The creation of “green-collar” jobs is a major component of President Obama’s energy and economic strategy. Opportunities for achieving realistic goals should certainly be pursued, and many “green” projects do represent sound economics.

“Smart meters” and better attic, wall and window insulation reduce energy expenditures, and quickly pay back investments. Better sequencing of traffic lights speeds commuters to workplaces, saves gasoline, cuts pollution, and reduces accidents. Telecommuting also saves energy.

New technologies enable smelters and factories to recycle waste heat, to power turbines and generate electricity. Energy-efficient computers and servers mean big savings in power-hungry data centers that facilitate banking, Internet searches, modern business operations and YouTube.

Such initiatives also create “green” jobs. Renewable energy and energy efficiency industries already generate 8.5 million such jobs in the United States, claims a 2007 report from the American Solar Energy Society, and could create “as many as 40 million” by 2030.

However, numerous other green initiatives would not survive without mandates, renewable energy standards, tariffs and taxpayer-financed subsidies that borrow money or take funds from one economic sector and transfer it to another. 

Energy-efficiency efforts have been ongoing for decades. Calling the relevant positions “green-collar” is good PR, but often merely redefines previously existing jobs and doesn’t expand the actual employment base. Moreover, many of these jobs are low-paying labor and construction jobs – and money spent on marginal initiatives isn’t available for critical problems like crime, AIDS, drug abuse, failing schools, heating bill assistance, and repairing bridges and roads.

The ASES report includes direct and indirect employment associated with retrofitting buildings, installing insulation or solar panels, constructing transmission lines from unreliable wind farms, producing biofuels and fuel-efficient vehicles, and designing and manufacturing supplies for projects. Even accountants, lawyers, salesmen, repairmen, truck drivers, landscapers, bureaucrats and lobbyists associated with these activities are included – and separating new jobs from redefined old jobs is difficult.

Does a maintenance position become a “green” job, because the office building switches from incandescent to compact fluorescent bulbs? Is a laborer now a green-collar worker because the trees he plants on the west side of a building reduce air-conditioning needs, or the last load of concrete was part of the 400-ton base of a wind turbine tower? Is a farmer “green” because he quarter of his acreage is devoted to corn for ethanol?

Of greater concern, restricting hydrocarbon energy use or imposing tough climate change rules could terminate millions of high-quality existing jobs that require carbon fuels, and likely won’t be replaced by green-collar positions. So it’s important that we honestly separate hype and hope from reality, practicality and unintended consequences.

Solar panels to generate electricity have maximum 30-year lifetimes – but require a century of energy savings to equal installation costs, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Wind turbines typically generate at their rated capacity only 25% of a year, and often at only 10% on freezing winter nights and sweltering summer afternoons, because that is when the wind is at low ebb.

Ethanol requires huge amounts of land, water and natural gas, to replace a small portion of our gasoline with an expensive fuel that drives up the cost of food and gets cars 10% less mileage per tank.

Compressed natural gas vehicles represent only 120,000 of America’s 235,000,000 cars and light trucks. Honda’s CNG-powered Civic costs $7000 more than the regular model, but has half the range. And opposition to drilling means fewer gas supplies and higher prices in the face of increasing demand.

Fossil fuels provide 85% of the energy Americans use; nuclear power an additional 8 percent. They have brought us unprecedented health, opportunity and prosperity. Wind and solar combined produce a minuscule 0.5% of total US energy. Continued...