Aren't windmills pretty? And don't you think solar panels are cool?
Even if they are, the problem with pushing those technologies is that for every one job created, an industrialized country like the US would lose two more:
For every new position that depends on energy price supports, at least 2.2 jobs in other industries will disappear, according to a study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal contains about $20 billion in tax incentives for clean-energy programs. In Spain, where wind turbines provided 11 percent of power demand last year, generators earn rates as much as 11 times more for renewable energy compared with burning fossil fuels.
The premiums paid for solar, biomass, wave and wind power - - which are charged to consumers in their bills -- translated into a $774,000 cost for each Spanish “green job” created since 2000, said Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at the university and author of the report.
“The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices,” he said in an interview.
So for every worker hired to build a windmill or install a solar panel, 2 poor schmucks in some other manufacturing industry will get a pink slip.
Now that's what I call "reform."
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