US President Barack Obama defends his energy subsidy package to invest billions into alternative energy generation by citing examples from Spain, Germany, and Japan. He has pointed to the renewables industry as a way to create new and sustainable jobs during a period of economic downturn. But this recent report prepared by Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid, shows that for Spain the “green employment opportunity” has proven elusive and unsustainable. The executive summary of Dr. Calzada’s report is posted below. The full report can be accessed by selecting one of the links at the bottom of this page.

In this Article, the authors survey the green jobs literature, analyze its assumptions, and show how the special interest groups promoting the idea of green jobs have embedded dubious assumptions and techniques within their analyses. Before undertaking efforts to restructure and possibly impoverish our society, careful analysis and informed public debate about these assumptions and prescriptions are necessary.

Some elements to consider in policy, planning, and public relations

For those who think developers' feverish promotion of wind energy is about saving the planet, think again. The old adage follow the money explains their zeal much more than do its purported benefits. Worse, the enormous investment returns available to wind developers for an unreliable energy source that offers negligible emissions benefits stem largely from federal and state subsidies paid for by taxpayers and rate payers. Go figure.

This is a comprehensive, well documented and thoughtful presentation on a wide range of industrial wind issues by Dan Boone, Consulting Conservation Biologist, at the public meeting held by Save Our Allegheny Ridges in Bedford, PA on September 18, 2006

This report examines the factors underlying the recent increases in electricity prices and the potential impact of these factors on the industry's financial condition. It focuses primarily on cost changes experienced over the past five years and the projected trends in these costs over the next ten years.

The Economist 11/3/05

OIL and natural gas availability has been severely impaired and the effects of this will reverberate through the economy of this country for some time.² Those chilling words were uttered recently by Samuel Bodman, America's energy secretary, as he pleaded for his country's gas guzzlers to start conserving energy. He warned that high prices could be here for years. Greens are ecstatic. They think high oil prices may spur a sustainable clean-energy boom.