June 30, 2009 THE rapid expansion of wind and solar "green...

June 30, 2009

THE rapid expansion of wind and solar "green power" will waste billions of dollars and destroy far more jobs than it supposedly creates.

That is the damning message from what appears to be the first serious analysis anywhere in the world of the actual real-world performance and impact of subsidising and force-feeding these very expensive and semi-useless alternative energy sources.

That in itself is damning. That governments, including both state and federal in Australia, have embarked on massive multibillion-dollar wind and solar schemes, without anywhere engaging in even the most basic analysis of cost – let alone (perish the thought) their actual energy effectiveness – is worse.

You can search in vain for any serious cost-benefit analysis from our utterly compromised Federal Treasury, which used to be a bastion of reason and intellectual substance, but is now an institutional apostle of climate hysteria.

Its purported analysis of the impact of cutting emissions was an embarrassing extended 292-page joke.

Indeed, the Treasury home-page announces its new theology of unreason by actually linking to this report by blithely – unknowingly – highlighting the straight-out Wayne Swan and Penny Wong lie with "Australia's Low Pollution Future".

The damning analysis comes from Madrid's Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.

It is particularly potent because Spain has made arguably the broadest commitment to the construction and production of electricity from these renewable sources.

The analysis has two major conclusions. That for every "green job" the state manages to finance, at least 2.2 jobs are lost elsewhere in the economy. And that does not count the extra jobs that could have been created if the money poured into wind and solar had been spent elsewhere.

That's the second point: the huge waste of money. The study calculates that, since 2000, Spain has spent $571,000 ($A1 million) to create each "green job", including subsidies of more than $1 million per wind-industry job.

Indeed, it goes on to discover that the whole process has created a surprisingly low number of jobs, two-thirds of which came in construction, fabrication and installation.

A further one-quarter were in administrative positions. Just one in 10 jobs had been created at the permanent level of actual operation and maintenance of the renewable sources of energy.

Now the study does not draw a direct link between this waste – in both the jobs and energy sense – and Spain's very high levels of unemployment. The jobless rate in Spain is a stunning 18 per cent – double the European average of 9 per cent and more than three times Australia's 5.7 per cent.

But it does argue that a "green jobs" policy would hinder Spain's way out of the current economic crisis. And it damns the claims that such "green energy jobs" would help in the US.

While it would be inappropriate to translate Spain's experience directly to the US, the Obama Administration's claim that "green energy" could create 3-5 million jobs is likely to directly wipe out 6.6 million to 11 million jobs elsewhere.

Why? Because of the costs to production and employment, principally in metallurgy, non-metallic mining and the food processing, beverage and tobacco industries.

It is not clear whether the study factors in the jobs that would be lost from reduced consumer spending because of the higher power costs.

But it does say that the costs do not appear to be unique to Spain's approach. But are "largely inherent in schemes to promote renewable energy sources".

Each "green" megawatt installed destroyed 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the Spanish economy: 8.99 by photovoltaic (solar) and 4.27 by wind.

The total over-cost of renewable energy – over buying power at market prices – between 2000 and 2008 added up to $US10 billion ($A12.5 billion). The total subsidy spent and committed added up to $US36 billion.

And note two things – my comment.

Even with its huge commitment, Spain is only getting started down the alternative energy route. As the analysis noted, despite solar power being subsidised at seven times the mean price of the power pool, it was yet to get to 1 per cent of Spain's total electricity production.

And conventional power is already much more expensive in Europe than here. So the extra cost from solar and wind would be much greater here than there.

If we seriously tried to get to 20 per cent "alternative", the cost on consumers would be huge, the destruction of real jobs massive.

The report also deals a damning blow to Treasury's claim that there's a "first-mover" advantage to accelerating moves to alternative power.

Because the force-feeding of ineffecient wind and solar will "leave Spain with – and further artificially perpetuating – obsolete fixed assets, far less productive than cutting-edge technologies".


http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25710280-3122,00.html