The Green Jobs Myth | Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Green Jobs Myth | Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren | Cato Institute: Commentary: "President Obama's own Energy Information Administration estimates, for instance, that for new facilities coming on-line in 2016, biomass will cost 34% more than electricity produced by combined cycle, natural gas-fired power plants; geothermal will cost 39% more; onshore wind will cost 80% more, offshore wind 2.3 times as much, thermal solar 3.1 times as much, and photovoltaic solar a whopping 4.8 times as much."

"Economist Gabriel Calzada examined green energy mandates in Spain and found that 2.2 jobs were lost for every green job that was created in that country."

"First, new government employees hired to oversee this green energy shift are counted as 'new jobs created.' Second, existing jobs are recategorized from brown to green if employers meet some bureaucratically dictated definitional shift to 'greenness,' and those jobs are misleadingly tallied as 'new jobs created.' Third, most new manufacturing jobs created to build the equipment necessary for new green power plants are assumed to come from U.S. manufacturers, a highly unlikely prospect given that most of the manufacturers at issue are overseas. Hence, the tallies of job creation from policies designed to promote green energy are about as reliable as Enron balance sheets."