I’m going to admit right off the bat that I haven’t read the article at Slate I’m linking to. It’s just that its title struck me funny: “The Solar Business Now Employs More Americans Than Coal Mining”. It reminded me of the old joke about the lawyer who appealed for mercy for his client, on trial for murdering his parents, because he was an orphan.
Illinois produced 37.7 million tons of coal in 2011 with 4,306 employees.
In 1933, Illinois produced 35.3 million tons of coal with 40,666 employees.
A perfect example, PD. I also wonder how many people solar would employ without government subsidies.
I had thought about commenting on how interesting it would be to determine jobs per btu/ produced, but I am not sure I would like the policy implications that might be taken from that.
I guess my point in this post was that if you impose enough regulations on an industry you can depress employment in that industry to the point at which just about any other industry looks good. You can’t draw many conclusions from that, though, other than that the federal government has the power to make or break industries.
And the big thing is that a lot of the solar jobs are going to be installation work, with an American supervisor and a crew of illegal Guatemalans, who will send back as much of their pay as they can to the home country. Once enough old buildings get retro-fitted, those job numbers will taper off.
I think your post is correct. The most comprehensive coal legislation occurred in the 1970s, just before the 1979-1980 peak: the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, the Clean Air Act of 1970, and the Surface Mining Control & Reclamation Act of 1977. There is some time lag for these to be implemented, and some offset from the oil embargo.
From the end of the linked piece:
“Presumably, as solar’s growth rate slows down at some point in the future, some of those jobs will naturally disappear. And, as Grist notes, that day could come sooner rather than later, as an important federal tax credit for renewables is scheduled to expire in 2017. So, from an employment perspective, coal may have a built-in advantage—you need workers to constantly dig more of it out of the ground to burn. Of course, that’s also coal’s biggest problem.”
I have to wonder, what powers solar panel manufacturing plants? Besides tax expenditures, that is. Solar power? Unicorns? Good intentions?