$9 Billion in ‘Stimulus’ for Solar, Wind Projects Made 910 Final Jobs – $9.8 Million Per Job

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The Obama administration distributed $9 billion in economic “stimulus” funds to solar and wind projects in 2009-11 that created, as the end result, 910 “direct” jobs — annual operation and maintenance positions — meaning that it cost about $9.8 million to establish each of those long-term jobs.

At the same time, those green energy projects also created, in the end, about 4,600 “indirect” jobs – positions indirectly supported by the annual operation and maintenance jobs — which means they cost about $1.9 million each ($9 billion divided by 4,600).

Combined (910 + 4,600 = 5,510), the direct and indirect jobs cost, on average, about $1.63 million each to produce.

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“False Economy*” as an explanation doesn’t touch how egregious this misuse of taxpayer money was by Obama.
No job, green or otherwise is worth taking over $1,600,000.00 from hardworking taxpayers and using to create only ONE JOB!
To repeat this crime 5,510 times ought to be prosecutable.

*something that you do because you think it will save you money, but in fact it costs you more.

The Los Angeles Times (no conservative slant at all) began an article on solar in CA’s deserts this way:

At what temperature might a songbird vaporize?

Will the glare from five square miles of mirrors create a distraction for highway drivers?

Can plumes of superheated air create enough turbulence to flip a small airplane?

What happens if one of the Air Force’s heat-seeking missiles confuses a solar power plant with a military training target?

No one knows for sure. But as the state and federal government push hard to build solar energy plants across the Mojave Desert — there are more than 100 solar applications pending — the military, birders, aviation officials and others are eager for answers.
………..
The Defense Department has expressed concern about large-scale solar plants’ compatibility with aviation and weapons training at the Mojave region’s nine military installations.

The test pilot school at Edwards Air Force base said the most common problems are a result of “electromagnetic intrusion/reflection, vertical obstruction, frequency spectrum overlap, infrared footprint and glint/glare.”
……..
One known aviation hazard results from the plants’ use of high-powered exhaust fans for steam turbines, which can create plumes of superheated air that rise skyward.

(!!!! Similar to urban heat islands? No, worse! These heat towers can cause planes coming in to land to flip over and nosedive!)
All part of Obama’s $9,000,000,000.00 stimulus for solar and other so-called green projects.

Maybe we should consider how many jobs were created by the $5 billion per year that is paid to affluent farmers not to grow crops. The republican House quietly authorized such payments again last year. Such payments to rich farmers for not farming have been made for decades.

This being an election year, they’ve just agreed in the Senate to limit such payments to farmers clearing less than $1 million per year. I suppose that’s progress. It should reduce cash subsidies by around $2 billion per year.

@Greg: Stay on topic, it’s today ok?? and 0-bama unfortunately is the President and he is the one who wasted billions. Just can’t focus can you.

Sorry. I thought the topic had something to do with throwing billions of taxpayer dollars to special interests, while accomplishing absolutely nothing of benefit to the taxpayers.

@Greg: It’s about wasteing billions but not President Bush. It’s about the billions that 0-bama has wasted on useless green jobs. I understand your inability to address the issue though.

@Greg:

If you want to go there, and stray from the topic here of wasting stimulus cash for follies, how about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) requirement that refiners either blend a different type of ethanol in gas or pay for waivers.

The biofuel in question is called cellulosic ethanol.
Millions in fines are being paid every year the refiners don’t add this into our gasoline blend.

OBAMA might as well be demanding refiners use unicorn poop!

Because there is NO SUCH thing as commercially available cellulosic ethanol.
No one has EVER made it commercially.
No one knows how it could be made commercially.
No one knows IF it can be made commercially.
The technology to make it commercially does not exist!
The current system rewards EPA for picking an unrealistic number so that EPA can increase the fines it receives. It also means that consumers will be paying higher gasoline prices.

Do you LOVE Obama so much that this is irrelevant you, greg?

@Nan G, #7:

The fines are illogical, but totaled only around $6 million for the entire petroleum industry for all of 2011. That isn’t much, compared with the $2 billion in federal subsidies that the industry received for that same year. Or with their record $137 billion 2011 profits.

@Greg:

Well, hell, Greg, its only $6 million that the industry is being forced to pay in fines for a product that doesn’t exist and didn’t when the Democrat controlled Congress passed that rule in 2007 (actually, it’s closer to $7 million, but why nit-pit). Nevermind that the $6.8 million would be better served in the hands of every police officer, school teacher, telephone repair man, and auto machanic who has oil stock in their 401(k) plans.

But wait, what about the $2 billion in “subsidities” that the oil industry gets. And where did your Marxist website get that from? Why, none other that the Democrat Socialist Progress Caucus member, Robert Menendez’s website. Does Menendez state what those subsidities are? Well, no, you just have to take his word for it because we all know that a Democrat is as honest as the day is long. So…….why don’t you tell us exactly what those subsidities are, Greg? I think most people would call them tax breaks that are available to every business in the U.S., but don’t let facts get in your way there, Bubba.

And that $137 billion profit for the oil industry in 2011? How about telling us what their profit margin is compared to say, Anheiser Busch or maybe that company Obama loves so much, General Electric that has managed to ship its entire production overseas?

God, you liberals are so gullible and incapable of facts, only talking points. Not a very good reference to our educational system.

@Greg:

OK, on subsidies.
Back to the renewables, Greg.

Renewables received a 77 percent share of total federal energy incentives (SUBSIDIES) in the latest year studied, 2009, while fossil fuels received a 13 percent share but produced more than 7 times the energy.

Congressional Research Service:
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R41769_20110414.pdf

The total tax revenue lost due to energy-related federal subsidies for the 5-year period from 2010 to 2014 is estimated at $71 billion with renewables getting the lion’s share of $49 billion or 69 percent. See table at link.

The May CRS analysis, like the one above, is based solely on Federal tax incentives targeted to energy.

Tax Incentives by Category, 2009, pie chart:
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Tax-Incentives.png

While renewable energy advocates do not want to admit it, renewables get the lion’s share of direct energy subsidies both on a total dollar basis and also when compared to the amount of energy produced.

Fossil fuels garnered an estimated 13 percent of 2009 energy tax incentives, while renewable energy received 76 percent.

That’s because forward-thinking people decided it was a good idea to encourage renewable energy development, which capitalist investors presently show insufficient interest in. The free market system isn’t especially on-the-ball when it comes to long term planning. They’re not even willing to invest in the nation’s rapidly aging infrastructure. All they think about is near-term profits.

The fossil fuel industry needs no special encouragement.

So far “Forward-Thinking” and the results from it economicaly have left Spain, Italy, Greece, France, and Ireland is very tough economical pickles. So far “foward-thinking” has caused roughly a 10 percent real unemployement within the United States. So far, “Forward-Thinking” has put into power two new Despotic regimes in the Middle East with intent to purge Israel’s population off the globe. So far, “Forward-Thinking” has left a 2 Tillion Stimulus Boondoggle of extra debt the United States has to pay back to foreign Creditors (roughly 6 Trillion to repay) with literally nothing of value created while National Debt reaches 16 Trillion to 18 Trillion by 2013’s end. So far, “Forward-Thinking” “green” energies have failed to produce enough Killowatts to justify shutting down fosil/nuclear power plants in areas where Hydro-electric and Geo-thermal plants are impossible to build to meet State by State consumption demands (green tech can only supply roughly 3 to 10 percent of the power, this is not fesible and the tech is not improving contrary to media chagrin). So Far, “Forward-Thinking” is having the future generations of births slant heavily to males in the United States thanks to gendercide activities agaisnt female fetuses from activists who want to mimic the Chinese People’s Republic solution to Population Control. So far, “Forward Thinking” has caused the on average for males age 20 to 36 to see their total wealth devalued 53 percent while families seen their weath devauled by 40 to 46 percent. And finaly, so called “Forward THinking” has caused the mass lay offs of many Union and non union or the termination of many American jobs since 2007 thanks to Democrat Congresional interference in the Economy.

So yeah, you can keep your, “Forward-Thinking” in la la land. I’ll keep to hard reality and solving problems with restraint and controled responses.

@Greg:
You’re not forward thinking Greg, you are selective thinking. Under the Bush administration, there was very significant development for fuel cell vehicles. This came to a halt under Obama because of Stephen Chu. He prefers batteries, (most likely because he has buddies in the battery business).
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/05/hydrogen_fuel_cell_vehicles_and_the_obama_administration_.html

Conservatives also back nuclear energy and I’m pretty sure you’ve never seen a conservative blocking a nuke permit; that’s your side. Well, while your side wastes money on things that are not working, our side makes them work.
http://www.oakridger.com/newsnow/x872936173/Mini-nuclear-reactors-wave-of-the-future

Now, who exactly is forward thinking?

Mitt Romney spent plenty of money on failed experiments with renewable energy. It takes a lot of failures to make a success—ask Thomas Edison or ‘Babe’ Ruth.

Romney’s Solyndra? State-Funded Massachusetts Solar Company Goes Bankrupt

@Liberal1 (objectivity):
Truly ignorant.

No Aqua, greg is not forward thinking. In fact, he is unthinking and dishonest. I’m starting to wonder if he gets paid by the post or something.

Germany (an EU country that benefited from being in the EU while other countries were bled dry) has a goal of 20% renewable energy by 2020.
In June, 2011, a report was published about how that was doing.
http://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.369430.de/diw_wr_2011-06.pdf
Quote:

Consumer prices for electricity in Germany have risen considerably in recent years. These price increases are partially attributable to a strong rise in the apportionment for the promotion of renewable electricity in accordance with the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG).

But their energy prices in Germany will not skyrocket, they will simply edge up and up and up.
Why not skyrocket?
They have a law against that.
Quote:

Although electricity generation from renewable sources is forecasted to more than double by 2020, the EEG apportionment borne by consumers will in real terms only be 3.64 euro cents per kWh, and thus only slightly higher than it is today.

What happened after 2011?
Germany announces up to 30% cuts in solar subsidies (Feb 2012)
Installations of solar panels have boomed in Germany over the last two years due to feed-in tariffs, generous subsidies utilities are forced to pay by the government to those who generate their own solar power.
Eventually power companies pass on the costs to their customers, and the government wants to limit the ultimate impact of soaring prices on energy consumers.
The incentives will fall to 19.5 cents per kilowatt hour .
German retail electricity prices are 21 to 24 cents per kWh.

(In California, for a contrast, our retail electrical price is $0.12/kWh for baseline then it rises to $0.14/kWh for extra electricity.)

@Nan G:
I think you have it right Nan. I think we have all slapped these arguments from Greg down before. Greg and others on the left talk about how much they love the environment, but do nothing about it, except complain about oil companies and manufacturers. Water and air are cleaner than ever, but that is not enough. Until these companies work at a loss and give up their evil profits, it will never be enough.
For the left, the only way energy can be provided effectively is if it is done in such a way that only the elite can afford it. Wind and solar are infinitely more expensive. If there were a way to provide it cheaper than fossil fuels, conservatives would be building them at record speeds and the left would complain about the profits and finding ways they pollute. They don’t want anything to be cheap and accessible, they want mankind to suffer for the energy it produces. The mini-nukes are a perfect example. When people are can pay $500 a year for electricity, the left will come undone. There will be no air pollution, no water pollution, no noise pollution from these mini-nukes. They are incredibly safe, tamper-proof, and inexpensive. But that will make no difference to Greg and his friends.

@Greg:

Absolutely correct. Let’s stop subsidies to all businesses. If your product and/or market is so weak that you require assistance from the taxpayers to stay afloat, sorry, bummer, tough luck. Perhaps you need to fail.

Actually –
Each job is good for 10 years so it is actually $980,000/job PER year for 10 years. There, doesn’t that sound better?
Aack.