According to this article, solar power is currently generating more jobs in the US than any other power source industry.
Would that a significant amount of the stimulus money had been spent with this in mind.
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August 11, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Not A Native
The business picture is much more muddled. Lots of turmoil in technologies means lots of turmoil for manufacturing workers. Employment may be growing in total but its not growing stably or uniformly. Four news excerpts below.
But solar employment comparisons to fossil fuel producers is inappropriate and misleading(par for the course for the one bringing this article to Eric’s attention) because those are much larger and slower growing industries with hundreds of times more employees. Problem for the US is that Industrial Policy is strongly opposed by the free trade promoters now in charge(except for agricultural subsidies, their voter bloc).
12/2010. As competition with low-cost Chinese photovoltaic module makers intensifies, SpectraWatt, a solar startup spun out of Intel, has notified New York officials that it will shut down its factory in March and lay off 117 workers, according to a filing with the state’s Department of Labor
3/2010 BP Solar today announced it has taken another significant step to provide its customers with cost competitive solar energy products and services by shifting its remaining in-house manufacturing to its low cost joint ventures and regional supply partners. As a result of this decision, the company has ceased silicon casting, wafering, and cell manufacturing at its Frederick, MD facility effective today. Approximately 320 positions will be eliminated out of 430 positions at the Frederick location.
1/2011 Despite posting record sales for the fourth quarter of 2010, silicon wafer manufacturer Evergreen Solar says the Devens factory is no longer economically feasible and will shut by the spring. The closure will cost Evergreen Solar around $340 million in non-cash charges and $150 million in intangible and cash-related pre-payments, and will affect around 800 of the factory’s employees. Evergreen Solar will continue to operate its high temperature filament plant in Midland, Michigan and its wafer facility in Wuhan, China.
4/2011 General Electric plans to announce on Thursday that it will build the nation’s largest photovoltaic panel factory, with the goal of becoming a major player in the market.The plant, whose location has not been determined, will employ 400 workers and create 600 related jobs, according to G.E.The global conglomerate’s entry into the highly competitive photovoltaic market is likely to prove a significant challenge to First Solar, the thin-film market leader and the dominant manufacturer of cadmium telluride panels. Also at risk are start-ups like Abound Solar, a Colorado company that in December obtained a $400 million federal loan guarantee to build factories to manufacture cadmium telluride panels.
August 11, 2011 at 7:30 pm
tra
…solar power is currently generating more jobs in the US than any other power source industry.
Well I think what the article was saying was that it is generating more jobs per unit of energy produced than any other source. Coal, oil, gas, and nuclear actually employ many, many times more people in terms of absolute numbers.
In terms of the “per unit of energy produced” figures, I’m not sure this is really anything new — solar has long been more labor-intensive and less capital-intensive than, for example, nuclear (which is extremely capital-intensive).
But with the amount of solar installation on the rise, it’s starting to add up to a significant number of jobs, so I think that’s why people are finally starting to sit up and take notice of solar’s job-creation aspects.
August 16, 2011 at 5:41 pm
tra
“Recent research at Duke University has shown that sophisticated new solar energy production methods make the cheapest and least hazardous energy source that is cheaper and safer than nuclear power, according to United Press International, or UPI. The study said the cost of producing and installing PV cells had been steadily dropping for years and now cost about half of what it did in 1998.”
“In the U.S., the price of nuclear energy through 2011 is expected to equal $0.16-0.18 per kilowatt while solar PV is forecast to cost $0.14 per kilowatt, the study said.”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=us-dutch-firm-to-build-europe8217s-biggest-solar-plant–in-turkey-2011-03-28
August 16, 2011 at 5:50 pm
tra
Duke University has reported that solar energy costs are now cheaper than nuclear energy costs after a “historic crossover” in North Carolina.
The paper on this topic was written by John O. Blackburn, professor of economics at Duke University in North Carolina, and Sam Cunningham, a graduate student at Duke. The paper is titled “Solar and Nuclear Costs – The Historic Crossover,” and shows that change in costs on both solar and nuclear energy has finally forced them to meet, and then solar stole the show by becoming the new low-in-price renewable energy resource.
And this has happened despite the fact that nuclear has received the vast bulk of federal subsidies:
“From 1943 to 1999, the U.S. government paid nearly $151 billion, in 1999 dollars, in subsidies for wind, solar and nuclear power, Marshall Goldberg of the Renewable Energy Policy Project, a research organization in Washington, wrote in a July 2000 report,” wrote Powers. “Of this total, 96.3 percent went to nuclear power.
http://www.dailytech.com/Duke+Report+Claims+Solar+Energy+is+Now+Cheaper+Than+Nuclear+Power/article19228.htm