Guest Post by David Middleton
The cost of each taxpayer-financed green energy job created since 2009:
$26.32 billion divided by 2,298 jobs = $11.45 million per job…
Green energy jobs and DOE loans are tallied under programs 1703 and 1705 on this list.
Permanent jobs created: 2,298
Taxpayer financed loan guarantees: $26.33 billion
19 of the projects cost more than $10 million per permanent job…
Even if you use the Obama maldaministration’s accounting methods and include temporary employment, the totally idiotic “jobs created/saved” category and include the 33,000 Ford Motor Company jobs “saved”, you get ~60,000 jobs at a cost of $34.5 billion –> $580,000 per job.
Bear in mind that Mr. Obama promised “to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects.” He’s currently 4,997,702 short of the 5 million mark.
The Full Cost of “Green Energy” Jobs
I have handy cost estimates for three of the solar plants near the top of the list of $10 million-plus jobs. If I factor in the increased cost of electricity, the cost per permanent job literally skyrockets, as promised by candidate Obama in 2008.
I generously assumed that the three solar PV plants could achieve a 30% capacity factor (the average is 25%), that they could achieve a levelized generation cost (LCOE) of $144.30 per MWh (DOE’s most recent average for plants coming online in 2018) and that they could remain in service for 20 years.
The total cost to the economy per permanent “green energy” job created by these three solar PV plants is $82.3 million. If I add in the 2,450 temporary construction jobs that were created, the cost per job drops to $2.8 million per job.
The Carbon-Free Benefits of Green Energy
The carbon-free “benefit” is a 0.007% reduction in annual global carbon emissions, relative to coal (0.00035% relative to natural gas). Neither the climate nor the oceans will notice this “benefit.”
Each MW of coal generation displaced by solar PV reduces global carbon emissions by about 0.000008% and doubles (or more) the cost of electricity. Natural gas would achieve half the carbon emission reduction at about 1/3 the cost of solar and a slightly lower cost than coal.
Of course, nuclear would solve the whole problem… But it’s frowned upon by greenies.
The Irony is priceless…
According to the EPA, coal yields 2,249 lbs/MWh of carbon dioxide per MWh of electricity generated. That works out to 1.02 metric tons of CO2 per MWh of generation.
In 2011, 1.8 million MWh (1.8 TWh) of electricity were generated in these United States by solar power plants. Assuming this generation displaced coal, 1.87 million metric tons of CO2 emissions were averted.
That’s a lot! Right?
Well, no it is not a lot. 1.87 million tons of CO2 emissions is barely a rounding error compared to total global carbon emissions.
1.87 million tons of CO2 is 0.51 million tons of carbon. According to CDIAC, the total global carbon emissions in 2011 were 9,471.37 million tons of carbon.
9,471.37 – 0.51 = 9,470.86
The minuend and difference both round to 9,471 million tons of carbon.
9,471 million tons of carbon is 9.5 Gt of carbon. Natural carbon sources emit 190 to 225 Gt per year…
Anthropogenic emissions account for only 4-5% of the total carbon budget. 1.8 TWh of US solar generation in 2011 reduced the 4-5% component by 0.005%.
This would be funny if it didn’t cost so much money.
In 2011 there was 4,389 MW of solar PV installed capacity in these United States. At $6 million per MW, the total cost for those solar plants was ~$26.3 billion. Had that money been spent on natural gas-fired plants (~$900,000 per MW), it could have displaced 29,260 MW of coal-fired capacity. This would have generated 223 TWh of electricity (solar only yielded 1.8 TWh. Natural gas yields about half the carbon emissions as coal. If 223 TWh of coal-fired generation had been displaced by natural gas, it would have reduced global carbon emissions by ~56 metric tons (solar only reduced it by 0.51 metric tons).
Here’s a “what if” comparison:
Black = What if solar did not displace coal-fired plants.
Green = Actual solar generation and actual emissions.
Red = What if the money spent on solar had been spent on natural gas-fired plants.
Data Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2012.
Of course, since CO2 is not a real pollutant, only the cost matters… But it is funny – Natural gas would be a far more effective weapon than solar for tilting at AGW windmills… 
James Cross says:
June 12, 2013 at 3:22 am
“I am a Progressive of a somewhat skeptical bent on the subject of climate change, so I don’t quite fit the mold.”
The constitution was expressly written to protect us from progressives( really smart people that know what’s best for everyone). Good intentions are not a substitute for results. Unable to learn from their mistakes(Europe crashing economically because of green energy policy) they repeat the same mistakes.
Want to see true failure go to http://www.thegwpf.org/. This is what the U.S. government wants for us.
Good analysis David.
Traditionally, a number of about $10,000 to $15,000 per job is considered to be the max range for government job creation plans to be effective, efficient and pass the cost/benefit hurdle.
So this is 1000 times higher than is required to pass a cost/benefit test.
It is not just ridiculous, it is ludicrous, wasting tax dollars like that.
Do these people not know there is dangerously high deficit.
James Cross says:
June 12, 2013 at 3:22 am
“If we spend a million dollars on a thousand projects, 999 of them could fail miserably but one project could result in economic growth that more than pays back the billion dollars. A success rate such as that could superficially be seen as a failure yet, in fact, it would be a huge success.”
James, I am totally for research and development and realize that there will not be 100% success rate based on my experience with numerous research projects. During the election campaign Romney indicated that 80 billion tax dollars has been spent on alternative energy projects by the government. Where are the fruits of this expenditure?
The problem is that the DOE does not have a work process or competent employees to ensure that proposals are properly vetted and duplication is eliminated and that only projects with high probability of success are funded not those who reward bundlers or campaign contributors. I think it is naïve to believe that the government has the ability to manage huge sums of taxpayers dollars and the results bear this out; see below which has not been updated for several years so the list is even longer:
The 19 asterisked companies have already filed for bankruptcy. The others are near bankruptcy:
1.Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2.SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3.Solyndra ($535 million)*
4.Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5.Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6.SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7.First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8.Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9.EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10.Amonix ($5.9 million)
11.Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12.Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13.A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14.Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15.Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16.Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17.ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18.Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19.Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20.Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21.Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22.Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23.Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24.Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25.Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26.GreenVolts ($500,000)
27.Vestas ($50 million)
28.LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29.Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30.Navistar ($39 million)
31.Satcon ($3 million)*
32.Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33.Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
Also I don’t know anyone in the energy business who believes the following comment:
“No matter how much oil and gas there is eventually alternative technologies will be cheaper than fossil fuel.”
Neither does wall street believe this based on the value of numerous successful fossil energy company stocks despite constant attack and threats by the Government.
David
Have you done a similar analysis of wind power, or can you. If so, please contact me immediately at dwschnare@gmail.com as I can use this information in our suit against Colorado’s renewable energy standard.
David Schnare
FME Law
When the twin goals of government largesse are to 1) cut carbon emissions, and 2) create jobs, it’s inevitable that money will be wasted.
The Chinese had a better way years ago: Do away with road construction equipment and hire manual laborers to build infrastructure. Instead of 100 heavy equipment operators on a 10 million dollar job ($100,000 per job), use 1,000 laborers with non-polluting wheelbarrows, shovels, and rakes to do the same job ($10,000 per job).
This meets the twin goals of a high jobs-created count per dollar invested and a reduction in carbon emissions. Plus, at the end of the day you actually have a product the populace can put to good use.
Of course, such a program would be idiotic. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be nearly as idiotic as the course we chose instead, which didn’t meet either of the presumed goals.
On the other hand, if the real, and singular, goal was to reward your political cronies, then I’d judge the green investments by the federal government to be wildly successful indeed.
@ur momisugly David Schnare,
I have only looked at offshore wind. The economics of onshore wind aren’t nearly as bad as solar.
Report: Nepotism is an ‘open and widely accepted’ practice at the Energy Department
Just like the old days, it’s a great big company, parents work there, they can get their kids in as well. Heck, put in a good word for your second cousin Jeff, they’ll take him too!
Sure, you can work there for life, with great pay and benefits. Join the union! Nice pensions too.
Yup, just like in the days of the big automakers, big manufacturing in general, big construction, big many things. Entire cities sprung up around “the plant”.
What’s the difference between then and now?
“Each MW of coal generation displaced by solar PV reduces global carbon emissions by about 0.000008%”
Can you convert that to reduction in global temperature (C and F)?
🙂
The whole green energy/global warming scam was and is about redistributing money to favored groups; unions, voters, contributers, etc. The carbon tax and cap and trade will do the same thing. Once this is fully exposed it will be the biggest scam/theft in history.
@ur momisugly Go Home,
My calculator can’t display that many zeroes to the right of the decimal point… 🙂
Have the costs of incentives and tax breaks been included?
@ur momisugly Wyguy,
Not in the LCOE (levelized generation cost).
The program costs and meager benefits are details for the clean up crews living in reality world. The win-the-day lawyer politicians wanted to buy votes from those with a shaky grasp of costs and effective benefits to begin with and with some side gravy projects for friends and donors. They succeeded far beyond expectations and only some minor damage control was needed along the way. All in all, this special op ranks right up there with selling a trillion dollar stimulus package with a shovel ready road program that got downplayed in the final budget to about 5 percent of the total. They can’t help but grin at their successes in deception on these easy ones.
I just want to take this time to post a message to the NSA/CIA, FBI, or DHS flunky who is assigned the task of monitoring this site and taking down our names and email addresses. I know what it’s like to work in cubeville. It get’s lonely sometimes. Do you have a window? It helps if you do. If not, try getting a look outside using those public cameras you’re monitoring. I personally, used to use the one overlooking the pool at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas. Do you know if it’s still there? I hope you’re not in a basement somewhere, that’s the worst.
Anyhoo, I know you have a lot of work do trying to keep us safe from people who might want to do things like reduce government spending and put you out of a job, so I won’t keep you long. I have a quick question — if they give you an *Energy Star* certified workstation to use, does your job also count as a *green job*?
You don’t have to write me back personally, you can just append your answer onto one of the other messages already waiting in my inbox.
See you in the funny papers!
Sincerely,
~more soylent green.
David Middleton, you have made a huge math error. You said (gathering up relevant bits):
With the Administration figuring the “social cost” of carbon at $23.80 per metric ton, that’s over $12.1 million in benefits you’ve left out of the calculations. That might not seem like much to you with those big fat Big Oil checks filling up your piggy bank, but that’s significant money for the rest of us.
Whoops, your error just grew.
Obama Quietly Raises ‘Carbon Price’ as Costs to Climate Increase
With all these well-reported drastic extreme frequent extremeness of extreme climate-related singular weather events that are long-term climate trends, the “social cost” has gone up, to $38 a metric ton.
Ah-ha! Your error is up to $19.4 million, a fourth of a green job!
And you may be even far more wrong than you ever would have thought (bold added):
Ah-ha-ha-ha! Those plants saved up to $137 million in social costs! They have already paid for a full-time green job, and a part-timer!
With your chart showing 85 jobs created, 20 year lifespan on the projects, and the “social cost” going up, up, and away, perhaps half of those jobs could be paid for, maybe all of them. How did you miss something so obvious to the EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council?
Now be good serf and admit you were wrong, stop declaring war on the federal bureaucracy beast, aka the lawfully-elected US government, so perhaps the NSA will stop reading the email and listening to the phone calls of anyone who communicates with you, which is legal as you are a “potential foreign terrorist”. Geez, how much time did you rack up working for “foreign entities” anyway?
@ur momisugly kadaka (KD Knoebel),
LOL!!!
I forgot all about the “social cost” of carbon… At $266 per ton for carbon, we can easily afford to pay 50¢ per kWh for electricity… 75¢ per kWh might even be a bargain!
In its “Greenhad” against American industry, the EPA must present a cost-benefit analysis of any regulations they wish to promulgate. The costs of the regulations are pretty easy to tabulate… But there simply are no real data from which to calculate the potential monetary benefits of such regulations, therefore the EPA have invented something called the “Social Cost of Carbon” (SCC).
The SSC enables them to monetize their feelings about how much greener the world will be when we are paying 20 times as much for electricity – Which will only be available during non-peak daylight hours.
well , a good source of energy means the less people to produce it at the lowest cost…
the number of job is irrelevant .
more soylent green! says:
June 12, 2013 at 9:17 am
I just want to take this time to post a message to the NSA/CIA, FBI, or DHS flunky who is assigned the task of monitoring this site and taking down our names and email addresses. ……… I have a quick question — if they give you an *Energy Star* certified workstation to use, does your job also count as a *green job*?
msg!,
Priceless!!!
MtK
The costs of these green programs, as acknowledged by their advocates, don’t include the value of despoiled landscapes and destroyed habitats, the costs of remediating chemical pollution from wind turbines and solar arrays, of the increased and dirtier fossil fuel burning needed to accommodate wind and solar, of disposing of the hazmat ingredients of electric car batteries, of cleaning up toxic heavy metals emitted from geothermal – and the millions of birds and bats, including endangered California condors and whooping cranes killed by the turbines, as well as ground-dwelling rodents and reptiles killed by by the preparation of green power sites.
Green is not only hypocritical, it is infinitely dirtier than fossil fuels.
Instead of building windmills, we should be building gallows for after the trials of all the green thieves.
@ur momisugly Chad Wozniak.
A typical solar PV power plant requires 8 acres of land per MW of installed capacity.
A typical natural gas-fired power plant requires 0.16 of an acre of land per MW of installed capacity.
If they gave me $23 billion I think I could make a company that employs more that 2800 people…
I always love the carbon lifecycle diagram. It shows that oxidative plant decay emissions are 10 times the emissions from hydrocarbon burning for energy.
All plant material based carbon, that is not buried in a anoxic environment, will eventually be re-released back into the atmosphere. Think about that next time you’re turning your compost pile in the back yard.
Bagging your lawn cuttings and sending them to a landfill would actually be better for CO2 emissions.
One thing that this carbon lifecycle diagram does not cover is the amount of carbon that is complexed into carbonate rock and sediment, and how much carbon is re-released to the atmosphere via subduction volcanos.
David.
You might be interested in this article where the administration just further cooked the books by raising the social cost of Carbon.
The Presidential Executive order you cite requires the USE of IPCC AR4 for the calculations which exaggerates global warming, uses high sensitivity factors and ignores recent departure of temperature increase from CO2 rise.
Obama Quietly Raises ‘Carbon Price’ as Costs to Climate Increase
“Buried in a little-noticed rule on microwave ovens is a change in the U.S. government’s accounting for carbon emissions that could have wide-ranging implications for everything from power plants to the Keystone XL pipeline.”
“The increase of the so-called social cost of carbon, to $38 a metric ton in 2015 from $23.80, adjusts the calculation the government uses to weigh costs and benefits of proposed regulations. The figure is meant to approximate losses from global warming such as flood damage and diminished crops. ”
“For example, the administration’s vehicle fuel-efficiency standards would cost industry $350 billion over the next 40 years, while benefits in energy security, less congestion and lower pollution totaled $278 billion.”
“With the change, government actions that lead to cuts in emissions — anything from new mileage standards to clean-energy loans — will appear more valuable in its cost-benefit analyses. On the flip side, environmentalists urge that it be used to judge projects that could lead to more carbon pollution, such as TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone pipeline or coal-mining by companies such as Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) on public lands, which would be viewed as more costly. ”
“As we learn that climate damage is worse and worse, there is no direction they could go but up,” Laurie Johnson, chief economist for climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview. Johnson says the administration should go further; she estimates the carbon cost could be as much as $266 a ton. ”
“Even supporters questioned the way the administration slipped the policy out without first opening it for public comment. The change was buried in an afternoon announcement on May 31 about efficiency standards for microwave ovens, a rule not seen as groundbreaking.”
“It’s a pretty important move. To do this without any outside participation is bizarre,” said Jeff Holmstead, a lawyer at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP (1222L) representing coal-dependent power producers and other industry groups. A legal challenge to the determination would be difficult, but could be tried by itself or in a challenge to a specific rulemaking that uses the cost, he said.
Leading Models
The administration first arrived at this calculation in 2010 using “leading expert models” and updated it “applying the same methods and assumptions,” Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman Ari Isaacman Astles said in an e-mail.
The Economic Report of the President in March said the administration would update estimates “as new scientific and economic analysis become available.”
“The administration’s new carbon cost is key to a wide range of policies, which get subject to cost-benefit analysis in the rulemaking process or at OMB. Obama is considering more energy efficiency standards for everything from buildings to vending machines.”
“In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency is late on issuing rules to cap greenhouse-gas emissions from new power plants, a standard that would preclude the construction of new coal-fired power plants that don’t have expensive carbon-capture technology. Lobbyists representing companies such as American Electric Power Co. (AEP) and Southern Co. (SO) have urged the EPA to scale back that plan. ”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-12/tougher-regulations-seen-from-obama-change-in-carbon-cost.html
ferd berple says:
June 12, 2013 at 5:53 am
SAMURAI says:
June 12, 2013 at 1:07 am
Oh, I know, let’s just have the Chinese deliver stuff they produce to our door and pay them with the multiplying monopoly money…. That’ll work… The eco-nomic models say it will….
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Today’s interest rates are well below long term historical averages and this is encouraging the government to act like a boat load of drunken sailors newly arrived in port with a year’s back wages in their pockets.
======================
The primary reason governments around the world are keeping interest rates so low is to enable them to finance their insane levels of debt.
The US currently has a national debt of around $16.5 TRILLION, which is only possible to maintain/grow if interest rates are kept artificially low. If interest rates were at historic average levels of 6%, the interest obligations on the debt alone would be $1 trillion/year or about 42% of total tax revenues…. LOL!
Another reason interest rates are kept low is to inflate real estate and stock bubbles to give taxpayers the impression of economic growth. When interest rates spike, bond prices, real estate, the US$ and stock markets will all come crashing down at the same time….
In an effort to keep interest rates down, The FED is currently printing $85 billion/month and purchasing roughly 90% of all new Treasury Bill offerings. At some point, the FED will have to end this insanity and somehow try to unwind their bloated balance sheet.
This will be impossible because who is going to buy the $100’s of billions of mortgage-backed securities with an imploding real estate market, the $trillions of 10~30-year Treasury bonds at inflation-adjusted NEGATIVE yields AND a collapsing dollar?
Hmmmm. The $16.5 trillion question…..
Eco-nomics, Obamanomics, Abenomics, EU-nomics don’t work; they destroy wealth and wealth creation. It’s time to return to: balanced budgets, small governments, free-markets, strong currencies (preferably a gold standard), trade surpluses, high savings rates, low taxes, individual liberties, reduced rules/regs/mandates and 5~6% interest rates.