Clean energy industry faces loss of a half million jobs
The beatings will continue until morale improves: The clean energy sector faces the loss of a half million jobs due to Wuhan panic and government-imposed shut downs.
The coronavirus crisis is cutting a savage swath through the U.S. clean energy industry – some 106,000 jobs in the sector vanished in the month of March alone as demand evaporated amid nationwide stay-at-home orders Moreover, that one-month job loss was greater than what the industry gained in jobs in all of 2019.
By June of this year, the clean energy sector may lose up to 500,000 jobs – or 15% of the country’s entire clean energy workforce — according to a study by clean energy advocacy group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), in cooperation with the American Council on Renewable Energy, E4TheFuture and BW Research Partnership.
Let me repeat: More jobs vanished in just March than were created in all of last year.
If the states don’t start reopening soon, this will just be the beginning.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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The beatings will continue until morale improves: The clean energy sector faces the loss of a half million jobs due to Wuhan panic and government-imposed shut downs.
The coronavirus crisis is cutting a savage swath through the U.S. clean energy industry – some 106,000 jobs in the sector vanished in the month of March alone as demand evaporated amid nationwide stay-at-home orders Moreover, that one-month job loss was greater than what the industry gained in jobs in all of 2019.
By June of this year, the clean energy sector may lose up to 500,000 jobs – or 15% of the country’s entire clean energy workforce — according to a study by clean energy advocacy group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), in cooperation with the American Council on Renewable Energy, E4TheFuture and BW Research Partnership.
Let me repeat: More jobs vanished in just March than were created in all of last year.
If the states don’t start reopening soon, this will just be the beginning.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Hell of a jobs program you got there. Would be a shame for something to mess it up.
“It said the number of workers in the sector is more than three times the number employed by the fossil fuel industry.”
Fossil fuel energy production still accounts for 80% of the generation in the US, green energy the remaining 20%, but you need 3/4 of the generation workforce to man that 20%. Freaking brilliant.
https://www.powermag.com/clean-energy-sector-sheds-106000-jobs-in-march/
Not so strange when you consider that one industry is mature while the other is still developing. (To take an analogy to the extreme, how much of Intel’s budget goes into production of its current generation of CPUs vs. the development of subsequent generations, and what are their respective revenues?)
Subsidies certainly have an effect, but they don’t tell the entire story.
CHOOSE HOW YOU WANT TO LIVE OR DIE
If you remember I told about a local 3 electrician I know who was on unemployment, $500 per week, AND as a part of this government attempt to “Help” he, and I know several others in the same boat, receive another $600 per week. So these guys are making $1100.00 per week, netting $4400.00 per month to stay home. All hard working guys. (And I know being a Local 3 electrician may not translate throughout the country)
Q: These highly trained people from all over the country who build, maintain and make everything run, like those in the energy field, who might also be compensated in a similar manner, how are the company’s that survive going to get them back to work in a timely manner?
They essentially are justifiably out for the next 5 to 6 months?
All the government can generally do is throw other people money at a problem and hope for the best. Lets be hopeful that Trump sees this in a different way and manages things as needed rather than allowing the swamp dwelling, paper pushers and desk pilots in Congress from “Helping” and managing things in the way that they tend to do.
So there IS a silver lining.