Monday, November 16, 2009

Yes, green job creation.

in other countries:
In October there was a flurry of news stories about the largest solar panel plant in the United States, located on 180 acres of land, 80 miles southeast of Tampa. Naturally, President Obama paid a visit to the Desoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center because he is a big booster of renewable energy. He keeps telling everyone that it will generate hundreds, if not thousands, of new “green” jobs.

What the President didn’t say during his visit was that the solar panels and other items were manufactured in nations other than the United States. The solar cells came from the Philippines. The steel mountings were made in Canada. The electric boxes were manufactured in Germany.

The project did generate some 400 temporary jobs, but how many full time jobs will the new Florida installation generate? The total comes to two full-time employees and six part-time groundskeepers who will work one week a month during the rainy season.

And here’s where it just gets totally obscene. The Desoto facilities and two other Florida Power and Light solar facilities will generate enough electricity to power just 3,000 homes of the 4,000,000-plus accounts served by Florida’s largest utility.

Less than 4% of Florida’s energy needs will be met by this $150 million facility. Meanwhile, proposed coal-fired and nuclear plants are fought to a standstill by environmentalists.

1 comment:

Keith said...

Does Florida have enough hills to build a pumped storage scheme? of does the solar generator just provide daytime power - when thre are no clouds in the sky?

I've got a couple of good sites for pumped storage schemes, which I'd love to get a start investigating (enviromental impact, ground conditions for tunelling and dam stability etc), but I just can't work out how to get paid for it.

All the rush seems to be to put wind turbines up (power when the wind blows, not when people want it).

Britain is building new nukes (constant power, all the time - no flexibility to meet power spikes when 20 million kettles go on in the advert break of the sheeple's favourite soap opera).

Oh well, what do we know?