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posted by
Fnord666
on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:34PM
from the the-future-is-looking-brighter dept.
from the the-future-is-looking-brighter dept.
New data from the Solar Jobs Census 2016 shows that employment in the solar-power industry increased by a historic 25% nationwide from 2015 to 2016, for a total of 260,077 workers.
The industry added 51,218 new jobs in 2016, a growth rate about 17 times faster than that of the overall U.S. economy, which grew by 1.45%. One out of every 50 new jobs added in the U.S. was created by the solar industry, representing 2% percent of all new jobs.
Growth occurred in 44 of the 50 states. And in 21 states, solar jobs grew by 50% or more, according to The Solar Foundation.
Competition among manufacturers has already brought down the cost of panels to grid parity in many places. Competition in installation can't help but bring those costs down, too.
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Solar Power-Related Jobs in U.S. Grew 25% in 2016
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:58PM (4 children)
Its interesting that people assume the God Emperor hates solar, when there's not much evidence one way or another of his personal opinions.
One thing that's not debatable is his "business advisory council" is packed with renewable investors. He'd be pissing off basically his whole council of CEOs if he did something anti-renewable. He could, sure. But other than some sort of "keep your enemies closer" why would he surround himself with people deeply invested in renewables?
As far as broad policy goes pissing off China in a trade war would have renewable problems as an almost microscopic footnote. So there could be unintentional fallout.
Another broad policy he's got is "freeing us from dependence on foreign oil" so to some extent putting up a panel to avoid importing Saudi crude oil sounds like his kind of thing.
Trump also has a "thing" for lower cost energy. Taking a look at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#United_States [wikipedia.org]
It would appear that PV in 2020 will average cheaper than advanced coal and natgas. And renewables in general (counting wind, etc) are more or less the cheapest source of electrons out there.
You know how broadcast TV looked in the 70s or 80s, or newspapers in my parents generation, thats how carbon burning plants will look in just a decade or so. Can you imagine how dumb an electric company rep will look in ten years when some coal plant they just built is twice the cost to operate as a solar and windmill plant of the same output? All that money financed with 30 year bonds to depreciate over decades and its worthless in a decade. There's gonna be money to be made shorting legacy electric companies...
Anyway the point of the latter is it isn't 1970 any more and you don't need communism or socialism for renewables to be the cheapest source of electricity, so... you can love coal or you can hate coal personally, but no CEO is going to spend twice as much to install coal burners instead of windmills just because he really likes soot or some darn thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:36PM (2 children)
the God Emperor
You mispelled "Emperor With no Clothes"
One thing that's not debatable is his "business advisory council" is packed with renewable investors. He'd be pissing off basically his whole council of CEOs if he did something anti-renewable.
Ermagod! He might piss off the people he tricked into being a photo-op!
Personnel is policy and he put oil guys in charge of the DoE and the EPA. So far he has not appointed anyone with any solar credentials to any position.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:42AM (1 child)
I think that you know about as much about the DoE as Rick Perry did.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:40PM
>> Personnel is policy and he put oil guys in charge of the DoE and the EPA.
>
> I think that you know about as much about the DoE as Rick Perry did.
I'm sure posting that made you feel good, but how delusional do you have to be to think that Perry and Pruitt aren't oil guys?
Or are you one of those utter dumbfucks who thinks the DoE has nothing to do with green energy research? [hhttps]
PS, I am literally a former DoE employee who worked in nuclear research. Who the fuck are you?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:09AM
Mr. Trump had this to say about solar energy (I copy-pasted this verbatim):
We're going to have all sorts of energy. We're going to have everything you can think of, including solar.
And I know a lot about solar. The problem with solar: It's very expensive. When you have a 30-year payback, that's not exactly the greatest thing in the world. But I know a lot about solar. I have gone solar on occasion, but it a very, very expensive thing.
-- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/26/theres-a-lot-to-unpack-in-donald-trumps-answers-about-energy-policy/ [washingtonpost.com]
video of his speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I8soRz1cAA [youtube.com]