{"id":255192,"date":"2023-04-29T11:01:14","date_gmt":"2023-04-29T09:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=255192"},"modified":"2023-04-29T11:01:24","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T09:01:24","slug":"subsidised-green-jobs-killing-real-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=255192","title":{"rendered":"Subsidised Green Jobs Killing Real Jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Substack<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From David Turver\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since at least 2009, politicians of all stripes have been calling for variants of a Green Job Revolution.\u00a0Gordon Brown promised<\/a>\u00a0to add 400,000 new \u201cgreen\u201d jobs, taking the total to 1.3m by 2017. More recently, the Labour Party has called for a\u00a0Green Prosperity Plan to make Britain a green growth superpower<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Liberal Democrats have their\u00a0own plans<\/a>\u00a0for green energy and a transport revolution. The Conservative Government has a\u00a010-point plan for a green industrial revolution<\/a>. Of course, for the Green Party no plan from any other party is ever enough and they always urge\u00a0more action more quickly<\/a>. \u00a0Others,\u00a0such as Ben Pile<\/a>\u00a0have covered the abject failure of these policies to deliver their objectives. Suffice to say,\u00a0according to the ONS<\/a>, there were only 207,000 people working in the \u201cgreen\u201d sector in 2020, fewer than even the increase promised by Gordon Brown in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As was shown in earlier articles, there are lots of\u00a0hidden costs to renewables<\/a>\u00a0and expensive electricity leads to\u00a0lower productivity<\/a>\u00a0and reduced\u00a0economic growth<\/a>. When researching those articles, it became apparent that the productivity of the electricity production sector had been falling. The purpose of this article is to look at the productivity of electricity production and the impact on other sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Productivity of UK Electricity Production<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As two figures from\u00a0a previous article<\/a>\u00a0indicate, the electricity sector looks to be high growth and high productivity, coupled with high investment intensity. However, another way of looking at the productivity of the electricity generation sector is output in TWh per hour worked. Combining data from the\u00a0ONS<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0BEIS<\/a>, it can be seen that the amount of electricity we supply has fallen and the number of hours worked in the sector has risen as shown in Figure 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1 – Electricity Supplied (TWh) vs Hours Worked in Electricity Generation (m) 1998-2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has resulted in a steady fall in the output productivity of the sector as measured by TWH per millions hours worked as shown in Figure 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2 – Productivity of Electricity Supplied 1998-2021 (TWh per m hours worked)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be noted that many of the jobs in the intermittent renewable energy sector are subsidised jobs. Subsidised by Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), Contracts for Difference (CfDs) and Feed-in-Tariff payments (FiTs). Plus, we all have to pay the grid balancing costs required because of the intermittency of wind and solar power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jobs in Energy Intensive Productive Sectors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now let\u2019s take a look at what\u2019s happened to employment in energy intensive industries. As Figure 3 shows, in 1997, there were some 2,248m hours worked in the sector. This had fallen to 1,550m by 2008 and fell another 20% or so to 1,237m hours in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3 – Hours Worked Energy Intensive Industries (1997-2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, hours worked in electricity (plus gas and compressed air) rose nearly 25% from 208m hours in 2008 to 259m hours in 2021. Pulling it all together in Figure 4, the gain in electricity production of 51m hours was offset by a loss of 312m hours in energy intensive industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 4 – Hours Worked Energy Intensive Industries vs Electricity Supply (1997-2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Conclusion: Subsidised Green Jobs Taking Jobs in Energy Intensive Industries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the loss in highly productive industries was some six times higher than the gain in subsidised electricity production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is difficult to believe that subsidising jobs in primary electricity production at the expense of highly productive jobs in the private sector is good for the long term health of the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\t

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