Re:Solar Now Provides Twice as Many Jobs as the Coal Industry
by mulmen on Tuesday February 28, 2017 @12:21AM
(#13751460)
I don't think that comparison is fair and the article reads to me like it is focused primarily on large commercial installations which would be comparable to coal power plants.
Having said that I think it would be fair to count home installations anyway. If we are talking about the job creating benefits of power generation methods then we should talk about jobs per installed Megawatt both in terms of initial roll out and ongoing maintenance.
There is no option to use coal generators at home, although I believe coal heat was not uncommon in the last century. If such a thing was common today then "residential coal boiler worker" could also be counted as part of the coal industry. Coal is not a technology that lends itself well to home installation and so there are fewer people involved in it.
One of the benefits of solar is that it can be installed on individual homes and this will necessarily employ more people to support all the individual installations.
Having said that I think it would be fair to count home installations anyway. If we are talking about the job creating benefits of power generation methods then we should talk about jobs per installed Megawatt both in terms of initial roll out and ongoing maintenance.
There is no option to use coal generators at home, although I believe coal heat was not uncommon in the last century. If such a thing was common today then "residential coal boiler worker" could also be counted as part of the coal industry. Coal is not a technology that lends itself well to home installation and so there are fewer people involved in it.
One of the benefits of solar is that it can be installed on individual homes and this will necessarily employ more people to support all the individual installations.