I don't think this is significant. They're counting the entire solar industry against one very specific role in a specific fossil fuel industry. What about all the people working on coal plants and the related infrastructure? What about all the people working in oil & gas?
Given how such a small percentage of US energy is solar, if it required more man power than coal plants I'd take it as a sign that we're doing something seriously unsustainable in the way we do solar.
A common argument against renewable energy pushes is how it hurts the coal jobs - at least in areas like pennsylvania, kentucky, and west virginia. A "they're tryna take er jerbs" argument is a good way to get voters out against it when most people are in the industry, or have parents, siblings, inlaws, or relatives that would loose a job if that happened.
Keep in mind that solar, kind of like electric cars, has much of its costs front loaded. Roughly speaking, you spend $20k more on an electric car, and then save $15k on fuel because its cheaper to run off electricity than gasoline. But that $20K is today and the $15k savings is over 15 years.
Similarly w/ solar panels. Return of investment is a few years. whereas marginal coal is probably very profitable, that is coal from an existing operating mine.
That's a subtle reframing you've done there. "Solar" is an entity unto itself, but "coal" is a submember of "fossil fuels". Apparently "solar" doesn't get the same consideration, despite being a member of the "renewable energy" industry.
What about all the people working on coal plants and the related infrastructure?
The article said "coal mining jobs", not "coal miners" specifically. Coal mining includes jobs like truck driving and the other items you're asking about.
You've basically done a double-whammy reframing: solar jobs are "generic-anything in an entire industry"; coal jobs are only the literal miners themselves, in a 'narrowed-down' field from a wider industry.
>Given how such a small percentage of US energy is solar, if it required more man power than coal plants I'd take it as a sign that we're doing something seriously unsustainable in the way we do solar.
Solar is very capital intensive - making the panels & deploying them - but operationally very, very cheap (all you have to do is give the panels a wipedown every so often).
By the time solar is a large percentage of US energy it will probably still employ a similar number of workers.
also, it is easy to forget that the steel industry is a major consumer of metallurgical coal (commonly called met coal), not as an energy source but as a raw material (coke). Producers of high quality, low sulphur coal might sell the same product to energy producers as "steam coal" or "thermal coal" as well as to steel producers. When prices for steam coal dip, it often stimulates steel production.
I have experience in coal mining, but I don't know much about the coking process, other than that the coal is partially burned. Presumably as long as we're manufacturing virgin steel some of the coal carbon is released anyhow.
and do you count the unskilled subcontractors from the building trades - when we had our roof instalation done recently a couple of guys came a few days before and put up the scafolding - are they part of the "solar industry"
On the positive side: it appears that solar energy is highly effective as an employment generator.
On the negative side: the fraction of electricity generation provided by solar vs. coal is a very small fraction, meaning that you're looking at far more workers per GWh of actual energy production.
The 8 month total generation for 2012 includes 12,346 GWh of solar PV, vs. 1,105,161 GWh for coal generation.
This means that a solar worker is responsible for 0.087 GWh of generation. A coal miner is responsible for 8.968 GWh of electricity generation.
At this rate, we'd require 32.11 million workers in solar to replace existing coal generation capacity. While that would be a strongly effective employment program, it would also be devoting a vastly larger portion of the United States' labor force to the task of energy provisioning.
That's a significant chunk of the 147.3 million total civilian workforce as of October, 2014, at 22%.
The argument about GWh/working is an interesting way to look at the world.
We need to remember that solar capacity has long life-span (say ~25 years minimum) per panel. Where coal needs to be constantly mined and burned.
If you multiple 0.087*25 years of operation you get 2.175GWh/worker in solar.
Now, there are an almost endless numbers of adjustments you can make to this calculation. And you really need to use the "newly installed capacity/year" number when multiplying by the lifespan of the panels.
I think the calculation is more complicated than you make it seem. And it's not surprising that the cost to install a long-life span technology is relatively high (in terms of man-power) as solar is in its infancy.
(I say infancy b/c I believe we'll be far more efficient at making and installing solar cells 30 years from now than we are today. I expect coal mining to make smaller efficiency gains.)
Finally, jobs are a great thing. YC put out a RFS looking for ~1million new jobs:
https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#million
I'd love to see them created in solar.
The starting numbers are nonsense though. It is people who work in any aspect of solar for at least half their work time vs people who directly mine coal, but not people who work in any aspect of coal for half their work time. Coal is pretty useless if you do not transport it or build machines to burn it in.
Isn't the largest labor input for solar in manufacturing and installation, rather than maintenance? Using your example of 12,346 GWh of solar PV for 2012, wouldn't those solar installations have produced the same amount of power (or close to it) in 2013 without any additional labor input, plus whatever new capacity was installed in 2013, resulting a higher GWh:worker ratio?
a) if we did this, you can bet on vastly improved automation and efficiencies, and much larger plants. Solar jobs are vastly dominated by rooftop installation, which isn't at all what you'd get if you were powering a whole nation.
b) After the solar output is built, you don't need to add much more, and maintenance is much less than the construction labor. You might need only 2 - 10 % of your estimate -- just adding solar at the electric grid replacement rate. Still, that's a lot of labor.
Besides being a bad metric (solar installations have fixed up-front costs, with long lifespans)...
High labor costs per unit of energy is a good thing. Coal mining is resource intensive, and a significant portion of your energy dollar is going into paying for the cost of mining and transport. If a kWh of solar costs the same as a kWh of coal, all things equal, it is better for society for that cost to be spread among many well paid, middle class laborers.
Also you're basically comparing sales when margin should be the metric.
8.968GWh of "sales" , but how much of that is spent mining it? And cleaning up after it w/ the pollution from burning, the damage to the environment etc etc?
Same story for Solar too, i know there is impact, but I would venture that the "costs" are much less, so to speak.
From what I can tell, solar doesn't contribute a significant amount of electricity. About 0.25%. Coal is about 40%. I think we're comparing the wrong thing.
This is apples and oranges. They're comparing coal miners to people who are primarily engaged in building or installing solar panels. If you want a true comparison along those lines, you'd need to account for every person working at a coal-fired power plant or working on a coal-based power source (like antique trains).
While I'm generally pro-solar, more workers is not an inherent good with an energy source... quite the opposite. The idea of energy is to require as few workers as possible so that human attention and labor can be spent on other things.
This is likely directly related to the fact that coal has a higher EROEI than solar (neglecting long-term externalities of course).
>While I'm generally pro-solar, more workers is not an inherent good with an energy source... quite the opposite. The idea of energy is to require as few workers as possible so that human attention and labor can be spent on other things.
Because the country has a massive overemployment problem right now?
For every square meter of PV deployed, you start with 1 kW of incident sunlight, reduced by the panel efficiency (~15%), capacity factor (~25%), the shading/spacing factor (~55%), and inverter efficiency (~90%). Your panels have a nominal life of 20 years after which they must be replaced.
On a square-meter basis, the raw output of a coal-fired plant is vastly higher. That footprint is extended by mining operations, fuel transport (mostly railroad), and tailings and ash disposal. It's still pretty high.
That said, I'd prefer to see approaches to increasing solar worker efficiency rather than prolonging use of coal.
I have a startup in solar, and the thing I don't think people are understanding here is the unbelievable amount of growth that is starting to happen in solar. We're talking 400x growth in the next 40 years[1].
So far, the solar industry has reached grid parity (i.e. unsubsidized costs <= retail cost from the grid) in a few U.S. states and several countries[2]. When it has reached grid parity in these locations, you see a huge inflow of investment capital since there's little regulatory risk[3].
This trend will not change. Solar will only get cheaper, and fossil fuels will only get more expensive. So what happens in 10-20 years when solar is at or below grid parity in most of the world? Mix that financial advantage with a huge political movement to fight climate change (e.g. stop Colorado from burning down every other year), and you have the formula for another whale oil-style shift in energy.
I'm originally a chemical engineer from Texas, and I have a standing $100 bet with two of my friends who work in the petroleum industry that they will not retire in an oil job. Anyone else want to take that bet?
I'd like to know your thoughts on today's cheap oil prices-- assuming oil stays around $70-80 a barrel for the next few years, do you see that slowing down solar development/investment? In other words, do people keep their "eyes on the prize" so to speak, or are they dissuaded by temporarily cheap oil prices?
If you define the terms of the bet I might be interested. Perhaps you friends won't retire in oil-extraction jobs, I can see that potentially happening, probably not in my lifetime (I'm 33). But the petroleum industry as a whole: liquid fuels; lubricants; plastics -- I can't see that going anywhere.
This seems like bad news. Given the ratio of Solar:Coal as source of power generation in US, ideally we would expect the Solar workers to be far less. This is a scaling problem.
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|11 years ago|reply
Given how such a small percentage of US energy is solar, if it required more man power than coal plants I'd take it as a sign that we're doing something seriously unsustainable in the way we do solar.
edit: good points in the responses
[+] [-] cleverjake|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maerF0x0|11 years ago|reply
Similarly w/ solar panels. Return of investment is a few years. whereas marginal coal is probably very profitable, that is coal from an existing operating mine.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|11 years ago|reply
My concern is that the per-worker productivity is vastly lower than what we've been used to for fossil-fuel generation.
Mind: I also think we can't get off of coal fast enough.
[+] [-] heydenberk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|11 years ago|reply
What about all the people working on coal plants and the related infrastructure?
The article said "coal mining jobs", not "coal miners" specifically. Coal mining includes jobs like truck driving and the other items you're asking about.
You've basically done a double-whammy reframing: solar jobs are "generic-anything in an entire industry"; coal jobs are only the literal miners themselves, in a 'narrowed-down' field from a wider industry.
[+] [-] crdoconnor|11 years ago|reply
Solar is very capital intensive - making the panels & deploying them - but operationally very, very cheap (all you have to do is give the panels a wipedown every so often).
By the time solar is a large percentage of US energy it will probably still employ a similar number of workers.
It's kind of like writing code in that respect.
[+] [-] mmphosis|11 years ago|reply
There are actually fewer people with jobs in oil & gas compared to other industries.
http://credbc.ca/role-energy-sector-bcs-economy/
[+] [-] gooseyard|11 years ago|reply
I have experience in coal mining, but I don't know much about the coking process, other than that the coal is partially burned. Presumably as long as we're manufacturing virgin steel some of the coal carbon is released anyhow.
[+] [-] spacecowboy_lon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|11 years ago|reply
On the negative side: the fraction of electricity generation provided by solar vs. coal is a very small fraction, meaning that you're looking at far more workers per GWh of actual energy production.
The 8 month total generation for 2012 includes 12,346 GWh of solar PV, vs. 1,105,161 GWh for coal generation.
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_5.pdf
This means that a solar worker is responsible for 0.087 GWh of generation. A coal miner is responsible for 8.968 GWh of electricity generation.
At this rate, we'd require 32.11 million workers in solar to replace existing coal generation capacity. While that would be a strongly effective employment program, it would also be devoting a vastly larger portion of the United States' labor force to the task of energy provisioning.
That's a significant chunk of the 147.3 million total civilian workforce as of October, 2014, at 22%.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm
[+] [-] mrDmrTmrJ|11 years ago|reply
We need to remember that solar capacity has long life-span (say ~25 years minimum) per panel. Where coal needs to be constantly mined and burned.
If you multiple 0.087*25 years of operation you get 2.175GWh/worker in solar.
Now, there are an almost endless numbers of adjustments you can make to this calculation. And you really need to use the "newly installed capacity/year" number when multiplying by the lifespan of the panels.
(These people say the US installed 4.8GW in 2013: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/18/37-gw-solar-capacity-ins... I have really no idea if that's accurate)
I think the calculation is more complicated than you make it seem. And it's not surprising that the cost to install a long-life span technology is relatively high (in terms of man-power) as solar is in its infancy.
(I say infancy b/c I believe we'll be far more efficient at making and installing solar cells 30 years from now than we are today. I expect coal mining to make smaller efficiency gains.)
Finally, jobs are a great thing. YC put out a RFS looking for ~1million new jobs: https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#million I'd love to see them created in solar.
[+] [-] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DaniFong|11 years ago|reply
But it should be added,
a) if we did this, you can bet on vastly improved automation and efficiencies, and much larger plants. Solar jobs are vastly dominated by rooftop installation, which isn't at all what you'd get if you were powering a whole nation.
b) After the solar output is built, you don't need to add much more, and maintenance is much less than the construction labor. You might need only 2 - 10 % of your estimate -- just adding solar at the electric grid replacement rate. Still, that's a lot of labor.
[+] [-] danielnaab|11 years ago|reply
High labor costs per unit of energy is a good thing. Coal mining is resource intensive, and a significant portion of your energy dollar is going into paying for the cost of mining and transport. If a kWh of solar costs the same as a kWh of coal, all things equal, it is better for society for that cost to be spread among many well paid, middle class laborers.
[+] [-] maerF0x0|11 years ago|reply
8.968GWh of "sales" , but how much of that is spent mining it? And cleaning up after it w/ the pollution from burning, the damage to the environment etc etc?
Same story for Solar too, i know there is impact, but I would venture that the "costs" are much less, so to speak.
[+] [-] melling|11 years ago|reply
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3
[+] [-] sfall|11 years ago|reply
so the development of solar technology is included in the total #
[+] [-] tptacek|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MisterBastahrd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|11 years ago|reply
This is likely directly related to the fact that coal has a higher EROEI than solar (neglecting long-term externalities of course).
[+] [-] crdoconnor|11 years ago|reply
Because the country has a massive overemployment problem right now?
[+] [-] dredmorbius|11 years ago|reply
For every square meter of PV deployed, you start with 1 kW of incident sunlight, reduced by the panel efficiency (~15%), capacity factor (~25%), the shading/spacing factor (~55%), and inverter efficiency (~90%). Your panels have a nominal life of 20 years after which they must be replaced.
On a square-meter basis, the raw output of a coal-fired plant is vastly higher. That footprint is extended by mining operations, fuel transport (mostly railroad), and tailings and ash disposal. It's still pretty high.
That said, I'd prefer to see approaches to increasing solar worker efficiency rather than prolonging use of coal.
[+] [-] diafygi|11 years ago|reply
So far, the solar industry has reached grid parity (i.e. unsubsidized costs <= retail cost from the grid) in a few U.S. states and several countries[2]. When it has reached grid parity in these locations, you see a huge inflow of investment capital since there's little regulatory risk[3].
This trend will not change. Solar will only get cheaper, and fossil fuels will only get more expensive. So what happens in 10-20 years when solar is at or below grid parity in most of the world? Mix that financial advantage with a huge political movement to fight climate change (e.g. stop Colorado from burning down every other year), and you have the formula for another whale oil-style shift in energy.
I'm originally a chemical engineer from Texas, and I have a standing $100 bet with two of my friends who work in the petroleum industry that they will not retire in an oil job. Anyone else want to take that bet?
Finally, we're hiring[4].
[1]: http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity#Rapid_uptake
[3]: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/16/solar-yield-idUSL4...
[4]: https://angel.co/utilityapi/jobs/44943-software-engineer
[+] [-] cstavish|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheSpiceIsLife|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedunangst|11 years ago|reply
There are about three times that many people employed growing corn, however. So should we switch all our power plants to corn based ethanol?
[+] [-] ChrisGaudreau|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tn13|11 years ago|reply