We have 17.2% unemployment int he US now if you really add things up and how long are we going to wait for crazily expensive jobs that won’t be here in the next year or two…maybe 10…Spain is not stupid…there needs to be an ROI and it’s not there economically sorry…the Spaniards figured this out…but we americans know better.

Obama just had a jobs summit the other day because he has no ideas…green jobs are sadly not here…nice concept…but not practical unless you are an ideologue.

I get that you have a bias against green jobs. Except for oil executives, I really do not understand how that could be true of average citizens, other then the money put to brand them as negative is working. I accept that this is a fact. I would love to discuss this with you, but you ignored the facts and obviously did not read the article nor check any of the sources. 1. Spain has high unemployment all of the time. 2. Spain has just experienced a humongous bursting of its real estate bubble and many jobs lost are a result of that. 3. The US has been investing in clean energy for decades with positive results.4. The numbers used in the “study” are incorrect and changed to support conclusions made before he wrote his paper that was funded by ExxonMobil.

However, I realize you are frustrated and angered by the concept of green jobs and posted this comment most likely as a form of catharsis, not to debate any facts.

These naysayers may be arguing just to argue (”Devil’s Advocate), in denial, or working for or running companies that would lose money. Consciences seem certainly lacking these days. It’s hard to believe that these people are risking their families’ welfare to gain money.

Didn’t large areas of Spain burn recently because of drought? The storms that hit India yesterday were stronger than usual. Island countries in the Pacific are concerned about disappearing altogether. Floodplain maps in the northeastern U.S. are showing that this area faces higher risks from coastal flooding.

I believe that employees of Big Oil and other industries write these convoluted arguments and negative opinions. Under the cloak of the web, they can remain anonymous yet dangerous as they go around devaluing the need for new policies and programs. Big Oil and conservatives in Congress are trying their hardest to change the new energy bill into a boom for oil and gas. Just what we need. A faster slide into dclimate devastation. I know that companies pay people to blog for them; the companies probably furnish them with

It is encouraging to see people like yourself responding positively to my analysis and using it to counteract the propaganda paid for by Exxon. The supporters of this study have read the response, but they do not want renewable energy to succeed. I think they have been conditioned to see it as a tree hugging, left wing threat to their free market views. Ironically, the private sector is making lots of money in this arena.

Australia has excellent wind and solar resource but pathertic uptake. We have just 1.5GW of wind and prob less than 200MW of solar in our whole country of 20 million people.

It is easy for Calzera’s australian counterparts to spin a web of bullshit about how green energy doesnt work because here in Australia we don’t have the thousands of wind turbines that you do in europe.

All of the Calzera supporters clearly havent read the letter by Jose Aldasoro from the gobierno de navarra or they would cut the crap and stop trying to deny the reality of green jobs in spain. Whose word is worth more: Calzera’s or Aldasoro’s? One is a hack academic/ ideologue, the other actually implements the successful job creation policies.

You bring up a good point and I have been preparing to address precisely this point in a future post on the subject. I am on many peak oil and energy lists and have had long discussions about this very important and poorly understood metric. The measurment of Energy Return on Energy Invested (often refered to as ERoEI as well as EROI) of any energy producing (or energy storage technology for that matter) is very important metric for evaluating the ultimate practicality of the energy source — which in fact may not be a “source” at all, but rather a sink. For example I have seen studies showing how corn ethanol actually consumes more fossil energy to produce the ethanol than can be recovered by burning it in an engine.

Clearly if a given energy source has a marginal or negative ERoEI it is not an energy source at all, but is actually an energy sink disguised as an energy source. No energy source available to us — that is within out foreseeable technological grasp and planetary resource base comes close to the ERoEI of oil during its boom years say three or four decades ago. Some of the fabled gusher wells had an ERoEI of more than 30 to 1… when the ghawar in Saudi Arabia — the mother of all oil fields on planet earth was first discovered in 1948 and first developed in 1951 it gushed out huge volumes of net energy in the form of black gold.

By the way I bring up the discussion of peak oil in some detail and the imperative to urgently begin building out a new energy infrastructure that does not depend on fossil energy on my blog post: The US Needs a Green Energy Marshall Plan Now!

ERoEI is falling for every fossil energy source. This is a key fact to understand the larger picture. The ERoEI of complex very tough to drill for — arctic and deep off shore locations — is far below that of the net returns that the gusher mega fields produced. The same is true for coal by the way.. The high energy quality anthracite coal is mostly gone and poorer quality brown coal is increasingly being mined at greater and greater energy costs and less and less energy return. When I hear people tell me that America is the Saudi Arabia of oil shale — for example — that we have plenty of fuel locked up in the shale — I ask them how this oil-like liquid would be unlocked from this rock? And how much energy it would take in order to accomplish this? Same question posed for the Canadian and Orinoco tar sands? What is the ERoEI and for nuclear power advocates. What is the total end to end ERoEI for those systems.

The reason I have focused on the ERoEI of fossil and nuclear energy sources is intentional. And that is because very broad measurements of the Energy Inputs are applied by some widely quoted ERoEI studies of wind and solar energy… often including many very in-direct energy costs in the analysis. But this same rigour is not used to produce competing ERoEI figures for coal for example, which should include in its ERoEI budget all of the energy that will be required for pollution remediation for example. How much energy to restore that flattened moutnain and all those destroyed watersheds?

ERoEI is a vital an important tool to understand an energy system, but how the ERoEI was derived and arrived at, what assumptions went into calculating it, what was put in and what conversely was left out have a huge impact on its final figure. Thus for example the ERoEI of wind will vary drastically depending on who you ask. With ERoEI there are several levels. Level one looks at just the direct energy costs and returns for some system — and ignores the many tangental energy costs such as the energy needed by the workers in the factories to make the wind mill blades. This in my opinion is the better way of measuring ERoEI, at least for the quick and dirty comparisons of competing energy sources.

In these terms the ERoEI of both wind and solar are quite respectable.

In general with ERoEI one has to be very careful and make sure that the ERoEI of two different energy sources were produced using similar types of inputs and assumptions. If not it is comparing apples to oranges.

SCC

oh yes, and here’s a link with some resources to check out net energy/EROI…

http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/

Cheers,
SCC

Based on your response, I guess you have facts detailing that there is no return or little return on investment. Please share them with us. Those facts are not in the study and I have seen numbers that contradict this premise. Discovering today that the study uses falsified numbers, leads me to serious doubt all the numbers in the study, since re already knew, he misrepresented Spain’s tax policy.

As an educated man, I’m sure you are aware that comparing the subprime mortgage crisis to the policy of investing in renewable energies is like comparing apples to black holes. The only thing they have in common is that they are both used as political tools to block policies.

A better comparison might be to compare the policy of renewable energy investments to the investments to building the Interstate in the US, or a dam, or a rail line, etc. A large initial investment is required and most of the returns on those investments are expected in the long term. However, there is data supporting the fact that Spain is getting a return on their investment. Also when private utility companies invest in a wind farm, they have done the numbers and know that they are extremely likely to get a return on their investment. Please point of to evidence that Spain is not getting a return on their investment. If the ROI is bad, please site some statistics, I’m there are a large number of wind energy investors who would like to see that data.

Let move beyond political rhetoric and repeated sound bits and focus on the facts. If the facts support your claim, I’m open to acknowledging those facts and the ramifications of those revelations

Below are some US Return on Taxpayer investment Facts

–the $1.2 billion spent on nuclear energy in 2007 led to zero megawatts (MW) installed.
–the $3 billion spent on coal led to about 1,400 MW installed (without carbon reduction or storage, since that is not yet commercially viable).
–the $800 million spent on renewables (not including hydro) in 2007 led to about 6,000 MW installed. Of that, the $724 million provided to wind led to over 5,200 MW of new, zero-emissions, fuel-free generating capacity—35% of the ENTIRE new power generating capacity added in the country that year.

And for those who still dont agree with me……… Oil, gas, coal is all a limited source of energy…. you cant deny that now!!! So why not start early and look for other sources of energy… Or you want the world to come to a standstill and then probably think about all that has been happening…

Thanks for responding and pointing out Spain’s current unemployment rate. It helps to further prove my point. As a result of your comment, I have added more detail about Spain’s unemployment rates since 1980 to the post. Since the green jobs program has been initiated, unemployment has been much lower than before it was put in place. There are eighteen years when the unemployment rate has been higher- ranging between 15% and 24% You advised me to “get a grip”, however, this goes so far beyond ideology. I think questioning all the studies, both those supporting green jobs and those opposed is imperative if we are to solve some our most challenging problems. I do not simply support studies that regurgitate what I believe.

So, I am going to give you some advice. Review the facts — If you are interested in knowing the truth really look at them. Don’t feel threatened if you find out something that does not support what you believe. It does not necessarily mean you are wrong. As I said, I believe the increase in unemployment should be examined an economist without an axe to grind who is willing to connect the dots.

Ironically, the lowest years of unemployment are when the green jobs programs have been in place. Between 2001 and 2007, unemployment has ranged between 10.5 and 8.5%. 14.2% unemployment might be high to us, however, the highest years of unemployment were between 1993 and 1997 with employment ranging between 24% and 20%. Even now, 14.2% is one of the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years. Before the green jobs program, the unemployment rate was higher, so you helped to so that there could be evidence that green jobs did mitigate the unemployment rate. However, instead of twisting the truth to fit my beliefs, I must point out that it is likely the real estate boom was a major factor with regard to the lower unemployment rates up until the bubble bursting.

With the climate in trouble and the issues of peak oil confront us, I can not imagine why someone would be against green job growth, but so be it. That is your stance. However, citing a historically low unemployment level has not proved your point.

Regarding cap and trade, I believe you are mistaken when you say that I advocate the Obama Administration using it. I reviewed my post, and I do not see anything about that in it, nor is there even much on this site about it. In fact, I have serious concerns about cap and trade. Unfortunately, the only fact you raised regarding my analysis of the study is that you dislike Obama. In addition to actually reading his study, I suggest you actually read my critique as well.

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Get over it Exxon and those who support you! You’re days are numbered!