Scotland better at destroying jobs than Spain

According to George Jonas in Canada's National Post, Spain destroyed 2.2 real jobs for every "green" job created.

A study released this week concludes that government “green-job” programs aren’t the yellow-brick road to happiness in Europe. “Green programs in Spain destroyed 2.2 jobs for every job created,” write Kenneth P. Green and Ben Eisen in their paper for the Winnipeg-based think-tank, Frontier Centre, “while the capital needed for one green job in Italy could create five new jobs in the general economy.”

Johnny Foreigner has a lot to learn - the figure quoted for the UK is 3.7, which I think is probably actually the figure for Scotland.

Comments

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

I think the Greens in Ireland did a much better job. Unfortunately, it is hard to separate those on the dole due to all the green laws they forced through from what the greedy bankers ans politicians caused.

Still, their contribution to Irish misery was rewarded in the last election for good cause.

[Phillip Bratby]

Yes the figure of 3.7 jobs was in the report from Verso Economic for Scotland.

[Marion]

And meanwhile fuel poverty in Scotland continues to rise - from 1 in 4 households in 2007 to 1 in 3 households in 2009.

"fuel poverty has been rising in more recent years, largely because current increases in fuel prices are only being partially offset by rising incomes and energy efficiency increases. In 2009, 33% of households were in fuel poverty, compared to 13% in 2002."

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/TrendFuelPoverty

[Phillip Bratby]

Perhaps not all is lost in Scotland. If somebody will only heed what was writen in Scotsman today:

NO developed economy can function without a reliable and economic supply of electricity but with present UK policies we have been warned that within a few years there will be a risk of power failures while increases in prices to consumers will rise by more than 50 per cent by 2025.

On a standalone basis the situation in Scotland would be even more disastrous. The huge investment required to remedy the neglect and wishful thinking of recent years will require two decades or more to take effect and in the run up to the May elections we urge all political parties in Scotland to put the future of our electricity supplies at the top of their agendas.

The pretence that our electricity can in future be supplied from renewables, mainly wind and marine, has gone on too long. These matters are not a question of opinion; they are answerable to the laws of physics and are readily analysed using normal engineering methods. All of these energy sources are of very low concentrations and intermittent; they are and will remain inherently expensive and no amount of development will have more than a marginal effect on this conclusion.

Nor can wind and marine energy sources be relied on to provide electricity when it is needed; a recent analysis has shown that for over 30 per cent of the time the output from wind farms has dropped to below 10 per cent of their nominal output and during extremely cold weather has fallen to virtually zero. Furthermore it is unfortunately not correct that marine energy constitutes a vast untapped energy resource on our doorstep; studies (now apparently accepted by government) have shown that at best it could provide only a few percent of our electricity supplies and at costs which, including the necessary back up generation, would be entirely unacceptable to consumers.

Fossil fuelled generation (coal or gas) with carbon dioxide capture and underground storage may yet prove a useful technique but it is important to realise that it is an unproven technology on the scale required; that it may never be acceptable to dispose of such huge quantities of gas in underground storage and at present its costs are too uncertain to gamble on its playing a significant part in our forward energy policy.

So by all means let us have some wind power, development programmes for other renewables, home insulation programmes, heat pumps etc but let us not pretend that all these taken together will substitute for proven generation sources such as coal, gas and nuclear.

And if low carbon is to be the principal driver of energy policy, we can build on Scotland's half century of experience with nuclear, generating some 50 per cent of our electricity requirements, reliably and at low cost.

Scotland needs a balanced electricity system which can deliver economic and reliable supplies; we are at the 11th hour and there is now no more time to lose in getting to grips with this task. There can be nothing more urgent on the political agenda.

Colin Gibson C Eng FIEECCMI Network director National Grid 1993-97)

Prof Ken W D Ledingham FInstP

Prof Colin R McInnes FREng FRSE

Sir Donald Miller C EngFREng FRSE, Chairman ScottishPower 1982-92

Prof Anthony Trewavas FRS FRSE

Prof Jack Ponton FREng FIChemE

[David]

Don't think I can add to what the learned gentlemen are saying in Phillip Bratby's post - except perhaps to say to the politicians at Holyrood and Westminster - DO YOU GET IT YET..??

[Breath of fresh air]

DO YOU GET IT YET..??

No not yet, guessing a few years yet.

Go to Aldi and get a genny is the only way out.

[David]

Breath of fresh air - because I agree with you - I DID EXACTLY THAT..!!

[Jeff Wood]

Great find Philip, and I have taken the liberty of posting a link to the letter over at Anthony Watts' Tips and Notes, mentioning your name of course.

I also drew attention to the fact that there is a Page 2 to that page, with a letter in support of renewables, signed by a crew of rent-seekers in contrast to the sober, practical signatories to the letter you quote.

http://www.scotsman.com/opinion/Letter-Powerful-case-against-renewables.6758344.jp

[Jeff Wood]

Damn. Phillip, apologies for the misspelling.

[lapogus]

Phillip, thanks for posting the Scotsman letter, it is good to see some big hitters going public at last. I was out tonight at a local husting meeting where I took the opportunity to question the candidates over their blind and misplaced faith in renewables. I pointed out the 15-20GW energy gap we face by 2020, the rolling blackouts, the increased fuel poverty, mortality from hypothermia etc, but they just didn't get it - instead they all basically agreed with each other that we had no option but to "invest" in off-shore renewables and the "exciting opportunities" for Carbon Capture and Storage under the north sea. I think I got through to a few people in the audience but the politicians are definitely still residing in La La Land.

Meanwhile fuel poverty is already thought to have led to a doubling of the cases of malnutrition in the last 5 years in this area - http://www.thecourier.co.uk/Community/Health/article/12975/third-world-conditions-in-tayside-linked-to-heating-or-eating-quandary.html - and those figures won't take account of those who died outright from hypothermia. (Wait till we have to start paying for the off-shore madness like the Tiree Array and the daft wave and tidal projects). Jesus, we have a company which wants to build a new coal power station at Hunterston, and we have open cast coal mines in Scotland, but no, our MSPs instead want us to make tiny amounts of energy from very expensive contraptions which bob about in the waves for a few days until they break down or get trashed when the first storm comes along...

Jeff - the Scotsman has published another letter today which makes the same point you do about the the pro-wind subsidy-junkie letter writers - http://www.scotsman.com/opinion/Letter-Renewables39-backers-on-the.6758863.jp

The paper has also gone with an anti-wind opinion piece - http://www.scotsman.com/opinion/Leader-Turbines-casting-a-growing.6758934.jp - so we rationalists are making some progress, at least with the media.

[Phillip Bratby]

Lapogus: Politicians are sure still living in gagaland. They think if you keep throwing money at renewables it will solve all energy problems. Take the Pelamis wave energy converter. They are still throwing money at it hand over fist and yet the one in Portugal was abandoned (not much mention of that in the media - think Psalter Duck from years ago), 750kW, 50km offshore! Madness. In the SW, the local BBC news programme goes into raptures about the money being "invested" in the Wave Hub project and on all the wonderful new wind farms and solar parks in Cornwall. They think tourists will be flocking to Cornwall to view all the white elephants that are being erected around the coastline.

[Atomic Hairdryer]

My local windmills just got rejected

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-13220188

4 large ones that were due to keep the existing M4/Green Park windmill company. Some great suggestions for local residents to manage the problems of shadow flicker. They could fit blinds, or draw their curtains. Next step will probably be for the developers to appeal and waste more taxpayers money given they're the local Uni and the Carbon Trust.

[Alexander K]

Reading the stats for Scottish energy needs now and in the near future and the increasing rate of fuel poverty there is sad reading but it cheers me a little to see the list of 'heavy hitters' who co-signed the letter.
When one considers the engineering and scientific heritage of the Scots it makes one wonder where it all went and how this heritage could be so easily lost or subverted by the idiotic Green malaise.
I was raised on true tales of adventurous and inventive Scots such as the lighthouse-building Stevenson family, one of whom developed the Stevenson Screen the climate world is so familiar with.
A disproportionate number of groundbreaking mechanical or scientific advances that emerged during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, considering the relatively small population of that nation, featured a Scots designer/inventor/scientist.
As a footnote, my wife and I visited the world-famous and iconic Glasgow School of Art a few years ago; our tour guide, a charming German student in her final year there completing a degree in Art History, was totally ignorant of the carefully and very cleverly designed passive solar heating that is a major feature of the Charles Rennie MacIntosh-designed building. I suspect the incredible lack of knowledge of the scientific and engineering heritage of the member countries of the UK by it's leaders and citizens is largely the cause of the current woeful and dangerous ignorance.

[KevYYZ]

Johnny Foreigner

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Conrad+Black+cheese+eating+Labrador+countless+vituperative+flights+fancy/3195569/story.html