King Coal: ‘It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker’
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Inconvenient energy fact: It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker
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),
Every green initiative has been a disaster says Christopher Booker
Nine years ago, MPs voted almost unanimously for then Labour minister Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Act, thus making Britain the only country in the world committed by law to cut its ‘carbon emissions’ by 80 per cent in just 40 years.
Not one of those politicians bothered to wonder how in practice such an absurdly ambitious target could be met: which is why we have since seen successive governments thrashing about trying to adopt one dotty ‘green’ scheme after another.
Last week, I was asked in conversation: ‘Why is it that almost all these green schemes seem to end up as a fiasco?’ To which I replied: ‘You’ve only got one word wrong there. You can leave out the word “almost”.’
The truth is that every single green scheme the politicians have fallen for has proved to be a total fiasco: failing to achieve any of the results claimed for them and costing us more billions with every year that passes.
Consider the scandal of Drax in Yorkshire, until recently the largest, cleanest, most efficient coal-fired power station in Europe.
Now, thanks to an annual half-a-billion pounds of public subsidy, Drax has been switching from burning coal to millions of tons a year of wood pellets.…
New York Won’t Allow Cost Of Green Energy Mandates To Appear On Power Bills
New York Won’t Allow Cost Of Green Energy Mandates To Appear On Power Bills
Knowing the costs of green energy would just be too confusing for customers
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If Greens cared about CO2 they would dump renewable targets
If Greens cared about CO2 they would dump renewable targets
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/02/if-greens-cared-about-co2-they-would-dump-renewable-targets/
Those who say they want a “free market” in carbon still don’t understand what a free market is. RET’s or Renewable Energy Targets are screwed (in the head): If Tony Abbotts Direct Action plan was useless, RETS are five times more useless. In Australia the Renewable Energy Target (RET) in theory, helps wind and solar, so we lower CO2 emissions and cool the world, slow storms, things like that. But Tom Quirk calculates it costs $57 a ton (at best) for those “savings”. Since the Direct Action plan cost $11 a ton, we could reduce five times as much CO2 if we blew up the RET scheme. The secret is that the Abbott plan tackled CO2 directly rather than picking winners (see “competition”, “free markets” that sort of thing). Predictably, the Greens hated it — who needs CO2 reduction if you can support big-government-loving industries instead? (Especially the kind who lobby for the side of politics that wants more bureaucrats, more handouts, and less independent competition?) Those who say they want a “free market” in carbon still don’t understand what a free market is. It’s pretty simple, if they want a reduction in CO2, they need to pay for a […]Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
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Britain’s Green Energy Sector Shrinks After Government Subsidy Cuts
…Trump Says Plan to End Climate Spending Would Save U.S. $100 Billion over eight years
By Renee Schoof and Dean Scott
Nov. 1 — Donald Trump says he would save $100 billion over eight years by cutting all federal climate change spending—a sum his campaign says would be achieved by eliminating domestic and international climate programs.
“We’re going to put America first. That includes canceling billions in climate change spending for the United Nations, a number Hillary wants to increase, and instead use that money to provide for American infrastructure including clean water, clean air and safety,” the Republican presidential candidate said Oct. 31 at a rally in Warren, Mich. “We’re giving away billions and billions and billions of dollars,” he said.
In a policy statement from his campaign on the same day, “New Deal for Black America,” Trump said he would “cancel all wasteful climate change spending” under the Obama administration and plans by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, a sum that Trump said would total $100 billion over eight years.
Trump Campaign Explains Number
The Trump campaign did not give a specific tally to account for the $100 billion total in response to a query from Bloomberg BNA.
But in an e-mail, the campaign press office said that the figure combined an estimate of what the Obama administration had spent on climate-related programs, the amount of U.S. contributions to an international climate fund that Trump would cancel, and a calculation of what Trump believes would be savings to the economy if Obama’s and Clinton’s climate policies were reversed.
The Trump campaign said the $100 billion total included $50 billion, or what it estimated the Obama administration has spent on programs related to climate change.
“Eliminating that spending will save similar amounts over the Trump administration,” it said.
Spending Estimate
The e-mail said the estimate was based on a Congressional Research Service report in 2013 that looked at federal climate change funding from fiscal year 2008 to the administration’s budget request for FY 2014.
However, that report did not estimate the administration’s full spending related to climate change over eight years. The nonpartisan research service reported that direct federal spending to address global climate change totaled about $77 billion from FY 2008 through FY 2013, and that 75 percent of that amount was for technology development and deployment, mostly through the Department of Energy.
The report said that the breakdown in the administration’s FY 2014 request of $11.6 billion for these programs was about 68 …
Reality check: In 1908, fossil fuels accounted for 85% of U.S. energy consumption. In 2015, more or less the same
…Analysis: ‘Solar isn’t that green really’
Solar energy isn’t all that ‘Green’ argues energy analyst Keith Bryer. He reports that making photovoltaic (PV) panels – known to the person in the street as solar panels – in particular produces by-products poisonous to a degree that dwarfs the miniscule amount radiated by uranium ore scattered across the Karoo. Wind generators need tons of copper, most dug up from enormous open cast mines that scar the landscape.
24 October 2016 – Leaving aside Eskom’s recent falling out of love with wind and solar power, there’s more to worry about these generators than the cost of running them, and feeding their power into the national grid.
Often whispered but rarely said aloud is the pollution they create – pollution every bit as bad as wild fantasies about nuclear radiation. Their pollution never degrades, ever. Recycling the poison is often an afterthought, if that.
Solar panels aren’t all that green argues energy analyst Keith Bryer. Image Wikipedia
Making photovoltaic (PV) panels in particular produces by-products poisonous to a degree that dwarfs the miniscule amount radiated by uranium ore scattered across the Karoo. Wind generators need tons of copper, most dug up from enormous open cast mines that scar the landscape.
But it is PV panels that create most pollution. Even environmental professors dare to say that every PV module uses at least one rare or precious metal such as silver, tellurium (a by-product of copper mining) or indium (from platinum mines).
Most people, including the Greens, have never heard of the latter two elements, or the vicious acids used like hydrochloric, and the even more frightening hydrofluoric. Greens may shudder at open cast mines but these chemicals are far worse.
PV panels include the use of sodium hydroxide, hydrofluoric acid, water and electricity
Making PV panels takes sodium hydroxide, hydrofluoric acid, water and electricity – so much for climate change, carbon dioxide emissions and removing toxic chemicals from the environment. The sunlight is free but that’s about it. And most PV panels are made in China these days, and China gets most its electricity from coal burning power stations.
The pollution aspects of making PV panels should be no secret. For thirty years sensible environmentalists in Silicon Valley in the US called the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) have monitored the problem. They have urged manufacturers to protect their workers, recycle, stop using toxic stuff, and dumping dangerous chemicals.…
Despite Green Hype, Coal Still Makes 55 Times More Power Than Solar
Environmentalists are overjoyed on news the world has more solar power capacity than coal capacity, but that obscures the fact that solar still produces far less electricity than coal on a global scale.
A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) found total global solar power capacity is larger than total coal capacity. The report was quickly seized on by environmentalists to claim solar subsidies have been successful.
There’s just one problem. Most of this global green energy capacity isn’t used due to unreliability.
“For the first time, renewables accounted for more than half of net annual additions to power capacity and overtook coal in terms of cumulative installed capacity in the world,” the IEA report’s executive summary states.
Capacity is how much a power plant can theoretically produce under the best possible conditions, but actual power generation from solar power is 55 times lower than the amount of electricity from coal due to the basic unpredictability of sunlight. Coal provides more than six times as much electricity as solar and wind power combined, because far more coal capacity can be put to use.
Last year, wind and solar power only accounted for 4.7 and 0.6 percent of all electricity generated in America respectively, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA). Coal power and natural gas power collectively provide 66 percent of all power generated in the U.S. and nuclear power generates another 20 percent.
Wind power provided substantially more electricity than solar, but it has grown at a slow rate, while solar produced far less electricity, but has grown at a relatively faster rate. Even in the unlikely event that both wind and solar power continue to grow rapidly, they will only provide about 10 percent of U.S. power within a decade. Hydropower and biofuels account for 6 and 1.6 percent of all electricity generated last year, but both are increasingly targeted by the green movement, difficult to rapidly expand and dependent upon regional conditions.
Media claim: ‘Renewables surged past coal…become world’s biggest source of electricity’ – Reality: Coal produced 41% & Renewables 6%
The business news network featured an article in the “Sustainable Energy” section of its Website that proclaimed: “Renewables surged past coal in 2015 to become world’s biggest source of electricity: IEA.”
In reading that headline, one might get the impression that wind turbines and solar panels produced more electricity last year than coal. But the fine print actually reveals a very different picture.
The opening paragraph of the article by “Freelance digital reporter” Anmar Frangoul gives a clue as to the sleight of hand being used. Frangoul cites the International Energy Agency (IEA) as reporting that “Renewable energy moved past coal in 2015 to become the biggest source of global electricity capacity.” The key word there is “capacity.”
What’s noteworthy is that capacity is far different from actual production. The average wind turbine has a maximum rated capacity of roughly 2 megawatts. That means, if the wind is blowing between 26-56 mph, the turbine can spin up to its peak generating capacity. In such moments, the wind turbine can produce its full 2 megawatts.
However, wind turbines, like solar panels, offer only intermittent power generation. Wind turbines can only produce power when there is sufficient wind—and when they are not shut down due to cold weather, repairs, or high winds. And solar panels only produce electricity during periods of direct sunlight. Thus, while a wind turbine can have a maximum capacity of 2 megawatts, its typical output may often be far less, or even 0 megawatts (on a windless day).
Thus we see some of the misleading language in the CNBC article.
Frangoul talks about renewables producing 23 percent of world power generation in 2015—which is only possible when hydropower’s robust 16.4 percent is added to renewables’ paltry 6.3 percent share. And while the IEA says that “renewables represented more than half the new power capacity around the world” in 2015, one has to remember their frustrating intermittency. Wind turbines only generate roughly 20 percent of their installed capacity, and solar panels yield an even more meager 10 percent.
So, while Frangoul is happy to tout all of