Preventing a tax on carbon will not get you a free market energy industry. Instead, it will get you inefficiencies like this:
Abengoa SA was offered a $1.45 billion loan guarantee by the U.S. Department of Energy to build a 250-megawatt solar plant in Arizona, and Abound Solar Manufacturing was offered a $400 million loan guarantee toward two plants where thin-solar panels will be manufactured.
The guarantees through the Recovery Act and other measures are expected by the awardees to create more than 5,000 jobs, according to a statement from the White House.
Obama during his weekly address said the investments will help the country establish leadership in “cutting-edge” solar technology, and create jobs to aid economic recovery efforts.
A transition to a clean-energy economy and doubling use of renewable-energy sources including wind and solar power “have the potential to create whole new industries and hundreds of thousands of new jobs in America,” said Obama in the address.
H/T Arnold Kling
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
Sunday ~ July 4th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
rjs
same questions i asked at econolog:
how much would the electricity generated cost if that $2B were amortized?
and how much coal generated electricity will it take to build the panels, and how much diesel fuel will it take to mine the materials, transport the panels, and build the arrays?
Sunday ~ July 4th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Mike Mathea
2 Billion to create 5,000 green jobs. Must be using so interesting cost benefit analysis. Just a few trillion and we can lower the unemployment rate.
Sunday ~ July 4th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Josh Miller
Curious to be informed how a carbon tax will prevent stupid porky “green energy” boondoggles.
Monday ~ July 5th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Adam Ozimek
It will at the very least remove the economic and environmental justification for it. Properly prices, a carbon tax means that there is no externality to any kind of energy consumption, so the “green” part of green jobs will cease to be.
Tuesday ~ July 6th, 2010 at 7:28 am
Rakhi
Thank you for your article, at any checkout to figure out that Obama’s touting 1,500 new permanent jobs. The government is handing out nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that President Barack Obama says will create thousands of jobs and increase the use of renewable energy sources. I hope you will continuo your informative post .
Sunday ~ July 11th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
rjs
picked up some info on the web after a discussion elsewhere…
“Abengoa’s plant, to be built 70 miles (113 kilometers) southwest of Phoenix, will be the world’s largest solar-power installation, producing 250 megawatts and serving 70,000 families, the company said July 3 in a statement.
The plant, scheduled to go into operation by 2011, is located 70 miles southwest of Phoenix and will sell the electricity produced to APS over the next 30 years for a total revenue of around $4 billion, bringing more than $1 billion in economic benefits to the State of Arizona.
The Solana installation, using solar-thermal technology, will prevent 475,000 tons in carbon-dioxide emissions annually, according to the company’s calculations. ”
well, for the reasons in my first comment, the “carbon savings” may be fictional, but we have no way of figuring that with the info available…that 250MW is about one fifth a nuclear plant, so the costs seem below an alternative…
back of napkin calcs; $4B over 30 years is 130million per year; for 70,000 customers thats around $1900 per annum electric bills…