According to president-elect Joe Biden “If executed strategically, our response to climate change can create more than 10 million well-paying [clean energy] jobs in the United States that will grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class enjoyed by communities across the country, not just in cities along the coasts.” Is that possibly true? 10 million new clean energy jobs by switching to zero-carbon technologies (hey wait, isn’t nuclear zero-carbon….no, that doesn’t count)?
Actually it is true that shifting from efficient, low-cost, dependable fossil fuels and nuclear to inefficient, high-cost, intermittent solar panels and windmills to generate the nation’s electric power would create millions of new energy jobs. Maybe not 10 million new jobs, although switching to solar for 100% of the nation’s electricity would actually create more than 10 million new energy jobs. If the current ratio of wind to solar workers is maintained, and assuming those two fuel sources completely replace fossil fuels and nuclear, roughly two million new clean energy jobs could be created as I explain below.
But it’s only because producing electricity with solar panels and windmills is so incredibly labor-intensive compared to fossil fuels and nuclear, and would require so many more workers to produce the same amount of electric power that the misguided plan to create millions of jobs could be achieved.
To paraphrase Milton Friedman below, if you really want to create the greatest number of energy jobs then by all means produce electric power using the most inefficient, labor-intensive type of energy — solar panels. Producing all of our electricity with solar panels would create Biden’s 10 million energy jobs, but only because it takes so many more solar workers –more than 40 as I’ll explain below — to produce the same amount of electricity as one energy worker producing electric power from nuclear, natural gas or coal.
In other words, Biden’s plan to create “10 million clean energy jobs” is a modern version of Milton Friedman’s famous story from the 1960s when he observed thousands of workers in India building a canal with shovels. Friedman asked his host — a government official — why they weren’t using tractors, earth movers and modern construction equipment to build the canal. The government bureaucrat replied: “You don’t understand, Dr. Friedman, this canal project is a jobs program to provide work for as many men as possible. If we used tractors or modern equipment, fewer workers would have jobs.” Friedman responded with his classic wit, “Oh, I see. I thought you were trying to build a canal. If you really want to create the greatest number of jobs, then why don’t you give the workers spoons instead of shovels and create even more jobs?”
Giving construction workers crude labor-intensive shovels (or spoons) to build a canal instead of using modern construction equipment to “create” jobs is today’s equivalent of Biden’s plan to create millions of energy jobs by switching to labor-intensive energy technologies like solar and wind. Here’s why.
The top chart above shows the number of energy workers required to produce the same amount of electricity (13.3 million kilowatt-hours) for solar, wind, coal, natural gas and nuclear. Producing electricity with solar panels requires almost 46 times as many energy workers to produce the same amount of electricity as about one energy worker producing electricity from nuclear, natural gas or coal. Using windmills to generate electric power requires more than five times as many workers as electricity produced from nuclear, gas or coal. Using Friedman’s story, solar panels are like spoons, windmills are like shovels, and nuclear, natural gas and coal are like modern energy technologies.
The data in the table (click to enlarge) below the chart show how the figures in the chart were calculated based on: a) the number of electric power workers in each sector last year (data here) and b) the amount of electric power produced in each sector in 2019 (data here). Based on the kilowatt-hours of electric power produced per worker in 2019 that range from 290,029 kWh for solar workers to 13.29 million kWh for nuclear workers the number of energy workers required to produce the same amount electricity are calculated and reported in the last column and displayed in the top chart. For each energy worker producing a fixed amount of electric power (13.29 million kilowatt-hours) using nuclear, natural gas or coal, it requires more than 40 solar workers and about five wind workers.
If the amount of electricity currently being generated above in all five sectors (3.7 trillion kilowatt-hours) were to be produced exclusively with solar panels, it would require 12.8 million solar workers and Biden could exceed his goal of creating 10 million energy jobs. A complete switch to wind power would require nearly 1.5 million energy workers, which would be a net job gain of 825,000 workers compared to the current 625,000 workers producing the 3.7 trillion kWh of electric power in 2019. Maintaining the current 9-to-1 ratio of wind to solar jobs and switching to 100% renewables would create about two million new clean energy jobs.
Bottom Line: Biden can certainly create millions of new energy jobs by switching from labor-efficient fossil fuels and nuclear energies to labor-intensive solar panels and windmills. But that’s like creating construction jobs using spoons or shovels to use Friedman’s example. Unfortunately, Biden has fallen hard for the “jobism” fallacy that clouds and distorts the thinking and policy proposals of so many politicians and government officials. Biden’s “jobism” thinking mistakenly treats energy jobs as an economic benefit rather than as an economic cost. The goal should never be to maximize jobs; rather the goal should be to maximize energy production (or farm or factory output) with the FEWEST workers, not the MOST workers. As Milton Friedman explained, the appropriate national objective is to have the fewest possible jobs in any given industry.
Prediction: Biden’s “jobism” approach will be at least partly successful at creating some new energy jobs by subsidizing renewable energy and/or imposing mandates to increase the use of solar panels and windmills. But those energy jobs will come at a high price in the form of higher energy costs for consumers and businesses, less dependable electric power, more blackouts, a reduction of jobs in energy-intensive sectors, reduced economic growth and an erosion of the nation’s prosperity. In other words, Biden’s goal to “grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class” is guaranteed to backfire, like all “jobism” fantasies.
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