Where are 'green economy' jobs?

WorldNetDaily- Roger Hedgecock-28 February 2011

The frigid winds of recession continue to blow for too many Americans trapped between lower income and rising prices. Too many Americans owe more on their house than it is worth; health-care reform promises have turned to ash as many more are hit with health insurance premium increases or lose their coverage.

The rosy "recovery" rhetoric in the Obama media is a Potemkin village. For increasing numbers of Americans, from pensioners to college grads, the American dream is a sad memory.

Two wars grind on. Yearly trillion-dollar federal deficits stretch far into the future, piling up an Everest of debt – and that's the optimistic projection. Neither political party seems grounded in the reality that our standard of living cannot be maintained for much longer by borrowing to pay for it.

Obama promises an economic recovery and plenty of jobs in the new "green economy." Abundant oil, natural gas and coal resources in this country are to be ignored; the president promises that we will achieve energy independence and save the planet by moving on to solar, wind and (sometimes he mentions) nuclear power.

To this end, federal "stimulus" billions have been lavished on dozens of alternative energy projects in fulfillment of a 50-year-old dream of the American environmental movement.

Trouble is, Obama administration reports detail the billions that went to Japanese, Chinese and Spanish companies for wind and solar projects in the U.S. The borrowed "stimulus" money stimulated jobs in those countries while saddling present and future American taxpayers with the debt.

Spain is a cautionary tale. There, a commitment from the socialist government to "go green," backed up by massive debt-financed public investment and subsidy of private firms, brought praise from Obama but destroyed more manufacturing jobs than it created. The sad bottom line is that, even with the subsidies and tax breaks, the cost of energy from "alternatives" is so much higher than the cost of energy from traditional coal, gas and oil that existing manufacturing plants could not pay for the "green energy" and stay in business in Spain.

But for Obama (who hasn't mentioned Spain's "leadership" too much lately), it's full speed ahead. Wind turbines (made in China) off the coast of Delaware in the Atlantic Ocean are planned by utility companies to meet new government mandated quotas for getting electricity from alternative sources.

Under the most optimistic price projections, customers of those utilities will pay six times the current price for electricity for the privilege of wind power. Consider the impact on the fixed income retiree, the struggling working family, not to mention the local manufacturing base – what's left of it. Obama promised in the campaign that his policies would "necessarily skyrocket the cost of electricity." He's determined to keep that promise. 

Last week, the California state Senate joined the alternative energy lemmings running forward toward an economic cliff. Existing California law requires electric utility companies in that state to achieve 25 percent of electricity from alternative energy sources by 2020. The state Senate passed a new law upping the quota to 33 percent. The current percentage (even including the environmentally scorned hydro power from dams) is around 5 percent.

In an effort to meet existing law, California utility companies have committed to buy electricity from five large solar power plants planned for California's deserts. You would think enviros would be ecstatic – electricity from the sun, no matter what the cost to consumers. It's the dream of decades.

Not so fast. The Sierra Club and other enviro groups have sued to stop the plants from being built. Their problem with solar power? The plants threaten "fragile desert habitat." Are we witnessing the real objective of the enviro movement? The Sierra Club has worked tirelessly to stop coal, nuclear, natural gas and oil use in the U.S. all the while preaching the alternative energy gospel. Now they want to stop solar? Is the real aim here to stop electricity itself??

California's political leaders had pinned their hopes for economic recovery on green energy manufacturing. This isn't working out, either. For example, after taking California subsidies, Stion Energy decided to locate its solar panel manufacturing plant in Hattiesburg, Miss., after that state offered even more taxpayer underwriting. California voters are waking up to the fact that the old jobs are gone, and the new green jobs aren't coming

To fight pollution, California has been driving traditional manufacturing (planes, cars, chemicals, etc) out of that state for decades. The environmental movement had promised a prosperous pollution free future of new green jobs. They were lying.

Despite the lack of job creation and the skyrocketing costs to consumers of electricity, Obama continues to pour "stimulus" billions into alternative energy. This honey pot is so large that George Soros could not help himself. According to a press release from Soros, he has created a new investment fund to profit from the green energy boom created by all that borrowed federal stimulus money. And he has hired Obama's former assistant secretary (Interior Department) for energy efficiency and renewable energy to run the new fund.

Soros spent millions to elect Obama who borrows trillions to "utterly transform" America, allowing Soros to make billions on the government-mandated green energy program – a program that will impoverish Americans through higher electricity and gasoline prices and crush future Americans under a mountain of debt. Nice.

Obama's war on cheap, abundant, domestic energy continues. Obama's oil drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico has been ruled illegal twice by a federal judge. The moratorium continues. Idled drilling rigs in the Gulf are moving to other countries eager for the equipment and the expertise. Again George Soros profits. While Obama stops Gulf drilling, he pledged $2 billion (borrowed from the Chinese) to Petrobras (the Brazilian oil company) so it could start deep water drilling off Brazil. Big stockholder in Petrobras? George Soros.

I think we should pursue all energy sources. The more I read the news from the Middle East, the more I think I'm right and time is of the essence. I have 44 solar panels on the roof of my house, and I drive a hybrid car. I don't think I'm saving the planet. I am saving money. These bottom-up individual investments have the potential to improve energy independence and create industries and jobs just like first adaptors brought down the price of big-screen TVs and made that industry the giant it is today.

Individuals acting in a free market will bring change faster than a top-down command economy. Obama's top-down energy folly is prolonging the recession, destroying jobs, enriching billionaires and driving up consumer costs. He couldn't be more wrong.


Read more: Where are 'green economy' jobs? http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=268977#ixzz1FFHXfgC0