How much are these new green jobs costing?

Posted by Derek Satnik on Jan 21, 2014 in Policy, Renewables | 0 comments

FAQ Question #16:

Mindscape often receives questions related to wind and solar energy because of the work we do. This blog entry is one of over 50 such questions, the rest of which will be posted to this blog approximately weekly for the coming year. All 50+ can be downloaded from www.mi-group.ca/faq.

FAQ Response by Derek Satnik:

How much are these new green jobs costing?

In Ontario, every dollar invested in solar energy creates 12 times more jobs than nuclear and 15 times more jobs than natural gas or coal per unit of energy produced, and at 1/4th to 1/6th the cost of jobs created by nuclear, natural gas, or coal. Solar is the most expensive technology among those supported by theGreen Energy Act, and the other technologies offer strong job creation statistics as well.

Some Ontario agencies have copied the infamous and false “Spanish Jobs Study” (see Q14), and have alleged that these green energy jobs are costing Ontario as much as $170k/yr/job. This is completely false and is badly overstated. The total amount of money paid by the Ontario government for electricity from all sources of renewable energy combined in 2010 was approximately $270 million, which helped create nearly 20,000 jobs. That works out to only $13.5k/job on average, which is far cheaper than what we pay for nuclear or natural gas jobs, and even compares well with infrastructure jobs. Not only that, but these are good jobs: manufacturing, consulting, and contracting positions, and all for a fraction of what the jobs contribute back to the economy: The income tax collected from these new jobs nearly pays for the jobs to be created, and from that point of view, these jobs are costing the government very little indeed, between $6k/job and $zero in the end.