CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

What they found confounds the usual green job rhetoric:

• The study calculates that since 2000 Spain has spent €571,138 to create each “green job,” including subsidies of more than €1 million per wind industry job.

• The study calculates that the programs creating those jobs also resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,500 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every “green job” created.

• Principally, the high cost of electricity affects costs of production and employment levels in metallurgy, non-metallic mining, food-processing, beverage, and tobacco industries.

• Each “green” megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy: 8.99 by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy, 5.05 by mini-hydro.

• These costs do not appear to be unique to Spain’s approach but instead are largely inherent in schemes to promote renewable energy sources.

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