In Where Did All The Green Jobs Go? I expressed considerable scepticism about the oft-repeated claims of green jobs connected to Net Zero in this country. In comments below that article I have also drawn attention to the sacrifice of manufacturing jobs in the UK on the Net Zero altar and the failure of the promised jobs to replace them. In addition, there is now of course an ongoing discussion of, inter alia, the effect on jobs in the North Sea oil and gas exploration sector of Labour’s proposed ban on new exploration and extraction licences there. The SNP, having originally planned to fund independence by using the taxes generated by North Sea oil and gas, then decided it was evil and that we had to put “saving the planet” before Scottish jobs. Now, with the general election tomorrow, they have changed course and now say that Labour’s plans will destroy Scottish jobs, and that this is rather important after all. Of course Labour’s plans to throw money at the “green transition” pale almost into insignificance when compared to the huge sums of money spent by President Biden’s administration under the strangely-named Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) (strangely-named, since the one thing that is guaranteed when governments borrow money to spend in huge amounts is that it will increase, rather than reduce, inflation).

Given all of the above, it strikes me as an appropriate time to see how things are going in the USA. Has the extraordinary expenditure of federal government funds on the “green economy” lived up to the claims made on behalf of the Act? Earlier this week a BBC article asked a similar question, with this heading: “Will Biden’s green jobs policy help him win votes?” Interestingly, when I clicked on it the heading changed to “‘Only latte liberals care about green energy round here’”, which might suggest that the working class at the sharp end of Washington DC politics aren’t much interested or impressed. Let’s see what the BBC makes of it.

The BBC seems perplexed by the lack of interest, given what it clearly sees as a superbly beneficial policy. In fact the thumbs up could hardly have been more enthusiastic if it had been written by Democrat party presidential campaigners. According to the BBC, the Act:

…offered hundreds of billions of dollars in tax incentives, credits and loans to stimulate American manufacturing in clean energy.

The most ambitious climate legislation in US history has generated a tsunami of private sector investments, with big implications for the rest of the world. And Georgia – a state President Biden hopes is in play in this year’s presidential election – has been a big beneficiary.

But with four months before the president goes head-to-head against Donald Trump, the billions of dollars of new investment in this key battleground state doesn’t appear to have lifted the incumbent’s support.

President Biden’s pitch is that solving the climate problem is also good for jobs. Since the law was passed, more than 300,000 clean energy jobs have been created in the US, according to the advocacy group Climate Power.

And there’s no doubt it’s creating opportunities in places like Dalton. Here you see Bidenomics in action – foreign and government money being used to fight climate change and build an economy from the middle out.

And yet something doesn’t add up. Despite the fact that much of this money has quite deliberately been directed to states such as Georgia that the Democrats hope to take from the Republicans in November’s Presidential election, the “message either isn’t getting through or simply isn’t resonating with locals – not even local Democrats”. The problem seems to be that they resent the fact that such jobs as are being created aren’t jobs created by US-owned businesses. On the contrary, locals resent it:

“The business community resents the fact that we have a company from South Korea coming in this area with government subsidies, while they themselves get nothing from the government,” says Mr Pourquoi, who identified as a Republican before switching parties following Trump’s election in 2016.

Perhaps Burns was right when he said the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley. And yet the BBC is very clear in uncritically accepting (no need for a fact-check by BBC Verify here) the figures offered by “advocacy group Climate Power” as referred to above. If, as they claim, “CLEAN ENERGY BOOM SOARS PAST 300,000 JOBS: 312,900 NEW CLEAN ENERGY JOBS NOW AT RISK FROM TRUMP AND BIG OIL’S REPEAL CRUSADE”, how on earth could anyone contemplate voting against Biden and for Trump? (Personally I think it’s more poignant than that – I have no idea how anybody could contemplate voting for either of them, but I digress). It’s worth, I think, taking a look at the report from Climate Power, since the BBC didn’t trouble to interrogate the claims they made.

I think it’s fair to say that even if the report is accurate (on which I express no opinion), it’s rather brief. It runs to 21 pages, of which at best perhaps six pages represent analysis, and the rest comprises appendices presenting the data by state and by Congressional Districts. The first thing that jumps out at me is the breakdown of the claimed jobs: 4% in the wind industry; 18.2% solar; 3.5% hydrogen; 3.8% grids; 14.7% electric vehicles; 14.2% “clean tech”; and a whopping 46.1% batteries. While it’s certainly true that if the US is to become dependent on renewable energy, batteries will be in great demand. However, putting 46.1% of your “green” job creation in a basket where China controls most of the necessary raw materials might not be the wisest strategy.

Then there is the cost of the jobs. I take at face value the claim that the jobs are skilled and well-paid. A deeper analysis might find something to question in that claim, but for present purposes I take it as read. In any event, the jobs had better be well-paid, given the costs associated with them. Space doesn’t permit a line-by-line analysis, but some headlines might be of interest. Let’s concentrate on the ten states which it is claimed benefit from the majority of new jobs:

Georgia – 41 projects, 30,661 new jobs, $23.88Bn investment (remember, it’s always an investment, never a cost). That equates to $778,839 per job.

New York – 23 projects, 28,934 jobs, $115.45Bn. That equates to a staggering $3,990,115 per job.

Texas – 46 projects, 23,146 jobs, $16.45Bn = $710,705 per job.

Michigan – 58 projects, 21,490 jobs, $25.38Bn = $1,181,014 per job.

Kansas – 5 projects, 21,077 jobs, $4.24Bn = $201,167 per job.

Nevada – 16 projects, 20,098 jobs, $14.5Bn = $721,464 per job.

South Carolina – 31 projects, 17,865 jobs, $15.01Bn = $840,190 per job.

New Mexico – 7 projects, 16,625 jobs, $2.99Bn = $179,849 per job.

Arizona – 20 projects, 15,570 jobs, $11.24Bn = $721,901 per job.

Ohio – 27 projects, 13,669 jobs, $10.43Bn = $763,040 per job.

North Carolina – 26 projects, 12,090 jobs, $19.18BN = $1,586,435 per job.

Perhaps the lesson is to invest in Kansas and New Mexico, as they represent better value than investments in New York, Michigan and North Carolina. Taking the total money spent and the total jobs claimed to be created, a spend of over $361Bn to create 312,900 new jobs equates to a cost per job of $1,153,723. In UK terms, at today’s exchange rate, that equates to £905,520 per job.

I have not considered whether any part of the policy underlying the Act has cost jobs. Even if we accept that it’s unalloyed good news, with high-quality well-paid jobs being created and none lost, it’s still an extraordinarily expensive policy.

Returning to the BBC article, however, the most telling statistics relate to China. China dominates world markets in these areas. As we are often told by those who tut when sceptics point to China’s continually rising greenhouse gas emissions, in 2024 it is expected to invest $359Bn in renewable power, while the figures for the EU are $106Bn and for the USA are $85Bn. At least the table in the BBC article says its $359Bn in China, but in the following paragraph it refers to an International Energy Agency Report, which instead claims a figure of $675Bn. Also, China controls 80% of the world’s solar panel supply chain.

The object of the Inflation Reduction Act, the BBC tells us, is to deny China any more of an opening into the US renewables market. And yet if one looks at the “Clean Energy Boom Report” cited by Climate Power in its brief analysis, Chinese and other Asian company names feature regularly when it comes to jobs that it claims are created thanks to the federal government’s largesse. Donghee America is a subsidiary of a South Korean company. Hyundai Mobis is also South Korean, as are Samkee Corp and Seohan Group, Daesol Ausys, Kia, Seoyan E-Hwa, Hanwha, Hwashin, Woory Industrial, Jaewon Industrial, SungEel HiTech and (no surprise here) NVH Korea. JA Solar is Chinese, as are Jinko Solar, Daechang Seat, Fuyao, and Sewong America is a subsidiary of a Chinese company. Bekaert is Belgian, as is Syensqo. Standard Lithium is Canadian. RWE Offshore Wind is German, as is Bosch. Canigou Group is based in Hong Kong. Panacea Global Energy is French-owned. Rayzon Solar is Indian. And so on. You get the picture. Yes, lots of US companies are seeing benefit, but so are companies based in Asian “developing” countries with massive greenhouse gas emissions, even if the companies themselves usually claim to be committed to Net Zero by some date or other. The US taxpayer is digging deep for the benefit of lots of foreign companies. It all begins to make sense. Remember the quote above:

“The business community resents the fact that we have a company from South Korea coming in this area with government subsidies, while they themselves get nothing from the government…”

Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Miliband: you are probably going to achieve a huge majority at this general election, but be careful what you do with it. Use it unwisely and you may well regret it.