Thread: 373,000 solar jobs in the country – five times the number of coal industry jobs

By CARTER EVANS CBS NEWS June 2, 2017, 7:23 PM

California, New York form climate alliance after Trump withdraws from Paris accord

SAN FRANCISCO -- Around the country, governors and mayors are saying that if President Trump won't lead the way on protecting the environment, they will.

"Wake up. This is happening, this is real!" California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown says he would tell Washington after Mr. Trump opted to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.

CBS News caught up with Brown as he was boarding a flight to Beijing to attend a clean energy summit. He's going as the leader of the sixth richest economy in the world -- the state of California.

"When Mr. Trump does something so outrageous to the science and to the reality to climate change we can't stand idly by. This is serious stuff," Brown says.

California Gov. Jerry Brown joined with Washington, New York, Canada and Mexico to form the U.S. Climate Alliance to honor the commitment of the Paris accord.

CBS NEWS
When Mr. Trump pulled out of the climate accord, Brown immediately formed the U.S. Climate Alliance with Washington state, New York, Mexico and Canada to honor the commitment of the agreement. Those three states make up a fifth of the U.S. population and 11 percent of the U.S. emissions.

California has adopted the nation's toughest car emissions standards, then pushed solar and electric cars.

Brown disagrees when Mr. Trump says going in that direction is pulling the U.S. backwards and putting Americans at a disadvantage.

"Mr. Trump is wrong on the facts, wrong on the science, wrong on the economy," Brown says.

Play VIDEO
What Trump gains by withdrawing from Paris climate agreement

California has seen a boom in green jobs. Andrew Thurrey was a plumber before working in the solar industry.

"I have a pretty good middle-class life right now," Thurrey says. "I was able to buy a home. I believe that would have been hard doing my other profession."

Solar now accounts for 373,000 jobs in the country – five times the number of coal industry jobs.

California has accounted for one out of every six new jobs since 2012.

"Eventually, the Trump administration will have to come around. He cannot deviate from the entire world in the way he's trying to right now," Brown says.

Individual states cannot sign the Paris Agreement, but they can commit to the same standards. During Brown's trip to China, he plans to push for even more cooperation on clean energy policies.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/californ...-paris-accord/

Solar now accounts for 373,000 jobs in the country – five times the number of coal industry jobs.

So what's the problem? It looks like solar is doing great in the US. Trump supports solar energy. Trump supports all forms of energy, A to Z, "all of the above". That's why he had people like Elon Musk on two of his councils including a manufacturing council. But as this statistic shows, solar is more labor intensive than other forms which is why it's more expensive so it doesn't work for all energy users across the board, because it doesn't work in all environments, locations, applications or demographics. Same with wind turbines, which work in some environments and applications, but not so well in others which is why we need a diversity and lots of options and domestic competition.

Here are some facts to gain a perspective:

What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?

In 2016, about 4.08 trillion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity1 were generated at utility-scale facilities in the United States.2 About 65% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases), about 20% was from nuclear energy, and about 15% was from renewable energy sources. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that an additional 19 billion kWh (or about 0.02 trillion kWh) of electricity generation was from small-scale solar photovoltaic systems in 2016.3

Major energy sources and percent shares of U.S. electricity generation at utility-scale facilities in 20161

Natural gas = 33.8%
Coal = 30.4%
Nuclear = 19.7%
Renewables (total) = 14.9%
Hydropower = 6.5%
Wind = 5.6%
Biomass = 1.5%
Solar = 0.9%
Geothermal = 0.4%
Petroleum = 0.6%
Other gases = 0.3%
Other nonrenewable sources = 0.3%
Pumped storage hydroelectricity = -0.2%4

1 Preliminary data for 2016.
2 Electricity generating facilities (power plants) with at least one megawatt (or 1,000 kilowatts) of total electricity generating capacity.
3 Small-scale solar photovoltaic systems are electricity generators with less than one megawatt of electricity generating capacity that are usually at or near the location where the electricity is consumed. Most small-scale solar photovoltaic systems are installed on building rooftops.
4 Pumped storage hydroelectricity generation is negative because most pumped storage electricity generation facilities use more electricity than they produce on an annual basis.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

When Trump talks about jobs, jobs, jobs from energy development, he's talking about all the jobs in the industry itself, as well as the jobs that will be created in manufacturing due to abundant low-cost energy and the jobs that are the spin-off of that manufacturing of all types of products. Energy is a major issue of manufacturing both in type of fuel source, the volume available, the reliability of the source and the price per BTU unit.

The CORRUPT MEDIA makes hay on CNN about Exxon-Mobil supporting the Paris Accord, like "can you believe it, even Exxon-Mobile supported the Paris Accord." Well, that's because Exxon-Mobile is involved in major renewable energy research, has been for many years, working on a new product produced from algae. BP and Shell also have research programs in alternative energy sources.

DuPont supported the Paris Accord. Yet DuPont wants to force its greenhouse gas nitrogen-containing fertilizers down everyone's throat and excess nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere, which is a greenhouse gas with a useful life many times that of carbon dioxide, and why you pay stormwater fees, as well as push their freaky Round-Up embedded GMO seeds on the world which in my opinion, threatens the fundamental genetics of all life on this planet.

It's time for Americans to sort through the SWAMP of distortions spewed by the CORRUPT MEDIA.

I like solar, I just don't want those ugly panels on my roof or in the yard. I don't even like seeing those solar farms. Taking all that habitat to deliver high-priced energy systems .... why? When people figure out that we don't have enough landmass to power solar much more than we're at right now, they'll understand why we need all forms of energy and let the consumer decide what they prefer for their situation, tastes, ideology, location, environment and pocket-book.

Advanced societies don't want to see their energy source in their face and landscape every day any more than they want to smell their waste, for the same reason we bury power lines which if we buried all power lines we would save a fortune in energy loss and billions in storm repairs.

So when Exxon-Mobil announces their new algae source and BP and Shell announce theirs, what is the solar industry going to do then? Solar is only where it's at today because of mandates, tax credits and subsidies from government. It can't compete on its own and that's why those who invested in solar are so upset with Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Accord. It's not about climate change, it's about using government to force a non-competitive product on Americans at the expense of products that are competitive.

So does Jerry Brown have "TIES TO CHINA"? They're Communists you know. They're cheating US on trade, they're building big offensive military islands in the South China Sea. They won't let Taiwan be free. They won't help with North Korea. They have slave labor locked in dormitories with such miserable conditions these young workers prefer suicide? So is Jerry Brown "COLLUDING WITH THE CHINESE?" Has he filed forms about his trip and disclosed his purpose as a foreign agent?

Solar is less than 1% of our energy supply. It will never be much more than that. But for those who like seeing solar farms instead of habitat, want to turn their roofs or yards into contraptions for solar energy, have at it. In a country where zoning laws prevent you from having a garden in your front yard or a US flag flying on your porch, that just seems so odd and foreign.