There Will Be More New Jobs in Solar Than Oil by the End of the Year

[Dexter]

http://fortune.com/2016/04/20/solar-oil-jobs-indeed/

The world’s biggest oil companies are slashing jobs to cope with decreasing revenues, and one knock-on effect has been the drop in oil job postings. Conversely, however, if the current pace of postings hold, solar would become the largest market for energy jobs by the fourth quarter of 2016, according to numbers tabulated by Indeed, the world’s highest traffic job site. According to data provided to Fortune, job postings for the solar industry currently make up 39% of global energy-related work on Indeed, whereas oil jobs account for 50%. (Indeed declined to release the actual job posting figures.) But that relationship is changing—over the past two years, oil job postings are declining by around 12.6% every quarter, while solar jobs are dropping at an average of 1.7% per quarter. At this rate, solar will overtake oil for job postings by the end of the year.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

http://fortune.com/2016/04/20/solar-oil-jobs-indeed/

There is a glut of oil right now, as the glut dries up, this trend should reverse.

[Joe Wooten]

http://fortune.com/2016/04/20/solar-oil-jobs-indeed/

Whenever the subsidies end, so will the solar "boom". Without the federal subsidies to build and operate, solar in all it's forms still cannot compete with coal/nuclear/gas.

[Dexter]

Whenever the subsidies end, so will the solar "boom". Without the federal subsidies to build and operate, solar in all it's forms still cannot compete with coal/nuclear/gas.

Solar is getting cheaper and more efficient very quickly.

[truth_seeker]

Solar is getting cheaper and more efficient very quickly.

In order for solar to "compete" without subsidy, it needs to be cheaper, and alternatives need to be more costly.

But if the subsidy does make it financially advantageous to individual consumers, they buy it and help drive down the cost, making it cheaper as you say.

Also big jumps in technology could help.

In SoCal, residential installed solar reduces electric bills to almost nothing, for homes without pools.

[Smokin Joe]

Whenever the subsidies end, so will the solar "boom". Without the federal subsidies to build and operate, solar in all it's forms still cannot compete with coal/nuclear/gas.

If you leveled the playing field in reference to other regulations, then solar and wind would have even more problems. Consider the US tried to prosecute oil companies over 28 dead birds found in "wastewater pits" on some 7000 drilling and producing locations (bringing about the end of open 'reserve pits' on drilling locations), the bird burn and chop rate around solar projects and windmills would be prosecuted off the charts if the playing field was level. As it is, the wind and solar industries get a pass for bird kills and don't get prosecuted.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

If solar and wind were truly cheaper, or even competitive with fossil fuels, we would have been doing it long, long ago.

[Dexter]

If solar and wind were truly cheaper, or even competitive with fossil fuels, we would have been doing it long, long ago.

Solar energy is improving at a phenomenal rate with no signs of slowing down. It's not there yet, but why assume it won't be in the future? The subsidies are about seeing potential and developing a technology.

[Just_Victor]

If solar and wind were truly cheaper, or even competitive with fossil fuels, we would have been doing it long, long ago.

I've always wanted to disconnect from the electric grid, so I keep pricing out the renewables, and dreaming about not paying a bill to the electric company.  Problem is the capital outlay is never recovered in the savings over the life of the equipment.   The tax deduction helps, but it still doesn't break even, or at least it didn't the last time I ran the numbers a few years back.

[Smokin Joe]

Solar energy is improving at a phenomenal rate and with no signs of slowing down. It's not there yet, but why assume it won't be in the future? The subsidies are about seeing potential and developing a technology.

Latitude. In a word, that's the problem where I am. (Shorter winter days when heat is desirable, low incidence angle causing lower efficiency in winter (especially), snow accumulations, and wind loads. (Funny how the folks who have the most faith in solar are in more tropical latitudes.)
As for the subsidies, I see the potential in guaranteeing huge loans to a company going teats up, and getting seven figure or larger kickbacks. While that might be electrifying, it doesn't light the bulb. I'm okay with university grants for basic research (fundamental principles), but let the market decide whether to invest in that.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Solar energy is improving at a phenomenal rate with no signs of slowing down. It's not there yet, but why assume it won't be in the future? The subsidies are about seeing potential and developing a technology.

If it was competitive we'd already be doing it. I do think it will have a place in our future. For now subsidizing it distorts the market and leads to crap like Solyndra.

[Joe Wooten]

I've always wanted to disconnect from the electric grid, so I keep pricing out the renewables, and dreaming about not paying a bill to the electric company.  Problem is the capital outlay is never recovered in the savings over the life of the equipment.   The tax deduction helps, but it still doesn't break even, or at least it didn't the last time I ran the numbers a few years back.

Absolutely CORRECT! The subsidies have been going on for over 30 years and there still is no end in sight for them because every time there is the smallest threat to eliminate/reduce them, the cronies start howling. Without the subsidies and the regulatory exemptions, both solar and wind fail. Solar PV panels also start experiencing a degradation in efficiency from the moment they are exposed to sunlight that is irreversible, and reduces the effective lifetime of a power panel to the point it has not truly paid back the initial investment before it fails. Government subsidies mask this problem and distort the market.



Full article   http://www.powermag.com/chart-a-new-course/

This chart is from an article in Power Magazine from 2011, and conditions really have not changed that much. The $/MWHR are the federal subsidies to each source. For oil/gas/coal, the main one is where the author concedes to the statists that the depletion allowance is a subsidy, even though he disagrees. Nuclear subsidies are mostly the Anderson-Price Insurance pool and limitations, even though the government has paid out only once for TMI-2.

[Just_Victor]

Absolutely CORRECT! The subsidies have been going on for over 30 years and there still is no end in sight for them because every time there is the smallest threat to eliminate/reduce them, the cronies start howling. Without the subsidies and the regulatory exemptions, both solar and wind fail. Solar PV panels also start experiencing a degradation in efficiency from the moment they are exposed to sunlight that is irreversible, and reduces the effective lifetime of a power panel to the point it has not truly paid back the initial investment before it fails. Government subsidies mask this problem and distort the market.



Full article   http://www.powermag.com/chart-a-new-course/

This chart is from an article in Power Magazine from 2011, and conditions really have not changed that much. The $/MWHR are the federal subsidies to each source. For oil/gas/coal, the main one is where the author concedes to the statists that the depletion allowance is a subsidy, even though he disagrees. Nuclear subsidies are mostly the Anderson-Price Insurance pool and limitations, even though the government has paid out only once for TMI-2.

 

[MajorClay]

help me with the calculation,  the chart is in dollars per megawatt hours.  Would that be 22 cents per kilowatt hour?

[Joe Wooten]

help me with the calculation,  the chart is in dollars per megawatt hours.  Would that be 22 cents per kilowatt hour?

2 cents per KWH. Divide by 1000.