How to kill 66,000 jobs

Andrew Bolt Friday, May 22, 2009 at 07:08am     Mitch Hooke, head of the Minerals Council of Australia, is amazed the Senate is voting on the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme without knowing how many people will lose their jobs where and when: While the Government describes its Treasury modelling as the most comprehensive ever attempted, the analysis provides no forecasts on the sectoral or regional employment impacts over the first decade of the CPRS. None at all.... This is economic policy-making with a blindfold on…   So we asked Australia’s most experienced economic forecaster—Brian Fisher—to assess the impact on employment in the sector that produces about 50per cent of Australia’s exports. Fisher—a former executive director of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics—used the same Treasury assumptions and the same data sources used in the Treasury modelling. Unlike the Treasury, he took into account the global financial crisis…   The CPRS scheme will shed 23,510 jobs in the minerals sector by 2020 and more than 66,000 by 2030. These are direct jobs. All minerals sectors will be affected… No state, or the Northern Territory, will be spared…   You can add to these numbers the jobs of the council workers, the school teachers, the nurses, gardeners, and employees in the hundreds of small businesses in the towns and communities that service these mining regions. Not surprisingly, I consider these numbers should prompt a Government re-think of its CPRS legislation. Link   Yes but I hear you say, what about all those tens of thousands of lovely green jobs that are just magically going to appear to replace those lost?   Let me guess, you believe in the Easter Bunny as well, don't you?   We are going to destroy thousands of real jobs on the promise of theoretical jobs to be created some time in the future, maybe? You think this makes sense?   But if there was already a compelling and sound economic argument for these make-believe green jobs, they'd already be here. No business is going to engage in practices that unnecessarily drives up its costs.   At least no business that is going to survive. Bosses are always looking for ways to decrease their costs and increase their profits.   So it is clearly implied that the as yet uncreated green jobs can only come into existence if the government rorts the market place by preferentially subsidising them. That is, by throwing large amounts of taxpayers' money at the business men and women involved.   So there's the rub. What will it cost to produce each one of these jobs and what does this mean in terms of lost opportunities elsewhere in the economy?   There is no magic pudding. If you divert resources from one area of the total economy, then you are starving another area.   But what if the area you are starving is actually the more effecient and productive part compared to the one the government has decided to favour?   You don't have to be an Einstein (I would have thought) to work out that ultimately this does not make any sense.   Does it make sense to chase the fantasy of so-called renewable energy when we know the numbers don't add up and that it is hopelessly expensive and inefficient?   There has not been a single gas or coal fired power station decommissioned anywhere in the world despite the vast amounts of money that has already been wasted on wind farms.   The reason is simple. You can't relie on wind farms to produce power when you need it.   So you've got to keep your conventional power stations chugging away on standby, ready to fill the gap at a moment's notice.   For every megawatt of theoretical electricity generation from wind power you need a megawatt of reliable coal or gas (or nuclear) generation as back up.   Has anyone tried doing the sums to see what the real costs of green jobs are in terms of real jobs?   They have in Spain:   Andrew Bolt Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 11:15am     A university study into Spain’s world’s-best renewable energy scheme finds that green power kills jobs - and solar power kills most of all: No other country has given such broad support to the construction and production of electricity through renewable sources....   The study calculates that since 2000 Spain spent €571,138 ($1.03 million) to create each “green job”, including subsidies of more than €1 million ($1.8 million) per wind industry job… The study calculates that the programs creating those jobs also resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every “green job” created....   Each “green” megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy: 8.99 by photovoltaics (solar), 4.27 by wind energy, 5.05 by mini-hydro… These costs do not appear to be unique to Spain’s approach but instead are largely inherent in schemes to promote renewable energy sources…   The high cost of electricity due to the green job policy tends to drive the relatively most energy-intensive companies and industries away, seeking areas where costs are lower. The study, by Spain’s Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, should make any fool think twice before pouring millions of government money into solar energy. But not one fool: Australia is planning to build the world’s largest solar power station, with three times the generating capacity of the California plant that has been the biggest to date.   Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the photovoltaic plant would cost A$1.4 billion (US$1 billion) and will have an output of 1,000MW - equivalent to that of one coal-fired power station. He said he wanted Australia to be a ‘solar leader’ rather than a ‘solar follower’. How many jobs did you kill today, Mr Rudd?   (Thanks to reader David.)   UPDATE For quick updates on the latest evidence of the planet warming - or actually cooling - bookmark Climate4you, the site of Professor Ole Humlum.

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