Note: I apologise sincerely to those of you with an aversion to vulgarity. I’ve found that when the situation is excessively vulgar it could most accurately be described in vulgar terms. Which is why they exist.
No need to apologize to this guy, Irina, as the green activist know-nothings deserve that bit of invective and a whole dump truck-load or three more.
I encounter these know-nothings online all the time, and they truly believe that this whole "transition" is completely organic, as they trot out the old "buggy-whip versus automobile" canard to claim that we're the luddites in the mix.
But then again, belief sets are all the know-nothings have, with the foundation of said belief sets being constructed upon the bedrock of their feelings versus rational, forward-thinking consideration.
And you're absolutely correct that Master's and PHD-level educations are not required for the build-out of any of these technologies, (save the energy production/conveyance/storage sectors), and anyone who could install HVAC systems could install and maintain the plethora of green tech all day long and twice on Sunday.
I still fear that at least here in the US, if higher education keeps pushing the soft sciences as the most important ones to be educated in, that by the year 2100 there won't be anyone left with the skills to keep the lights on and the water flowing.
“Translated from Transionese into Common Human, that second sentence means employers need to find ways to attract highly qualified or at least qualifiable workers by offering them short periods of full-time employment followed by much longer periods of, well, no employment.”
So, at the moment - there aren't enough solar panels / wind turbines because evil China has monopolized the (low-cost) manufacture of these transition technologies. Even if there were, there aren't enough skilled workers to install these. And even if there were, there isn't sufficient transmission capacity to hook these intermittent RES to the grid. And even if there were, there isn't sufficient balancing capacity to counteract the variations in RES output.
As a paper from the French Academy of Sciences recently noted, we (meaning the EU and almost every major economy) have confused the means with the objective. We are so much focused on renewables that we forget the objective, which is lowering CO2 emissions. Well, here are the consequences of such a narrow focus.
As humans have demonstrated time and again throughout history we expend huge amounts of energy addressing symptoms and not the root cause/ issue. And then when that doesn’t work we move into blame projection mode elsewhere (or just make new stuff up) to distract from our earlier incompetence.
It’s clear that EU technocrats to a large degree are already mentally living in a metaverse of their own making - it’s just sadly not where the rest of us live.
As usual, Irina, you take your scalpel to the heart of the absurd - I wasn’t aware of the Batshit crazy etymology but fully understand why it already existed!
Sustainability analysts, specialists and managers” - it’s no wonder that our GDP is dwindling. The underlying purpose of the green movement seems to be to flush our societal wealth down the toilet by dumping money into useless things like a new green bureaucracy that preside over zero value projects such as carbon capture injection wells and wind farms.
While I have no doubt that some skills are needed to plan and permit solar installations, likely the skills of any average engineer, at least among the ones I work with daily will suffice. The skills to install anything but wind towers and offshore wind towers are as you say, typical construction skills. But many oilfield workers and many commercial construction workers have put up larger structures than wind towers. I have watched solar panels being installed. The workers looked just like the same bunch of illegal immigrants that were replacing a roof last week across the street. The electrician looked like the same guy that installed a new circuit in my breaker box. Yeah, the electrician made at least $100 an hour, but the guys on the roof were making minimum wage and likely not paying taxes. As you say, installing insulation is probably the worst and most low-skilled construction job there is, somewhat of the ilk of digging ditches. And mind you, ditch diggers will be needed, although I doubt they knew they are being counted as "green" workers. This idea that there is some special class of skills for any of these technologies is indeed a load of manure, and likely pure bat guano.
What concerns me more is that skilled engineers and geologists in the oil industry are being redirected and diverted towards net zero. I'm watching them map pore space like it was a new skill, while ignoring the fact that legally in most states of the United States, the surface owner is the only one who owns pore space, not the mineral rights holder or the mineral rights lessee. So they are willy-nilly getting excited about finding all these empty pores that they won't be able to use until an army of land professionals go out and negotiate huge royalty agreements with surface land owners, who in many places are going to react saying "What kind of bat guano crazy are you wanting to put stuff under my land?" Meanwhile they are not learning how to direct and locate drilling rigs, or how to fix and recomplete old wells, which are the skills that would keep them employed for a lifetime. In the oil business the closer you are to production, the safer your job is, so working on empty pore space and pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, is not exactly paying its way and becomes a high-risk of unemployment job. Its all a rush towards capturing government largesse, and when that dries up the one's who have been reskilled as "green" engineers and geologists are going to be the victims of what used to be the exploration department's cross to bear- first layoffs. Carbon capture will be the first to go.
And I read elsewhere this morning that New Field Wildcat exploration wells have reached a new low, suggesting to me that within ten years we can expect the next big oil boom, right after the net zero folks have all left the industry because the tax incentives and carbon credits failed to ever become economic. I just keep telling them, "if you want to capture carbon dioxide, grow more oysters."
In Canada our government, bent on legislating a Just Transition to millions of new green jobs, has come to a Eureka moment. They simply reclass existing jobs as green jobs to prove that the Transition is not only successful but already underway. Solves the pesky problem of lack of long term green jobs. For the oil, agricultural, manufacturing and even now fish farming workers who are yet to be Justly Transitioned by decree there is also the admission, as you say there are only so many heat pumps to install, that there will likely not be the same comparable long term wages for the newly Just Transitioned. Some (most) will have to make do with less.
Nice piece, Irina. You probably know that San Bernardino County has outlawed new large solar installations. The reasons given by the county commissioners were... they take up too much land, they don’t pay taxes and they don’t create jobs. San Bernardino is the largest county in the country and made for solar. Mostly unpopulated desert.
I guess I have green job. I have been working on the California grid for 15 years trying to figure out how to connect more wind and solar. We do a lot of paperwork, studies, cost analysis etc. To see the result of all this thrashing about take a look at the CAISO public Queue Report, Completed Projects section and see what has happened since 2016. Not much. Most green jobs are like mine...engineers trying to solve a problem with no rational solution. You are quite correct about the situation with linemen. Even if we could figure out how to do it, we can’t get the parts and there is no one to build it.
One thing that windmills are known for is the tremendous numbers of bats, and eagles, that they kill.
There is a small light showing today though, take a look at what Cameco stock (CCJ, largest uranium miner in the west and also now owner of Westinghouse) is doing ....somebody big somewhere has finally figured out what the only possible realistic solution is, and they are coming in heavy on no news....
But the ultimate goal of the ultra rich is pretty clear to see just from stock prices......get rid of all the people and replace them with robots......are we going to let them do that to us?
THIS is precisely why I had to remove myself from the development and promotion of "green" energy. I had worked my way through the entire life-cycle of green energy projects (specifically wind), from development to operations, distributed generation to utility scale, consulting to AI. I spent over a decade looking for the real value in "green" energy only to find that if I remained in the field, I would be burdening my children (and yours) with the weight and expense of the subsidized failure of "green" energy. Sure, I could make a "living" but I would hardly be setting up my children and our future for success.
You have very eloquently and succinctly summarized the issue at hand, which should be brought to light more often than it is. Our goal should be to provide reliable and affordable power for our children to enjoy the fruits of our labor, not curse us when we are gone and they are having to pick up the pieces, which will inevitably be pieces that the state will gladly claim. The manipulation and coercion and flat out psychological gamesmanship of this "green energy economy" takes one to the deepest of the deep state. It is a transition of power, money, control, and livelihoods that goes so far beyond the general public's scope that the entire charade looks beautiful and green on the outside while the innards are rotten with greed and selfishness. As the post-plandemic (ironically blamed on bats) psyops continue to drive entire gangs of transition-focused ideologies forward and down the world's throat, the next step is to prolong and effectively eternalize the powers that are driving this narrative. This is done through employment.
Back to your article, it is BATSHIT CRAZY, all of it. Our children are impressionable, as they should be as they learn to navigate the world and create their own value systems and formulate their own dreams. "Green" jobs and the trajectory of this narrative will push our children into slavery, not freedom. You say to yourself..."That's impossible" and "Green energy jobs can't hurt THAT much"... Well, when you are a courtesy hire to help promote the dirty work of those who are making the decisions and following their directives (think WEF), and your job is a state-sponsored (aka. subsidized) or ESG driven and policy only "label" then you are effectively a slave. You have chosen this path because someone who was elected wants to keep their job and in order to keep their job, they need you to be subservient to them. The system should work the other way around, those who were elected used to be known as public servants, but if we maintain this path it is the public who will become the servants to the elected. It is BATSHIT CRAZY.
Now, when the discussion revolves around financial and material gain, profitable businesses are where one should go. This is a touchy subject no matter the storyline. It is a macro economic phenomenon (or better, fact) called Supply and Demand. If the world goes into shock and the supply chains are disrupted (hmmm, think we've seen that recently) and we are told that our livelihoods should change due to the inefficiencies (or dependency) of that supply chain, then we adapt and ensure that something to that extent never happens again. It is known as independence. But, when certain powers are pushing an agenda that decreases your independence and increases your dependence on the good-faith and will of a country/model that has "re-education" camps (I have pictures), tracks your every move (I have proof), they intimidate to demonstrate control (I've seen it), they force compliance with the facade (again, seen it with my own eyes), and they threaten family and life if compliance is denied (I have interviews), this is how slavery is accepted. You control the supply chain, you control the jobs, you control the education, you control the movement, you control the actions, you control the appearance, YOU CONTROL THE OUTCOME. Now, imagine that YOU are not the one in control. When that supply chain brakes...yes, you are a slave.
It is BATSHIT CRAZY, spectacularly. Thanks Irina for spelling this out for everyone.
Green jobs is just another version of the broken window fallacy. Creating jobs by breaking windows does not help the economy. Nor does creating jobs installing low or even no value wind & solar. You might as well hire skilled workers to do the traditional productive work of building oil refineries, gas wells, coal & nuclear power plants and pipelines. And then hire a whole bunch more of unskilled workers to dig holes and another bunch to fill them back in again. Call digging holes "green jobs". Of course this will decrease the overall efficiency of the economy and the EROI of our energy industry.
If you have money to waste for job creation why not do what FDR did in the 1930's?. Hire millions of people to build highways, hydro dams, pipelines, bridges and other valuable infrastructure. Repair the failing infrastructure of the nation. And it can be funded tax-free through a public Infrastructure Development Bank, that does like regular banks do, creates money out of thin air. But unlike most Banks, which like to create money to inflate real estate prices, IDBs actually increase the wealth of the nation. And create REAL skilled jobs, that really benefit the economy.
China knows that very well. They use public banks to fund projects like building entire cities out in the boonies, with hardly anybody even living in them. They know they are training a workforce and contractors who can do useful things for society. That's how they have achieved an 8-15% annual growth rate since 1984, vs the USA that struggles with <2% growth rate. And most of that is in the useless financial sector.
Since the whole man-made “climate change” narrative is false, I suppose “green” work seekers could simply falsely claim to be qualified by falsifying their resumes?
Irina, so well said today. But don’t you know that all the woke left greenies need to do is believe that skilled staff can be snapped into existence just like coming back from being disappeared in a Marvel Movie. There is no way enough High Voltage/Medium Voltage Technicians and Electrical Power Engineers and Linemen can be produced and put in place to meet all the dreams and schemes on the books. Because of that you aren’t going to get enough Substations or Transmission lines designed let alone built. Believing something will happen does not make it so.
No need to apologize to this guy, Irina, as the green activist know-nothings deserve that bit of invective and a whole dump truck-load or three more.
I encounter these know-nothings online all the time, and they truly believe that this whole "transition" is completely organic, as they trot out the old "buggy-whip versus automobile" canard to claim that we're the luddites in the mix.
But then again, belief sets are all the know-nothings have, with the foundation of said belief sets being constructed upon the bedrock of their feelings versus rational, forward-thinking consideration.
And you're absolutely correct that Master's and PHD-level educations are not required for the build-out of any of these technologies, (save the energy production/conveyance/storage sectors), and anyone who could install HVAC systems could install and maintain the plethora of green tech all day long and twice on Sunday.
I still fear that at least here in the US, if higher education keeps pushing the soft sciences as the most important ones to be educated in, that by the year 2100 there won't be anyone left with the skills to keep the lights on and the water flowing.
Love your writing!
“Translated from Transionese into Common Human, that second sentence means employers need to find ways to attract highly qualified or at least qualifiable workers by offering them short periods of full-time employment followed by much longer periods of, well, no employment.”
So, at the moment - there aren't enough solar panels / wind turbines because evil China has monopolized the (low-cost) manufacture of these transition technologies. Even if there were, there aren't enough skilled workers to install these. And even if there were, there isn't sufficient transmission capacity to hook these intermittent RES to the grid. And even if there were, there isn't sufficient balancing capacity to counteract the variations in RES output.
As a paper from the French Academy of Sciences recently noted, we (meaning the EU and almost every major economy) have confused the means with the objective. We are so much focused on renewables that we forget the objective, which is lowering CO2 emissions. Well, here are the consequences of such a narrow focus.
Well said, Irina.
John Kerry and Fatih Birol have green jobs and they're doing quite well.
As humans have demonstrated time and again throughout history we expend huge amounts of energy addressing symptoms and not the root cause/ issue. And then when that doesn’t work we move into blame projection mode elsewhere (or just make new stuff up) to distract from our earlier incompetence.
It’s clear that EU technocrats to a large degree are already mentally living in a metaverse of their own making - it’s just sadly not where the rest of us live.
As usual, Irina, you take your scalpel to the heart of the absurd - I wasn’t aware of the Batshit crazy etymology but fully understand why it already existed!
Sustainability analysts, specialists and managers” - it’s no wonder that our GDP is dwindling. The underlying purpose of the green movement seems to be to flush our societal wealth down the toilet by dumping money into useless things like a new green bureaucracy that preside over zero value projects such as carbon capture injection wells and wind farms.
While I have no doubt that some skills are needed to plan and permit solar installations, likely the skills of any average engineer, at least among the ones I work with daily will suffice. The skills to install anything but wind towers and offshore wind towers are as you say, typical construction skills. But many oilfield workers and many commercial construction workers have put up larger structures than wind towers. I have watched solar panels being installed. The workers looked just like the same bunch of illegal immigrants that were replacing a roof last week across the street. The electrician looked like the same guy that installed a new circuit in my breaker box. Yeah, the electrician made at least $100 an hour, but the guys on the roof were making minimum wage and likely not paying taxes. As you say, installing insulation is probably the worst and most low-skilled construction job there is, somewhat of the ilk of digging ditches. And mind you, ditch diggers will be needed, although I doubt they knew they are being counted as "green" workers. This idea that there is some special class of skills for any of these technologies is indeed a load of manure, and likely pure bat guano.
What concerns me more is that skilled engineers and geologists in the oil industry are being redirected and diverted towards net zero. I'm watching them map pore space like it was a new skill, while ignoring the fact that legally in most states of the United States, the surface owner is the only one who owns pore space, not the mineral rights holder or the mineral rights lessee. So they are willy-nilly getting excited about finding all these empty pores that they won't be able to use until an army of land professionals go out and negotiate huge royalty agreements with surface land owners, who in many places are going to react saying "What kind of bat guano crazy are you wanting to put stuff under my land?" Meanwhile they are not learning how to direct and locate drilling rigs, or how to fix and recomplete old wells, which are the skills that would keep them employed for a lifetime. In the oil business the closer you are to production, the safer your job is, so working on empty pore space and pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, is not exactly paying its way and becomes a high-risk of unemployment job. Its all a rush towards capturing government largesse, and when that dries up the one's who have been reskilled as "green" engineers and geologists are going to be the victims of what used to be the exploration department's cross to bear- first layoffs. Carbon capture will be the first to go.
And I read elsewhere this morning that New Field Wildcat exploration wells have reached a new low, suggesting to me that within ten years we can expect the next big oil boom, right after the net zero folks have all left the industry because the tax incentives and carbon credits failed to ever become economic. I just keep telling them, "if you want to capture carbon dioxide, grow more oysters."
In Canada our government, bent on legislating a Just Transition to millions of new green jobs, has come to a Eureka moment. They simply reclass existing jobs as green jobs to prove that the Transition is not only successful but already underway. Solves the pesky problem of lack of long term green jobs. For the oil, agricultural, manufacturing and even now fish farming workers who are yet to be Justly Transitioned by decree there is also the admission, as you say there are only so many heat pumps to install, that there will likely not be the same comparable long term wages for the newly Just Transitioned. Some (most) will have to make do with less.
Nice piece, Irina. You probably know that San Bernardino County has outlawed new large solar installations. The reasons given by the county commissioners were... they take up too much land, they don’t pay taxes and they don’t create jobs. San Bernardino is the largest county in the country and made for solar. Mostly unpopulated desert.
I guess I have green job. I have been working on the California grid for 15 years trying to figure out how to connect more wind and solar. We do a lot of paperwork, studies, cost analysis etc. To see the result of all this thrashing about take a look at the CAISO public Queue Report, Completed Projects section and see what has happened since 2016. Not much. Most green jobs are like mine...engineers trying to solve a problem with no rational solution. You are quite correct about the situation with linemen. Even if we could figure out how to do it, we can’t get the parts and there is no one to build it.
No apologies needed.
One thing that windmills are known for is the tremendous numbers of bats, and eagles, that they kill.
There is a small light showing today though, take a look at what Cameco stock (CCJ, largest uranium miner in the west and also now owner of Westinghouse) is doing ....somebody big somewhere has finally figured out what the only possible realistic solution is, and they are coming in heavy on no news....
But the ultimate goal of the ultra rich is pretty clear to see just from stock prices......get rid of all the people and replace them with robots......are we going to let them do that to us?
THIS is precisely why I had to remove myself from the development and promotion of "green" energy. I had worked my way through the entire life-cycle of green energy projects (specifically wind), from development to operations, distributed generation to utility scale, consulting to AI. I spent over a decade looking for the real value in "green" energy only to find that if I remained in the field, I would be burdening my children (and yours) with the weight and expense of the subsidized failure of "green" energy. Sure, I could make a "living" but I would hardly be setting up my children and our future for success.
You have very eloquently and succinctly summarized the issue at hand, which should be brought to light more often than it is. Our goal should be to provide reliable and affordable power for our children to enjoy the fruits of our labor, not curse us when we are gone and they are having to pick up the pieces, which will inevitably be pieces that the state will gladly claim. The manipulation and coercion and flat out psychological gamesmanship of this "green energy economy" takes one to the deepest of the deep state. It is a transition of power, money, control, and livelihoods that goes so far beyond the general public's scope that the entire charade looks beautiful and green on the outside while the innards are rotten with greed and selfishness. As the post-plandemic (ironically blamed on bats) psyops continue to drive entire gangs of transition-focused ideologies forward and down the world's throat, the next step is to prolong and effectively eternalize the powers that are driving this narrative. This is done through employment.
Back to your article, it is BATSHIT CRAZY, all of it. Our children are impressionable, as they should be as they learn to navigate the world and create their own value systems and formulate their own dreams. "Green" jobs and the trajectory of this narrative will push our children into slavery, not freedom. You say to yourself..."That's impossible" and "Green energy jobs can't hurt THAT much"... Well, when you are a courtesy hire to help promote the dirty work of those who are making the decisions and following their directives (think WEF), and your job is a state-sponsored (aka. subsidized) or ESG driven and policy only "label" then you are effectively a slave. You have chosen this path because someone who was elected wants to keep their job and in order to keep their job, they need you to be subservient to them. The system should work the other way around, those who were elected used to be known as public servants, but if we maintain this path it is the public who will become the servants to the elected. It is BATSHIT CRAZY.
Now, when the discussion revolves around financial and material gain, profitable businesses are where one should go. This is a touchy subject no matter the storyline. It is a macro economic phenomenon (or better, fact) called Supply and Demand. If the world goes into shock and the supply chains are disrupted (hmmm, think we've seen that recently) and we are told that our livelihoods should change due to the inefficiencies (or dependency) of that supply chain, then we adapt and ensure that something to that extent never happens again. It is known as independence. But, when certain powers are pushing an agenda that decreases your independence and increases your dependence on the good-faith and will of a country/model that has "re-education" camps (I have pictures), tracks your every move (I have proof), they intimidate to demonstrate control (I've seen it), they force compliance with the facade (again, seen it with my own eyes), and they threaten family and life if compliance is denied (I have interviews), this is how slavery is accepted. You control the supply chain, you control the jobs, you control the education, you control the movement, you control the actions, you control the appearance, YOU CONTROL THE OUTCOME. Now, imagine that YOU are not the one in control. When that supply chain brakes...yes, you are a slave.
It is BATSHIT CRAZY, spectacularly. Thanks Irina for spelling this out for everyone.
Green jobs is just another version of the broken window fallacy. Creating jobs by breaking windows does not help the economy. Nor does creating jobs installing low or even no value wind & solar. You might as well hire skilled workers to do the traditional productive work of building oil refineries, gas wells, coal & nuclear power plants and pipelines. And then hire a whole bunch more of unskilled workers to dig holes and another bunch to fill them back in again. Call digging holes "green jobs". Of course this will decrease the overall efficiency of the economy and the EROI of our energy industry.
If you have money to waste for job creation why not do what FDR did in the 1930's?. Hire millions of people to build highways, hydro dams, pipelines, bridges and other valuable infrastructure. Repair the failing infrastructure of the nation. And it can be funded tax-free through a public Infrastructure Development Bank, that does like regular banks do, creates money out of thin air. But unlike most Banks, which like to create money to inflate real estate prices, IDBs actually increase the wealth of the nation. And create REAL skilled jobs, that really benefit the economy.
China knows that very well. They use public banks to fund projects like building entire cities out in the boonies, with hardly anybody even living in them. They know they are training a workforce and contractors who can do useful things for society. That's how they have achieved an 8-15% annual growth rate since 1984, vs the USA that struggles with <2% growth rate. And most of that is in the useless financial sector.
Since the whole man-made “climate change” narrative is false, I suppose “green” work seekers could simply falsely claim to be qualified by falsifying their resumes?
Irina, so well said today. But don’t you know that all the woke left greenies need to do is believe that skilled staff can be snapped into existence just like coming back from being disappeared in a Marvel Movie. There is no way enough High Voltage/Medium Voltage Technicians and Electrical Power Engineers and Linemen can be produced and put in place to meet all the dreams and schemes on the books. Because of that you aren’t going to get enough Substations or Transmission lines designed let alone built. Believing something will happen does not make it so.
Absolutly wonderful article, this would be a great topic on a podcast, hey aren't we recording tommorow afternoon Bulgaria time? Yea!!!
If I remember correctly bird excrement is often rich in Potassium Nitrate (AKA salt peter).
Not terribly relevant, but that's all I've got...