British Report: Green sector costs more jobs than it creates
With Solyndra and half a dozen other solar panel boondoggles which seemed only to go into business to launder government money from the American people, to the business and pay off cronies who gave big donations to Obama before shutting down, to the money we are paying for electric cars made in Finland, to the battery plant that is about to shut down in Greenfield, Indiana, to the failure of the government subsidized Chevy Volt; this is a lesson that America is learning the hard way. Except the British learned this lesson last February.
Via the BBC:
A study by consultants Verso Economics found there was a negative impact from the policy to promote the industry.
It said 3.7 jobs were lost for every one created in the UK as a whole and that political leaders needed to engage in "honest debate" about the issue.
The Scottish government called the study "misleading" and said 60,000 jobs could be created by the sector by 2020.
The report, called Worth the Candle? The economic impact of renewable energy policy in Scotland and the UK, said the industry in Scotland benefited from an annual transfer of about £330m from taxpayers and consumers elsewhere in the UK.
It said politicians needed to recognise the economic and environmental costs of support for the sector and focus more on the scientific and technical issues that arose.
Richard Marsh, research director of Verso Economics and co-author of the report, said: "There's a big emphasis in Scotland on the economic opportunity of investing in renewable energy.
"Whatever the environmental merits, we have shown that the case for green jobs just doesn't stack up."
Co-author Tom Miers added: "The Scottish renewables sector is very reliant on subsidies from the rest of the UK.
"Without this UK-wide framework, it would be very difficult to sustain the main policy tools used to promote this industry."
A spokesman for the Scottish government said other studies had shown Scotland's natural resources and low carbon opportunities could bring "significant" economic benefits.
Oh we have seen the benefits havent we, namely in inflation, souring energy costs and hundreds of thousands of coal, natural gas, and oil workers put on unemployment by this administrations illegal drilling bans and revocation of environmental permits without cause.