"Green Jobs" for ScottW

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by scottw

Green jobs serve a political purpose, but not an economic one. The evidence from Spain and elsewhere is ample -- each green job created destroys more than two other jobs elsewhere in the economy.

That argument is outside the point of the thread about Duke41's tongue in cheek commentary of the Obama speech arm-waving debacle and about Van and the %$%$%$%$ty vetting job they did on him.

Do you actually believe the drivel I quoted?
Total hijack here, but my own thoughts
Any realist environmentalist (or environmental scientist (like me) knows that we are not going to suddenly stop using coal, oil, gas etc.. but putting some solar panels and turbines up.

HOWEVER, we NEED to work towards limiting production of this and increasing our reliance on alternative energy. Think of the process as a supplement for a solution. Not a replacement. Will there someday be a replacement for fossil fuels? Probably, because we will run out of oil someday (read a book called Hubbles Peak, which is written BY A GEOLOGIST who studies Oil, not some pundit) We will run out of Natural Gas, we eventually will run out of coal. Take away the climate change argument since I'm sure you believe that is a liberal conspiracy. Do you think that using less coal, oil and natural gas is better for the environment? Tour a coal strip mine or look at the aerial images of the gulf coast taken DAYS after Katrina and last year's hurricane. You will see slicks of oil POURING from platforms and refineries that were hit by the storm. Don't like those arguments, how about National Security? That is staunch conservative Boone Pickens argument "Don't want those Arabs getting our money"....

for the foreseeable future we will need "Conventional" energy sources. The realistic goal should be the capping of what we are using now, and taking up as much of the global growth in energy demands with alternative energy as we work towards decreasing our reliance of fossil fuels. ALL of which requires new technology and JOBS. Go to urban areas and the potential is huge for construction jobs, technology jobs etc... Oil is low right now, we're all enjoying the relative low cost compared to $4 gas, but it is coming again.... to loosely paraphrase Tom Friedman, would you have gone to Silicon valley 15 or 20 years ago to fight for the typewriter lobby because computers were going to take jobs away???

Do me a favor, answer this question for me. From your heart and head, not some article. Don't quote, I want the Scott W argument (I'll bold the question and put it into italics so it isn't skipped) How does developing the technology and industry of alternative energy and so called green jobs get rid of other jobs??

[scottw]

source of the statement contained in the NY Post article:

Every “green job” created with government money in Spain over the last eight years came at the cost of 2.2 regular jobs, and only one in 10 of the newly created green jobs became a permanent job, says a new study released this month. The study draws parallels with the green jobs programs of the Obama administration.

President Obama, in fact, has used Spain’s green initiative as a blueprint for how the United States should use federal funds to stimulate the economy. Obama’s economic stimulus package,which Congress passed in February, allocates billions of dollars to the green jobs industry.

But the author of the study, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid, said the United States should expect results similar to those in Spain:

“Spain’s experience (cited by President Obama as a model) reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created,” wrote Calzada in his report: Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources.

you can read the entire study
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090...-renewable.pdf

[RIROCKHOUND]

Thanks. I'll read the article.

You posted it. do you believe that? Truly? And Why? Besides the fact that Obama quoted it and a study (which may be valid, I'm not an economist) why do you believe it? You're an opinionated guy, I'm sure you know why you believe something like that.

[scottw]

sorry Rock, I was getting to my opinion like you asked but was also doing the dishes...it simple...the goal of the "Green" movement is anything but job creation..in fact the history is clearly working against industry, guys like Green Czar Van Jones have done little more than use the green movement as a vehical for his Marxist rantings, have you listened to any of his speeches?...with someone like him handing out money to his various "special interests" and the kind of folks that Harry Reid congratulated for writing the stimulus bill it's not likely that a whole lot of jobs...even green ones will be created in this way, more likely a bunch of well funded anti-capitalist organizations running around, just like France right now......can you define for me a "green job"?... and can you provide any evidence that there will be a substantial number of green jobs created to replace those that will be lost to cap and trade and the other regulations that the Van Jones types would heap on industry ? I think this is what they discovered in Spain, government dollars thrown at the green movement produced very little if your goal was substantial job creation through green technology...sound real nice though doesn't it? Green Technology...Industry of Alternative Energy

hey, you are getting awfully close to the big day right?...

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by scottw

scan you define for me a "green job"?...

hey, you are getting awfully close to the big day right?...

A month or so to go.

The problem I see in all the above is blah blah van jones is evil blah blah , and I never mentioned him. That original quote I pulled from your post is what caught my eye.
,
I never defended the green czar or the special interest groups

to me, rirock's ad hoc definition, a green job is any job that includes but is not limited to: cleaning up environmental messes/contamination created in years and decades past; alternative energy construction, design, production etc; any job that works towards energy efficiency and savings, including production of products, design services at a small product scale up through building efficient structures and at the largest scale towns. I can probably think of more, but not right now, I'm tired from a long day offshore yesterday.

I don't believe in the argument that cap and trade a death marks for the economy, period, so to me that isn't a good argument. Again, personal; opinion based on many of the reasons I wrote in my first post in this thread; many of these jobs are created as a supplement for now (years to decade or more) not a replacement.

Let me ask this; are you a fan of our Republican Governor's push for offshore wind to eventually be 15+% of the states energy? One of his largest selling point is JOB CREATION in RI.

[likwid]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Let me ask this; are you a fan of our Republican Governor's push for offshore wind to eventually be 15+% of the states energy? One of his largest selling point is JOB CREATION in RI.

As far as I've read TPI won't be making the windmills.
That would be major job creation, but it seems not to be so?

[scottw]

California's 'Green Jobs' Experiment Isn't Going Well

By STEPHEN MOORE
Los Angeles

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was all smiles in 2006 when he signed into law the toughest anti-global-warming regulations of any state. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his green supporters boasted that the regulations would steer California into a prosperous era of green jobs, renewable energy, and technological leadership. Instead, since 2007 -- in anticipation of the new mandates -- California has led the nation in job losses.

The regulations created a cap-and-trade system, similar to proposed federal global-warming measures, by limiting the CO2 that utilities, tr#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g companies and other businesses can emit, and imposed steep new taxes on companies that exceed the caps. Since energy is an input in everything that's produced, this will raise the cost of production inside California's borders.

Now, as the Golden State prepares to implement this regulatory scheme, employers are howling. It's become clear to nearly everyone that the plan's backers have underestimated its negative impact and exaggerated the benefits. "We've been sold a false bill of goods," is how Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello, who has been the GOP's point man on environmental issues in the legislature, put it to me.

The environmental plan was built on the notion that imposing some $23 billion of new taxes and fees on households (through higher electricity bills) and employers will cost the economy nothing, while also reducing greenhouse gases. Almost no one believes that anymore except for the five members of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). This is the state's air-quality regulator, which voted unanimously in December to stick with the cap-and-trade system despite the recession. CARB justified its go-ahead by issuing what almost all experts agree is a rigged study on the economic impact of the cap-and-trade system. The study concludes that the plan "will not only significantly reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions, but will also have a net positive effect on California's economic growth through 2020."

This finding elicited a chorus of hallelujahs from environmental groups. The state finally discovered a do-good policy that pays for itself. Californians can still scurry around in their cars, heat up their Jacuzzis, and help save the planet. But there was a problem. The CARB had commissioned five economists from around the country to critique this study. They panned it.

Harvard's Robert Stavins, chairman of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's economic advisory committee under Bill Clinton, told me that "None of us knew who the other reviewers were, but we all came up with almost the same conclusion. The report was severely flawed and systematically underestimated costs." Another reviewer, UCLA Prof. Matthew E. Kahn, a supporter of the new regulations, criticized the "free lunch" aspect of the report. "The net dollar costs of each of these regulations is likely to be much larger than is reported," he concluded. Mr. Stavins points out that if these regulations are a net boon for businesses and the economy, "why would you need to impose regulations like cap and trade?"

The Sacramento Bee, which has editorialized in support of the new regulations, was aghast at CARB's twisted science. We have to "be candid about the real costs of the transition," a cautionary editorial advised. "Energy prices will rise, and major capital investment will be needed in public transit and new transmission lines. Industries that are energy intensive will move elsewhere."

The green lobby has lectured us for years that global warming is all about the sanctity of science. Those who question the "scientific consensus" on catastrophic atmospheric changes are belittled as "deniers." Now, in assessing the costs, the greens readily cook the books and throw good science out the window. "To most of the most strident supporters of this legislation," says Mr. Niello, "the economic costs don't really matter anyway, because we are supposedly facing an environmental apocalypse."

Mr. Schwarzenegger fits into that camp. He recently declared: "I recommend very strongly that we move forward . . . . You will always have people saying this will lose jobs."

Meanwhile, the state is losing jobs, a lot of them. California's unemployment rate hit 9.3% in December, up from 4.9% in December 2006. There are now 1.5 million Californians out of work. The state has the fourth-highest housing foreclosure rate in the nation, has lost more businesses than any state in recent years, and is facing a $40 billion deficit. With cap and trade firmly in place, the economic situation is only likely to get worse.

Other states are plundering the Golden State's industries by convincing businesses to pick up stakes and move out before the cap-and-trade earthquake hits. Governors and Washington politicians who want to reduce their "carbon footprint," but are worried about the more immediate crises of cascading unemployment, unbalanced budgets, and the housing-market collapse, would be wise not to follow California's lead. Green policies have a tendency to push states into the red.

Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Let me ask this; are you a fan of our Republican Governor's push for offshore wind to eventually be 15+% of the states energy? One of his largest selling point is JOB CREATION in RI.

if I were Ted Kennedy, I'd have to say NO!

[RIROCKHOUND]

I mean RI guys, not Mass. cape wind made a lot of mistakes....

[likwid]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

I mean RI guys, not Mass. cape wind made a lot of mistakes....

Cape Wind was destined to fail with names like Koch, Sturgeon, et al opposing it.

[scottw]

I thought Ted and Cape Wind were one in the same?

[likwid]

Originally Posted by scottw

I thought Ted and Cape Wind were one in the same?

Not that it has anything to do with the RI wind project which has nothing to do with Cape Wind, but the Kennedy's were just minor players in the game. They just voiced the opinion of the people with the money in the area.

Which are to say, very very rich. And very very much opposed to anyone dropping their property values.

Here's some light reading of irony for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ko...businessman%29

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by likwid

As far as I've read TPI won't be making the windmills.
That would be major job creation, but it seems not to be so?

I heard this too. My understanding is that the costs to him will be too high.

[spence]

Originally Posted by likwid

As far as I've read TPI won't be making the windmills.
That would be major job creation, but it seems not to be so?

TPI's primary manufacturing facility is in Iowa. Considering that 25% of the finished cost of a windmill is in shipping...they'd have to have the cash to establish a new local plant. And they seem to be doing pretty well as it is.

-spence

[likwid]

Originally Posted by spence

TPI's primary manufacturing facility is in Iowa. Considering that 25% of the finished cost of a windmill is in shipping...they'd have to have the cash to establish a new local plant. And they seem to be doing pretty well as it is.

-spence

TPI also makes blades right in RI on 136.

[spence]

Originally Posted by likwid

TPI also makes blades right in RI on 136.

I'm well aware, been in the plant.

But the Warren location is more development with only some manufacturing. They have a big plant in Iowa making blades for GE and I think some outside of the US.

That's not to say they couldn't expand somewhere else in the region. I don't think the RI location has the room.

-spence

[likwid]

Originally Posted by spence

I'm well aware, been in the plant.

But the Warren location is more development with only some manufacturing. They have a big plant in Iowa making blades for GE and I think some outside of the US.

That's not to say they couldn't expand somewhere else in the region. I don't think the RI location has the room.

-spence

Since it would be basically a one off job, they could easily make more molds at TPI then contract out the work to Goetz, NEB, Waterline etc. without having to spend the money on a new building.

NEB is already replacing the oven that cooked this past spring so they'll be back up in capacity soon.