Renewable Energy: High Jobs, Little Power (inefficiency personified)
By Stanislav Jakuba -- July 14, 2016
Ever wondered why has our standard of living not been improving?
The upward-aiming line in the above chart indicates one reason: growing employment in the renewable-energy sector. That employment contributes a miniscule amount to power production, and it does so at a dreadfully high operating cost.
Here are the numbers.
As illustrated, 200,000 people work in the solar industry (Photo-voltaic and Concentrated Solar Power combined), and they enabled the generation of 3.0 GW in 2015, which comes to 15 kW per employee. The down-sloping lines, combined, represent the 400,000 employees in the fossil fuel industry.
Assuming that about a half of those are needed just to supply fuel to generate the 310 GW electricity reported for that year, then the remaining 200,000 employees were responsible for 1550 kW per employee.
In other words, one employee in the fossil fuel industry produces 1550 kW, while it takes 100 employees in the solar business to produce roughly that amount.…
Continue ReadingAlaska’s Crisis of Leadership
By Dave Harbour -- July 13, 2016“The last two decades plus of governors and legislators have ignored the reality of a coming unsustainable state fiscal policy. And, even if we were to charitably credit the long line of politicians with having good intentions (i.e. note the many now considering retirement ‘while the getting is good’), we remind ourselves in the same breath that roads to hell and insolvency are both paved with good intent.”
Since the early 1990s the University of Alaska – Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research has been advising state leaders to bring spending in line with a declining Prudhoe Bay revenue stream.
Throughout the last fifteen years, we at Northern Gas Pipelines have added our editorial voice to ISER’s more scientific, economic analyses. And with every passing year, ISER’s pleas for fiscal sanity have grown stronger.…
Continue ReadingWhen Romm Blamed Reagan for “this energy mess” (Jimmy Carter lives!)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 12, 2016“This is the doleful legacy of Reaganism. We have become a nation that believes that you can get something for nothing. We thought that the energy crisis would be solved . . . somehow, and that no one would have to suffer….”
“Somewhere in his peripatetic travels, the much-maligned Jimmy Carter — an artless politician, to be sure — must scratch his head at the reverence still accorded Reagan. The way things are going, the Gipper’s visage will be added to Mount Rushmore. Not that anyone will notice. It’ll be too expensive to drive there.”
– Richard Cohen, “Wish Upon A Pump.” Washington Post, July 8, 2008. Quoted in Joe Romm, “Who Got Us in this Energy Mess? Start with Ronald Reagan.” Climate Progress.
A feature of MasterResource is chronicling the failed analyses and prognostications of the Energy Statist School, those who subscribe to chronic, global market failure and forced transformation away from consumer-chosen energies.…
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