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685327592 t1_ivlwjdc wrote

Employing a lot of people isn't really a sign of progress. You'd prefer a new industry to require less human labor, not more. I feel like a lot of people misunderstand this.

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dec7td t1_ivncgwb wrote

Renewables, especially solar, is a lot more labor up front (one time at construction) but a lot less labor during operations. Over a 20-30 year life of the plant that breaks even pretty easily. Levelized cost of energy.

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UnCommonCommonSens t1_ivo1r4w wrote

I prefer an industry that spends it’s money in the local labor market over an industry that spends it’s money in foreign dictatorships any day!

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Staeff t1_ivnmo4d wrote

I think this is more about that not phasing out fossils to protect jobs is not a valid argument, if renewables provide even more jobs..

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taggedandgagged t1_ivoqt8g wrote

How about the fact that fossil fuels require many fewer jobs to provide the world with enough energy to sustain

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vjx99 t1_ivoxzbf wrote

Yet they're still the cheaper form of energy production. Which means the money is going to workers instead of oligarchs.

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taggedandgagged t1_ivoye2l wrote

No they are not? Wtf are you talkin about. They are much more expensive for the output you get

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vjx99 t1_ivozabl wrote

[Renewables are now significantly undercutting fossil fuels as the world’s cheapest source of energy, according to a new report.

Of the wind, solar and other renewables that came on stream in 2020, nearly two-thirds – 62% – were cheaper than the cheapest new fossil fuel, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/renewables-cheapest-energy-source/)

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Staeff t1_ivoyt3p wrote

The required labor of renewables gets less over the lifetime of an installation as you don't need to keep a whole mining/drilling/shipping operation going to provide fuel.

But besides that what would it matter that you need more labor? As long as it's cheaper overall to produce renewable energy the number of jobs doesn't really mean anything.

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taggedandgagged t1_ivoz1xf wrote

Its not cheaper overall and has so many more employees because of the necessary human labor to get anything within a magnitude of fossil fuel production. Or we could just go nuclear green and get over the shitty wind turbines already

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Staeff t1_ivozdrt wrote

https://www.irena.org/publications/2022/Jul/Renewable-Power-Generation-Costs-in-2021

>The lifetime cost per kWh of new solar and wind capacity added in Europe in 2021 will average at least four to six times less than the marginal generating costs of fossil fuels in 2022.
>
>Globally, new renewable capacity added in 2021 could reduce electricity generation costs in 2022 by at least USD 55 billion.
>
>Between January and May 2022 in Europe, solar and wind generation, alone, avoided fossil fuel imports of at least USD 50 billion.

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barlog123 t1_ivo5bi7 wrote

They can't just be jobs they need to be productive jobs that add value otherwise you're subsidizing waste and inefficiency

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Staeff t1_ivo6hoe wrote

Look, I don't know what to tell you, renewables are already the cheapest way to produce energy in many countries and states and they have the benefit of not further advancing climate change, both of which adds value to the economy.

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barlog123 t1_ivo6s41 wrote

How? They all have to be backed up with gas and coal because they're unreliable so it's renewable + gas/coal which isn't very green

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Staeff t1_ivo6un7 wrote

Are you arguing that being fully fossil is more green than renewables with fossil backup?

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barlog123 t1_ivo8uny wrote

Yeah, why not.

  1. The production and demand just shifts to other places so going green does very little in the grand scheme of things.
  2. Creates reliance on outdated unclean oil/gas/coal infrastructure and rouge nations especially in the case of an emergency.
  3. The net total reduction is minimalized by the need for backup until the battery tech is there.
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Staeff t1_ivo9sbc wrote

If that's what you choose to tell yourself to rationalize not going green then please stick to it, you are beyond being argued with...

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barlog123 t1_ivoa06d wrote

I'm not saying don't go green. I'm saying the current plan is beyond stupid and pointless

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inactiveuser247 t1_ivnadhk wrote

You would prefer it, but one of the features of disruptive technologies is that initially they won’t beat the existing tech in every metric. Over time they might, but that’s not the point.

Fossil fuels are pretty efficient now because we’ve had hundreds of years to perfect their extraction and build up their scale. If we were still reliant on people mining coal with picks and shovels and drilling for oil with tiny little drill rigs on land then that labour efficiency would tank.

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BillyShears2015 t1_ivonivy wrote

Relative to its competition (whale oil, burning logs, etc.) when it was still nascent, fossil fuels were still leaps and bounds more efficient in labor input vs. energy output, that’s why they became and remain dominant. Renewable’s competitive advantage going forward will be their distributed nature that increases system resiliency and reliability.

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COZRUN t1_ivm0p6j wrote

Yes, all it means is there's a shit ton of money flowing into "clean" energy. That doesn't mean it will be well spent.

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slashseven t1_ivnm1tl wrote

Is it possible thats the rub? Float companies until they work, then rugpull their subsidies and let your mates "aquire" them?

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nathan555 t1_ivml545 wrote

Apples to Oranges comparison. If all other costs are equal, the company/industry with less labor has lower cost to produce the same good. But if solar costs less than coal per kwh even though it hires more people- that's because it has a different business model with different costs.

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xelah1 t1_ivokxg8 wrote

It'll also depend on past vs present investment. Industries which invested a lot in creating assets in the past now have large capital costs to pay. Industries investing now are going to be paying for more labour.

Then there are the external costs, but they're not included in the price and that's a whole other topic.

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xpersuader t1_ivnfrpw wrote

You misunderstood it when you called hydro “new”.

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randomacceptablename t1_ivnm865 wrote

Well it is useless information to begin with. But to your point new industries like solar do require less human labour not more then legacy ones. The disparity is in building out capacity. The construction is capital intensive.

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overlordpotatoe t1_ivnr2r4 wrote

I think it's just one of the weird side effects of capitalism. People need jobs in order to survive, so we can't view greater efficiency as something purely positive as it ideally should be.

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40for60 t1_ivph975 wrote

Its what happens when things are starting out, how many people worked on the railroads to haul the coal? or pipelines?

How dumb are you?

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knowitallz t1_ivne1vf wrote

B Gates has a startup that has robots assembling solar farms

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kickresume OP t1_ivntkw2 wrote

He also has a new generation of a nuclear reactors. It's called TerraPower, I think.

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Turtley13 t1_ivm7hif wrote

But isn't the whole point of capitalism to create jobs!?

/s

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685327592 t1_ivm8r2q wrote

You want productivity to be high. If more jobs are needed to produce less energy that doesn't bode well.

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meme_slave_ t1_ivmhi5s wrote

Thats not how that works, even with all the upfront cost added (that includes employee salary) solar energy still costs the same per kilowatt as coal.

Thats not even including the literal millions of lives that could be saved by switching.

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chuckmckinnon t1_ivmkrtj wrote

I see the sarcasm, but it's worth an answer anyway: no. If you're primarily concerned with job creation then the last thing you want are "labour-saving devices." You want people doing everything manually -- think of digging ditches with spoons instead of backhoes.

For people to prosper -- for the standard of living to go up -- you need more productivity, or more stuff produced per unit of input. Increased productivity means that last decade's innovative thing gets better understood and the process of making it more reproducible, and now making that thing becomes a well-understood process needing fewer people.

Now people need to find new jobs, but that also means that we're producing more things with less effort than when we started. We aren't able to disconnect "innovation" from "creative destruction." Whole companies get created, flourish, and die because of this lifecycle.

Understanding this made me a lot less resentful about my career, and helped me to better anticipate my next moves.

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_newsalt_ t1_ivmw7i6 wrote

This is a great answer.

Capitalism is all about adding value. More output for less input increases wealth for everyone.

Imagine if grain still had to be harvested by hand. Each person harvesting would only be able to do say 1 acre per day. Then have to thresh by hand after. Which you cold maybe do 5 acres a day with a horse and then haul to a bin.

So 12 hours cut plus 3 hours thresh plus 1 hour transport per acre

A modern custom operation charges about $25 per acre for harvesting service.

So if done by hand the labour would only be worth $1.6 per hour.

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ArvinaDystopia t1_ivoeyja wrote

> Understanding this made me a lot less resentful about my career

Same. I'm not automating jobs away, I'm improving productivity. It's the fault of politicians and businessmen that that excess productivity is not put to improving working conditions.
The solution to growing inequality is to regulate profits/tax them rather than oppose technological improvements.

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