Why not take Wayne Gretsky’s advice, and skate to where the puck is going to be?
As coal plants are shuttered due to increasing regulation and competition from cheap natural gas and renewables, coal industry jobs are being shed by the thousands, according to new research from Duke University.
From 2008 to 2012, the U.S. coal industry, from mining to power plants, lost nearly 50,000 jobs, about 12 percent of the total during the five-year period. The research did not include coal jobs that weren’t associated with electricity production.
During the same period, wind and solar added about 79,000 jobs and natural gas tacked on more than 94,000 jobs. When the researchers also accounted for indirect jobs, natural gas, wind and solar brought in nearly 220,000 jobs. Hydro and nuclear were not included as the numbers were relatively steady throughout the timeframe.
The figures for coal are probably even starker since 2012. Coal’s dominant position in the U.S. electricity market is increasingly under threat with every passing year, a trend that is only gaining momentum.
In 2014, the U.S. Energy Information Administration increased its short-term coal retirement prediction by nearly 50 percent, with an estimate that about 60 gigawatts will retire by 2016. Meanwhile, a report from The Solar Foundation found that there were more than 173,000 solar jobs in the U.S. in 2014, an increase of nearly 22 percent over the previous year.
The research paper from Duke, led by Drew Haerer at the Nicholas School of the Environment, did not take into account construction, installation and manufacturing, but it did account for operations and maintenance such as mining, extraction, transportation and distribution. For fossil fuel jobs, construction and installation are regarded as short-term work, such as when power plants are being built, and they make up only a fraction of the overall jobs picture.
But for wind, the number of O&M jobs compared to construction and installation is about equal, and for solar, O&M is the lower figure, the researchers noted. The methodology somewhat skews the results, particularly because it does not account for distributed solar and those installation jobs. The report from The Solar Foundation, for instance, is projecting that nearly 119,000 of 210,000 solar jobs in 2015 will be in installation.
As coal struggles, oil and gas remain on a roller coaster of increasing uncertainty. Meanwhile, renewables only gather speed.
An enormous new survey of industry experts shows how fast things are moving. Recently, DNV GL, an international energy consulting company, asked 1,600 people who actually work in the field — at equipment manufacturers, power producers, utilities, policy-making agencies, energy retailers, regulators, and equity investment firms — about the future of renewables. One of the main questions: How quickly will renewables be generating 70 percent of the energy in the markets you work with?
Almost half of the survey respondents said they could see that happening by 2030. And almost all of them — about 80 percent — thought renewables would dominate by 2050.
Here’s why they’re optimistic about renewable energy:
Politicians are supporting it. “It is mainly a political question. It is clear that a renewables-based electricity system is technically and commercially possible, perhaps by the middle of this century, but only if backed up by political support,” one German respondent told DNV GL. It’s not a given, but, increasingly, politicians — even American conservatives — are onboard with the idea that the future of energy includes wind and solar power.
Energy storage is getting better. Two thirds of the DNV GL survey respondents chose energy storage as one of the top three technologies needed for renewables to work. (The other two: smarter grids and more money to build them.) And storage technologies are improving: This week, for example, Tesla is expected to announce that it’s releasing a “home battery” that could help store power generated by rooftop solar panels. This is key to convincing people that renewable energy can be relied on — and making sure that’s true.
Investment in renewable power is growing. Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported this week that in 2014 $270 billion was invested in renewable energy, about one fifth more than the year before. The largest portion of that money was going to projects in developing markets — Brazil, Indonesia, Chile, Mexico, Kenya, and China, where investments totaled $83.3 billion.
The sun shone bright on a major US military installation in Utah Friday morning as President Barack Obama announced that Hill Air Force Base, which hosts Material Command’s 75th Air Base Wing, would take part in a new “Solar Ready Vets” program. At ten bases, a joint program from the Departments of Energy and Defense will help personnel leaving the military transition to solar careers. It’s part of a major national initiative to train 75,000 workers in solar by 2020.
Project leaders modeled the new program after pilot runs of Solar Ready Vets earlier this year at Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Carson in Colorado, and Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. The former service members will train to size and install solar panels, connect electricity to the grid, and interpret and comply with local building codes. They may then become installers, sales representatives, and system inspectors, or enter other solar-related careers.
As one of DOE’s 16 Climate Action Champions, Salt Lake City leads solar development in Utah. Said Salt Lake Mayor Ralph Becker: “The solar industry is exploding. The demand exceeds the available workers. People want clean energy. It’s creating jobs. It’s helping us with our air pollution and it’s helping with our energy security. And it saves money over time.”
The President offered his remarks at Hill’s solar array, a PV facility that reduces annual power costs at the base by about $750,000. He tied the solar news to today’s report on overall March job gains of 129,000. Obama noted that since he took office, solar electricity has expanded 20-fold, improving energy independence and creating good jobs as well as cutting climate-damaging carbon pollution.
“The solar industry is actually adding jobs 10 times faster than the rest of the economy,” the President said. He characterized the results of the new Solar Ready Vets program as “good, new jobs in the clean-energy economy,” expecting them to help build infrastructure across the country, grow the economy, and sharpen the nation’s international competitiveness.