Green Jobs and the Ethics of Energy - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 148

Some economists use economic multipliers to indicate the difference in terms of
job creation between capital- and labour-intensive pathways, and in early studies of
job creation, it was often suggested that developing technologies like renewables
would create 2-3 times more jobs/unit of energy output than the development of
nuclear plants (Elliott 1976 ).
The econometric multiplier approach, using sectorial input and output tables,
allows for assessment of indirect jobs, created by the supply of materials and ser-
vices (the supply chain) as well as induced jobs, created in the economy by direct
and indirect workers spending their wages on (unrelated) goods and services. But it
can be an imprecise science, relying on uncertain assumptions and data, e.g. for the
productivity in each sector, which may change over time and by location (IRENA
2012b ).
Some economists argue that the best way to understand employment creation is
by simply following the money. In this view, the money initially injected for a spe-
cifi c project will trickle down through wages spent in various parts of the economy.
In the fi nal analysis, although some money may be banked/saved temporarily, all the
injected money will eventually go through wages at some point, whether for indi-
rect, indirect or induced jobs, including any money that goes into profi ts. On this
view then, the only thing that matters in comparing projects is how much money is
initially injected. If a project is expensive, it will ultimately create more jobs. On
that basis, if it is accepted that they are more expensive, building nuclear power
plants should create more jobs per megawatt (MW) of capacity than say building
wind projects.
In reality there are some complexities that undermine this simple argument.
Firstly, jobs are not just created in construction but also in plant operation, spread
over the lifetime of the plant and paid from earnings from sale of its output. However,
that means, all other things being equal, that the number of operational jobs will
depend ultimately on the MWhs produced, which in turn will depend on the MW
capacity, modifi ed by the load factor the plant can achieve, i.e. how much of its
installed capacity can actually be used over the year. But in reality, all other things
are not equal. For example, some technologies require different levels of skill in both
construction and operation, and these will have different wage and salary levels.
So our second complicating issue is that the total number of jobs will depend on
the pattern of pay levels, as the money injected for construction, or paid for opera-
tion, is deployed. To take an extreme, investing a fi xed amount in insulating build-
ings will create many low paid relatively unskilled direct jobs. Similarly, investing
in biomass production will create a lot of unskilled agricultural work on plantations.
By contrast, investing the same amount of money in high-tech nuclear project work,
using well-paid specialists, will create far fewer direct jobs, but possibly more
indirect and induced jobs. So the types and numbers of jobs will vary in each path-
way. So will their location: some may be abroad, especially indirect and induced
jobs.
A third factor then emerges - the timing/duration of the jobs will vary. A major
programme of investment in building insulation (a vital step in any green future)
would create a lot of low paid low skill jobs quickly. The money would be spent fast,