Between 1977 and 2007, California’s clean energy policies led to the creation of 1.5 million jobs while only 25,000 were lost in the traditional electric power industry.
Another way of saying that is $44.6 billion was added to the state economy while only $1.6 billion was lost.
This is a landmark study in the clean energy field as it is the first to objectively demonstrate over multiple decades that good clean energy state policy has a highly positive impact on job creation - a fundamental tenant of the clean energy movement.
The New York Times’ Felicity Barringer wrote prominently about the study in yesterday’s Sunday edition of the paper, featuring highlights that included California increases of $1.2 billion in the light industrial sector, $11.2 billion in wholesale and retail trade, $7.3 billion in the financial and insurance sectors and $17.8 billion in the service sector
“Consumers were able to reduce energy spending,” the study concludes, adding that “these savings were diverted to other demand.”
“When consumers shift one dollar of demand from electricity to groceries,” the report said, they create jobs among retailers, wholesalers, food processors and other businesses.
One of the most important points Barringer makes is the difference of this study compared to others.
Some economists focus their studies on the cost of converting the power grid to run on low-carbon technologies, like wind energy, or the cost of developing technologies to separate the carbon dioxide from coal-plant emissions and bury it underground. Others focus on the job creating potential of new energy industries.
The Berkeley study is different in that it focuses as much on historical data as on modeling the future. California’s energy-efficiency policies were adopted in 1978, long before the widespread push for greenhouse-gas reductions, but the data they provide is highly relevant to the current economic debate.
What do y’all think?
How can California take this information and go further?
How can other states and the federal govermnet follow California’s lead?
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Certainly the IT revolution allowed California to increase jobs while using less energy due to the computer industries replacing more energy intensive sectors such as aerospace. However, most of the computer hardware is not built in California. The locations where the hardware is made and materials processed will likely show higher per capita energy use than California even if their industries were relatively energy efficient.