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One thing always bothered me: how can something be cheap (after initial investments) and create lots of jobs in the long run at the same time? I mean what is th

One thing always bothered me: how can something be cheap (after initial investments) and create lots of jobs in the long run at the same time? I mean what is the money for fossil energy spent on, if not either raw materials or people part of the supply chain?

Robotbeat 5y ago
I agree. When individual projects promise to be cheap AND make a lot of jobs, I'm distrustful. However, low cost energy will enable more jobs than it costs. That's not a per-project thing, though.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
Labor is a significant portion of the cost of green energy. For example putting solar on your roof is more than 50% installation costs. Fossil fuels are mostly capital costs. The book goes into this, along with everything else. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify
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syntheweave 5y ago
Jevon's Paradox, as mentioned in the article, has a corollary: if you have decreased the cost of using a resource so much that new products are created to exploit it... then you have new products, which create job demand in different sectors. For example, graphene production is gradually exiting the lab these days. Graphene is still really expensive. But in small quantities it can be blended to add strength to concrete, which already makes new kinds of concrete products possible - a small transitional step, improving existing construction methods. But as it gets cheaper, we might start to see all-graphene objects with completely new applications, which then transform entire categories of goods and services - a light, strong material using a plentiful resource. If graphene lives up to the ballyhoo, it'd be Plastics 2, Greener This Time. The question of "enough jobs to go around" is something that can be expressed through capital deployment. When there is a hot new sector, capital rushes into it. So the profits in one sector can end up being harnessed by the others to finance their development, given functioning capital markets providing appropriate liquidity(hardly a constant throughout history). There are a lot of things we could be financing that don't have the right time horizons or paths to investment for our financial system, and we can't change our workforce allocations instantly. Edit: I consistently misspelled "graphene"

Robotbeat 5y ago

I agree. When individual projects promise to be cheap AND make a lot of jobs, I'm distrustful. However, low cost energy will enable more jobs than it costs. That's not a per-project thing, though.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

Labor is a significant portion of the cost of green energy. For example putting solar on your roof is more than 50% installation costs. Fossil fuels are mostly capital costs. The book goes into this, along with everything else. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify

deleted 5y ago
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syntheweave 5y ago

Jevon's Paradox, as mentioned in the article, has a corollary: if you have decreased the cost of using a resource so much that new products are created to exploit it... then you have new products, which create job demand in different sectors. For example, graphene production is gradually exiting the lab these days. Graphene is still really expensive. But in small quantities it can be blended to add strength to concrete, which already makes new kinds of concrete products possible - a small transitional step, improving existing construction methods. But as it gets cheaper, we might start to see all-graphene objects with completely new applications, which then transform entire categories of goods and services - a light, strong material using a plentiful resource. If graphene lives up to the ballyhoo, it'd be Plastics 2, Greener This Time. The question of "enough jobs to go around" is something that can be expressed through capital deployment. When there is a hot new sector, capital rushes into it. So the profits in one sector can end up being harnessed by the others to finance their development, given functioning capital markets providing appropriate liquidity(hardly a constant throughout history). There are a lot of things we could be financing that don't have the right time horizons or paths to investment for our financial system, and we can't change our workforce allocations instantly. Edit: I consistently misspelled "graphene"