Policymakers Deal With Both Climate Change And Economic Losses In Fossil-Fuel Communities
August 19, 2021–As the long-term fight against global climate change intensifies, workers and communities reliant on the fossil fuel industry are increasingly feeling the pinch of potential job losses and revenue.
That presents a challenge for policymakers in the public and private sectors. As they move toward a greener economy, they also need to think in terms of mitigating losses in traditional energy sectors.
“It’s important to be doing it now because the transition is beginning to accelerate,” said Phil Jordan, vice president at BW Research Partnership. “We have to figure this out in the next three to five years at the latest.”
Jordan took part in putting together an annual report on wages and jobs in the energy sector for the government. It also came with a supplemental report.
Global Trend, Local Impact
The trend of moving away from traditional energy sources and to renewable energy and natural gas is taking place worldwide. New jobs in the green economy are coming online. But they are not coming to the same areas where fossil fuel plants are closing.
The impact, however, is felt in the many local communities.
Many fossil-fuel communities are uniquely reliant on the plants’ tax revenue and employment. In 2019, nearly 1.7 million people worked in fossil fuel industries in the United States. Jobs include mining, electricity generation, utility construction, pipelines, resource extraction, refining and other related manufacturing.
Job Losses
According to Emsi Burning Glass Technologies, the energy job market is experiencing big shifts. Between 2015 and 2020, employment in the fossil fuel electric power generation industry fell 16 percent. It is projected to drop by another 12 percent between 2020 and 2025.
As fossil fuel plants close, policymakers are trying to mitigate the impact on communities.
Making Coal Cleaner
One way to address job losses is to lessen the blow. That’s what Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin had in mind when they visited coal and power-plant communities in West Virginia in June.
They discussed new technologies to capture emissions so fossil fuel production can continue. Granholm also announced Energy Department $5 million worth of funding for a West Virginia University research department. The goal is to develop low-carbon power plant technology. She also said the department would fund a West Virginia-based clean energy accelerator and use steel from West Virginia to build an offshore wind installation vessel.
Location of New Investments Matter
Scholars outside government are advocating for that kind of approach: Plan new systems where old ones are dying.
Writing for Brookings last Spring, Adie Tomer, Joseph Kane and Caroline George offered suggestions for building up renewable energy in the same locations where fossil fuel jobs are closing. However, the best locations for wind and solar power are reliant on high wind and solar.
Nevertheless, the authors found that a quarter of the potential wind-and-solar counties are also fossil fuel hubs. So there’s some overlap. The Midwest and the Appalachians offer locations where wind power can be produced at prices competitive with fossil fields, while the Southwest is ripe for solar energy production.
Ultimately, the authors called on the federal government to help guide the transition.
Solar Jobs Growing Fast
In contrast to coal, the solar industry is growing and employment is rising.
Job growth grew by 96 percent between 2015 and 2020. Analysts at Emsi Burning Glass Technologies project them to grow by another 30 percent over the next five years.
Even so, those numbers are “don’t capture the full dynamism of the economy,” Bledi Taska, chief economist of Emsi Burning Glass Technologies told the GER. Taska noted that many jobs in the solar industry are part-time or temporary. He added that solar installers are one of the fastest-growing occupations in the United States. Its expected growth rate is 51 percent over the next 10 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Only wind-turbine technicians and nurse practitioners are likely to see faster growth rates.)
Minimizing Impact to Workers
Elsewhere, service providers are also energy producers. Dominion Energy serves customers in nine states and boasts the third-largest solar portfolio in the country among providers. The company did not offer specifics on what comes next for its workers.
“As we retire units, we will work to minimize the impact to the communities, our neighbors, and especially our dedicated colleagues who have worked tirelessly to operate these facilities safely and reliably,” said Dominion Energy spokesperson Ken Holt told the GER. ”We are focused on identifying ways to retrain and prepare our colleagues for future clean energy jobs.”
Renewable Energy Jobs
Overall, the transition to a low-carbon energy economy could create as many as 40 million jobs worldwide by 2050, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Some of those will be in the renewable energy sector. Alex Hobson, vice president of communications at the American Council on Renewable Energy, argues that green energy creates more jobs than fossil fuels. According to the council, the renewable energy sector employed 516,664 workers in 2020.
Electric Power
Power generation, meanwhile, is a large sector. The USEER report projected 8.1 percent job growth this year in electric power generation.
Perhaps the greatest contrast it noted lay in this bullet point: “While solar EPG has the most jobs overall, the utility sector of Electric Power Generation is dominated by natural gas, coal, and nuclear power, which produce nearly 80 percent of the nation’s electricity.”
That being the case, the issue then becomes less about jobs, overall, but about ramping up large-scale energy transmission from renewable generation.
Sources: Brookings Institution report, 2021 United States Energy & Employment Report (USEER)
Additional reporting by Patti Mohr. Infographics by Spencer Hayes.
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