ranch-6405804 …
Massive gas leak
The storage field is owned by Southern California Gas Co. (SoCal Gas) whose parent company is Sempra Energy, where his sister draws a six-figure salary as a board member thus creating the appearance of a conflict.
A special investigation revealed the