By Darrell Fortune, Johnson Controls
As a heavy consumer of news about anything related to energy, I always hate it when important developments in the energy story get buried under headlines about something that may be sexier in the short run, but will have little or no impact in the long run. Last week was a perfect example.
Judging from the coverage, the departure of Van Jones as the green jobs czar in the Obama administration was the big news on the energy-and-the-economy front last week. It wasn’t. At least two other really significant developments easily eclipsed the Jones story – but got little attention.
The first was a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) that finally, once and for all, debunks that Spanish study that supposedly found that when a government subsidizes renewable energy development its economy actually loses jobs as a result.
The study – conducted by Madrid’s King Juan Carlos University – has been used over and over again to discredit claims that developing renewable energy resources in the U.S. will not only help the environment and slow climate change, but will also create jobs and stimulate the economy. The Spanish report suggested that for every one job created by government subsidies of solar, wind or other renewables industries, two jobs are lost because private investments in other sectors of the economy decline.
Now, we can conclusively say, “Phooey!” NREL studied the study and found it is overly simplistic, used old jobs data and does not support its own conclusions. The NREL report says there is no evidence in the Spanish study suggesting that government spending on renewable energy would crowd out private investment. Since the conclusion rests on that assumption, the conclusion is wrong, said NREL: subsidizing renewable energy does not cost jobs.
A second big piece of green job news to come out last week was the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) report that calculates the employment and economic benefits of climate and energy legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and pending in the Senate.
The ACEEE report focuses not on the cap-and-trade elements of the legislation that have so far attracted so much attention, but on the energy efficiency measures. The report concludes that if these measures become law, they will, by 2030:
- save American consumers an average of $486 per household
- create over 600,000 jobs
- reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 500 million metric tons
- avoid the need for 419 medium-sized coal-fired power plants
The report goes on to project that if the energy efficiency measures in the legislation are strengthened, the improvements would likely increase dramatically: 48 percent more jobs, 32 percent more savings for consumers and nationwide carbon emissions that are 15 percent lower.
Observes Steven Nadel, ACEEE’s Executive Director and co-author of the report, “Energy efficiency may not be as hot a topic as cap-and-trade, but it certainly gets the job done when it comes to saving consumers money and creating jobs.”
And my colleague here at Johnson Controls, Mark Wagner, summed up our position on the report when he said, "We are one of a growing number of companies who recognize that energy efficiency means more jobs, lower costs, reduced emissions, and competitive advantage. Efficiency can bring economic benefits to every community in America – and we’re proud to work with ACEEE to tap into that incredible potential.”
Efficiency Now. It’s never been more important.
