Some people really don't think things through very well. The New York Times ran with a story that celebrated the fact the solar industry employs far more Americans than wind or coal: 374,000 in solar compared with 100,000 in wind, 160,000 in coal mining and coal-fired power generation, and narrowly behind natural gas, which employs 398,000 workers (in gas production, electricity generation, and petrochemicals).
And once you then compare
number of workers to energy output as a percentage, things look even worse for
solar energy. 398,000 natural gas workers amounts to 33.8% of all electricity
generated in the United States and 160,000 coal employees amounts to 30.4%,
whereas 374,000 solar workers amounts to just 0.9% of total electricity.
If you try to break that
down to electricity generated per worker, then coal generates 7,745 megawatt hours
of electricity per worker, natural gas is 3,812, and solar is a measly 98 megawatt
hours of electricity per worker. That is to say, producing the same amount of
electricity requires 1 coal worker, 2 natural gas workers and a whopping 79
solar workers.
To put that into perspective,
it would be like having three large supermarket chains across the country, producing
the same output, but Supermarket A does so with 300,000 workers, Supermarket B
does so with 600,000 workers, and Supermarket C doing so with 23.7 million
workers, and the state subsidising Supermarket C because it thinks it provides
better value than A and B.
Solar energy is, at
present*, showing itself to be a wasteful and inefficient method of producing
energy, but people won't get why until they understand that jobs are a cost of
doing something, because they are the price we pay for people's labour.
I encourage any readers
who deny that jobs are a cost to email me immediately, as I have plenty of opportunities
for you to partake in some 'cost-free' activities. You can come and wash my
car, do the dusting and hoovering, and while we're at it, my bathroom could do
with a good clean too. And, of course, you won't want paying for any of that
because according to you those activities do not have any costs attached to
them.
* I say at present, because there probably will be a time when solar power is the predominant and most efficient energy technology
* I say at present, because there probably will be a time when solar power is the predominant and most efficient energy technology
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