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Renewable Energy News

FRIDAY 21 AUGUST, 2009 |

Job Losses - The Coal Power Industry Furphy

by Energy Matters

Coal and renewable energy jobs
As the lawmakers continue to duke it out behind the scenes over Australia's Emissions Trading Scheme; the Australian public is continuously assaulted by the coal fired power generation lobby with rumours of massive job losses if their industries should suffer as a result of emission control legislation.

Aside from the widely-recognised fact that in order to have a healthy economy, the environment must also be healthy - and the environment has already suffered greatly at the hands of coal; the jobs loss bogeyman would appear to be nothing more than scare mongering. Jobs could be lost; but would be regained in other, greener industries - and far more of them.

Lester R. Brown is an American environmentalist and founder of the Earth Policy Institute. He is the recipient of 40 honorary degrees and has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers."

According to Mr. Brown:

- Every billion dollars invested in wind farms creates some 3,350 jobs

- A billion dollars of investment in retrofitting buildings to be more energy efficient create more than 6,000 jobs

- A billion dollars invested in solar power installations generates 1,480 jobs.

- Pouring a billion dollars into the construction of coal fired plants? Just 870 jobs.

Mr. Brown's book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, is becoming required reading in some universities. It outlines the problems facing humanity in terms of climate change and environmental degradation, but more importantly, it lays down a blueprint of how humanity can avoid a disaster - and renewable energy plays an important role in that blueprint.

Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization can be downloaded free of charge in PDF format.