World's largest wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas, facing stiff NIMBY opposition, has closed their factory on the Isle of Wight. 600 jobs have been or will soon be lost.
"Many more jobs that depend on Vestas will follow."
http://savevestas.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/bbc-radio-4-programme-vestas-versus-the-faceless-nimbys/
Cape Wind represents jobs created to the public, but their lawyers won't state the same to the permit decision makers:
Cape Cod Commission Staff Report:
"Cape Wind has stated that there will be no permanent employment associated with this project in Barnstable County"
page 23 of 29 Cape Wind Energy Project JR20084 Staff Report-September 4, 2007/ down-load Adobe Cape Cod Commission Staff Report available here:
http://www.windaction.org/documents/11706
Overblown benefits of wind energy--JOBS
"Senate Environment and Public Works Committee created a new Subcommittee on Green Jobs, their benefits and costs. With this in mind, Ranking Member Kit Bond conducted a review of green job programs, experiences and examples."
Source: Washington Post 'Tilting at Windmills' June 24, 2009 by George Will:
"Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report that, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it."
"Calzada says Spain's torrential spending -- no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources -- on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies -- wind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation -- sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency -- of capital. (European media regularly report "eco-corruption" leaving a "footprint of sleaze" -- gaming the subsidy systems, profiteering from land sales for wind farms, etc.) Calzada says the creation of jobs in alternative energy has subtracted about 110,000 jobs elsewhere in Spain's economy."
The Report:
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf
"Green Collar" Job Creation: A Critical Analysis
http://www.beaconhill.org/BHIStudies/GreenJobs09/PressReleaseBHIGreenJobsStudy090625.htm
"Nevertheless, a mixture picture of green jobs efforts presented itself with massive taxpayer subsidies required to create green jobs and higher energy prices and lost existing jobs expected to create green jobs and higher energy prices and lost existing jobs expected from current proposals to green job creation. All of this signals a yellow light urging caution with green jobs."
*New Report: 'High Road or Low Road'
Commissioned by: Change to Win, Sierra Club, the Laborers International Union of North America, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
"Our review of working conditions in three core sectors of the emerging green economy--wind and solar component manufacturing; green construction; and recycling--suggests one basic conclusion: The fact that an employer is engaged in a business that benefits the environment does not necessarily mean that the employees of that enterprise are going to be treated well. While some green companies are model employers, others pay their workers too little and offer them inadequate benefits. Purportedly green firms have in some cases resorted to union-busting and the exploitation of undocumented immigrants. In short, the green economy is not always a humane economy."