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Green Jobs Myth

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

Environment

by Marta Hummel Mossburg

OP-EDS

Green jobs are supposed to be one of the pillars of Maryland's future economy. Twenty percent of the state's energy is supposed to come from renewable sources by 2020, including 2 percent from solar energy.

But the Solyndra bankruptcy shows the failure of a government policy of picking winners and losers. Taxpayers may be on the hook for $535 million because of the California-based company's bankruptcy filing last month. Congress, the FBI and the Treasury Department are all investigating why the company received a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy despite ample warning that it was not viable.

And we could be even more in the hole following two other loan guarantees of more than $1 billion to solar projects in Nevada and Arizona.

Now to jobs. Maryland has been one of the worst states at creating jobs since the recession ended, green jobs included. Nationally, green jobs are also losing people. As Joel Kotkin wrote in Forbes recently, "Since 2006, the waste management and remediation sector -- a critical portion of the green economy -- actually lost over 480,000 jobs, 4 percent of its total employment." What sector is adding jobs? The biggest growth is happening in the mining, oil and natural gas industries.

One bright spot: The number of people installing solar panels in the state is increasing. But the cost -- from about $9,000 to $50,000 per house -- is prohibitive to most residents. (The median household income in Maryland is about $69,000.) Even those with the cash to install them have little incentive to do so, considering that the payoff in energy savings can take decades. And with home prices in decline or stagnating, the initial outlay will likely never be recouped at sale.

And we haven't even gotten to the cost of generating electricity with solar energy compared with other types of energy. Solar power is about three times as expensive as electricity produced by natural gas. By comparison, wind energy starts at about twice as much.

It's one thing for individuals to make the decision to switch to solar, but a state policy mandating a certain percentage of solar electricity will hit all ratepayers. Constellation Energy just announced last week plans for a $60 million solar facility in Emmitsburg. Energy from the project will be bought by Maryland's Department of General Services and the University of Maryland.

Nowhere in the press release about the project was the projected cost of the energy versus electricity produced by natural gas. But it's a given that the project means Maryland taxpayers will be forking over more money to provide energy to state agencies.

The same thing will happen to individual ratepayers as more energy suppliers are forced by politics to buy more renewable energy. For example, an offshore wind farm supported by Gov. Martin O'Malley was projected to cost ratepayers an extra $9 per month if it goes forward. California has some of the highest electricity costs in the nation because of its mandates -- something Marylanders have to look forward to.

Green energy is expensive, unreliable and a job-killing folly. Maryland needs cheap, reliable energy to grow, not utopian goals.