Posted on 09/02/2009 1:05:40 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
The Energy Department fired back at a Spanish university study that found government subsidies to support renewable energy development in that country actually cost jobs.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory said the report from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid uses flawed methodologies and fails to account for the export potential of new green technologies and other positive economic impacts of government renewable-energy subsidies.
The primary conclusion made by the authors policy support of renewable energy results in net jobs losses is not supported by their work, the NREL concludes in a response released last month.
The debate over jobs has emerged as a critical component in the larger fight over the climate bill. Critics of the cap-and-trade proposal have used the report from King Juan Carlos University to attack the administrations contention that the legislation will not only protect the environment but will boost the economy and create thousands of new green jobs.
The report found that two jobs are lost for every one job created through government subsidies to support renewable energy. Author Gabriel Calzada argued that the resources spent to support renewable energy crowd out private investment elsewhere in the economy.
Conservative commentators like Glenn Beck of Fox News and Republican members of the House have used the study to attack the administrations claims the climate bill will create jobs.
But NRELs response said the Juan Carlos report is overly simplistic, uses old jobs data, and fails to support its own conclusions.
There is no justification given for the assumption that government spending (e.g., tax credits or subsidies) would force out private investment. This assumption is fundamental to the conclusion that Spains renewable energy policy has resulted in job loss, the NREL says.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Think how much money might be saved and productive jobs created by eliminating the Federal Department of Energy. And Labor. And HHS. And Education. And Homeland Security. And...
A kangaroo report. NREL is not an objective when it comes to renewable energy.
Think how much money could be saved by just drilling for oil and building nuclear power plants.
Everybody knows the Joker lies.
Here’s an interesting and still-pertinent article which destroys the “biofuels” mythology:
July 2, 2008
Ending Our Oil Addiction: Reality Check
Raymond Kraft
[Excerpt]
The solution Democrats and Environmentalists propose for rising fuel prices is, as we all know, “biofuels,” “sustainable fuels,” the Holy Grail of the Greens. Yesterday, I heard Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, once more call for “ending our oil addiction.” But if we look a little closer, it soon becomes apparent that the Democrats and Greens cannot possibly have worked out the logistics of ending ouroil addiction, which are mind-boggling indeed. Unless they have, of course, and are desperately clinging to a total denial of reality, just as middle America clings to its guns and God.
To preface, most of the raw data about biofuels that I use to make the calculations below comes from the article, “Green Dreams: Making Fuel From Crops Could Be Good For The Planet - After A Breakthrough Or Two,” in National Geographic, October 2007. I am making the assumption that the data in National Geographic is reasonably accurate, for National Geographic has a good reputation to maintain.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.506,css.print/pub_detail.asp
Oh, yes it does. It mis-allocates capital to worthless projects. And that is what government does best.
It just cripples job creation and wounds the existing jobs, but it doesn't kill them. Isn't that so much better?
They’re in trouble (the White House), you can smell it, also with the BP announcement today.
Liberalism is a Mental Disease.
In Spain I met a guy who owns a photovoltaic company that does a lot of work in North Africa. His business is stalled because he’s waiting for a US gvmnt program to build a plant in Ohio to provide him with subsidized panels. This is at a time when there’s a glut of this stuff in Spain due to their own stupid policies.
Amazing!
Wanting something to be true does not make it true, even for Dim lefties. Or should that be especially for Dim lefties.
any Administration that can find the time to respond to an academic study from Spain has WAY too much time on it’s hands, WAY too much staff, and WAY too much of our money!
The U.S. Energy Department is clearly taking orders from Barack Obama as opposed to performing impartial scientific research. This should create ethical dilemmas for a lot of its personnel.
“Green” anything, except greenbacks, is a farce and a flop, like recycling was.
The question: how many more careers were ruined at the EPA to push this (atrocity) study through? http://gregcontreras.blogspot.com/
Liberalism is a Holistic Disease.
Has O ever been caught telling the truth?
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