Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Green Jobs

I'm writing a very short piece on the nebulous "green jobs" we hear so much about, when I came across this claim from 2007:

Renewable energy creates twice as many jobs per unit of energy than traditional fossil fuel-based generating technologies.
Roughly translated, this says to me:
Renewable energy requires twice as many labor hours to generate one unit as an identical unit of energy produced from fossil fuels like coal or oil.
Why is that a selling point in favor of renewable versus fossil fuel-based energy sources? It's almost like saying that renewable energy is good because it's inefficient to produce.

3 comments:

Hempy said...

It depends on what the source of green energy is. While the Bluegrass Policy Blog (BGB) gives lip service to Milton Friedman, it dosn’t advocate putting the principles of capitalism into effect that Friedman advocated.

In Kentucky, if the green energy were from hemp it would create about 117,000 jobs in 44 agriculture counties. That’s far more jobs than what the coal industry has in Kentucky.

Too, hemp produces 20% to 40% more oxygen while growing than carbon dioxide when burnt. Fossil fuels cannot make that claim.

Hemp, growing on 6% of marginal land in the US can produce enough fuels to replace all fossil fuels.

Hemp would eliminate the environmental destruction of mountain top removal and eliminate the adverse environmental impact of mountain top removal.

Hemp is far more efficient to produce than it is to mine for coal or drill for gas or oil.

But given that BPB is enraptured with the atheistic ideology of Ayn Rand, advocating legalization of all things hemp would be too much like preaching biblical stewardship of the land. Ayn Rand loathed and detested capitalism and anything reflecting biblical values.

plumbing said...

But if you think the other way around, the use of renewable energy will reduce unemployment through man power it requires. It has advantages as well as disadvantages.

Hempy said...

Plumbing:

That''s real brilliant. Don't forget the high tech jobs that using hemp will create.

For example, hemp can be bred to produce a hybrid that can produce a high quality charcoal.

Hemp DNA could be combined with a human's DNA to produce a hip replacement that would be compatible with the recipient's DNA.

Think of the high tech jobs that would create. Hemp legalization would create more jobs than what fossil fuels now create.

What disadvantages are there to this other than it would be competition to the pharmaceutical cartel and those who make metallic hip replacement parts that are fraught with hazards.

Perhaps now you can understand why Adam Smith and Milton Friedman argued against prohibition.

That's something that the Ayn Rand atheistic Bluegrass Policy Blog can't seem to bring itself to address.