Green Jobs and the Ethics of Energy - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 144

Table 5.2 Generation cost estimates per MWh delivered, in the UK based on Mott MacDonald
data, levelised costs in £/MWh (MacDonald 2011 )
Electricity option Current cost Cost in 2040
Onshore wind 83-90 52-55
Offshore wind 169 69-82
Tidal barrage 518 271-312
Tidal stream 293 100-140
Wave (fi xed-fl oating) 368-600 115-300
Hydro (small/run of river) 69 52-58
Solar photovoltaics (PV) 343-378 60-90
Biomass (wastes/short rotation coppice) 100-171 100-150
Biogas (anaerobic digestion/wastes) 51-73 45-70
Geothermal 159 80
Nuclear (water-cooled reactors) 96-98 51-66
Gas with carbon capture and storage 100-105 100-105
Coal with carbon capture and storage 145-158 130
The data above is not defi nitive: critics have suggested that the estimates for nuclear are optimistic
(being for as yet un-built plants of new types) and those for renewables pessimistic, given current
price reduction trends for actual projects. Certainly Mott Macdonald say they were 'bullish' on
nuclear costs, and critics have argued that in fact nuclear costs are likely to go up (Harris et al.
2012 )
energy effi ciency to reduce energy wastage, seems to be the answer to these chal-
lenges, with few downsides: the environmental costs in the costs of conventional
sources make the alternative options more attractive, and these costs will grow.
There are also wider ethical, social and political arguments for this change, in
that, for example, it is claimed that it will enable a shift to a more decentralised car-
ing society - and away from large-scale centralised technology, dominated by pow-
erful corporate elites (Miller and Hopkins 2013 ). That is an attractive vision, but can
perhaps be too technologically determinist: there once was a society based on using
natural energy fl ows, feudalism, and that was not exactly utopia! The point is that
technology does not automatically defi ne society. Technology may make new social
forms possible, but there is no guarantee that it will lead to a socially equitable state
of affairs. Though it is hard to see how a society based on renewables could be quite
the same as one based on say nuclear power (e.g. given that smaller-scale renew-
ables are well suited to local co-operative ownership), there will still be political
battles to fi ght, as of course is recognised by the grass-roots activists striving for
green futures.
Within that broad context, one specifi c argument that has been used to spur on the
transition to green energy is the claim that it would create a lot of employment and
better employment and job security - sustainable green jobs. If true, that claim offers
powerful political ammunition at a time when employment is threatened by reces-
sion and by new patterns of global economic competition. In what follows, I ask if
this claim is valid. It sounds like a very desirable option - clean, safe, green jobs
replacing dirty, dangerous, non-sustainable jobs. But is that really what is on offer?