Green Jobs? Mandated Wind and Solar? Cap & Trade? We’ll Pass on that Showcase
Nicolas Loris /
Members of Congress like to play games and they like to spend money. What better analogy to use to describe Congress’s proposed green energy policies than the Price is Right? As Congress seeks to implement policy that would create green jobs by mandating renewable energy projects, three cautionary European tales suggest the U.S. should take a second look at cap and trade and renewable energy mandates. We’ll take you through a Price Is Right showcase style tour of three failed renewable energy initiative.
Our first stop takes us to Germany where think tank Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung just released its study on the economic impacts of the country’s green energy initiative. Commissioned by the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the report finds with per worker subsidies for solar industry jobs are as high as $240,000. Last year, “the price mark-up attributable to the government’s support for “green” electricity was about 2.2 cents US per kWh. For perspective, a 2.2 cent per kWh increase here in the US would amount to an average 19.4% increase in consumer’s electricity bills.” Government subsidies for wind and solar are projected to be over $100 billion from 2000-2010 and, to make matters worse, as the subsidies run out, so do the jobs.