NC Media Watch

Prop 23 Update: Green Job Explosion a Pipe Dream

Russ Steele

During the Prop 23 debate our local left told us that an explosion of green job were going to bring California out of the recession and voting for Prop 23 was going to destroy that dream of green wealth. Now reality has set in and the pipe dream has exploded, and even the über-liberal New York Times has taken notice.

In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream.

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A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.

Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development.

The weatherization program was initially delayed for seven months while the federal Department of Labor determined prevailing wage standards for the industry. Even after that issue was resolved, the program never really caught on as homeowners balked at the upfront costs.

Oh my, now what?  We told our local lefties, who were supporting the full implimentation of AB-32, that going green would be a job killer.  It did in Spain, which was often cited as a model for California to follow by our former RINO Governor. As the study demonstrated,  "Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent."

Exit Question:  How are we going to recover from this lefty driven green pipe dream?

Prop 23 Update: Shutting down the Green Energy Sector

Russ Steele

The UK Climate Policy Newwork points to an interesting story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, by Don  Hopey: Corbett quietly turning off the lights on renewable energy.

Quietly but systematically, the Pennsylvanian administration has all but shut down the state Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Energy and Technology Deployment -- the state's primary energy office -- and removed directors and reassigned staff in the Office of Energy Management in the Department of General Services and the Governor's Green Government Council. It has also forbidden state executive agencies from signing contracts that support clean energy supply. One former DEP employee said of the Energy Office, "it's being taken apart piece-by-piece and the pieces are being thrown away.

ooo

Pennsylvania is not the only state reassessing or reducing green policies. Governors and legislators have voiced similar concerns in Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, according to the Pew Research Center

While other states are folding up the green energy tent while California is prompting a dangerous dependency on renewable energy. This dependency will drive up energy costs for business  and citizens. As California energy prices climb higher and higher, those states with lower costs will begin to attract California business and those with high paying portable jobs. 

I find it interesting that Pennsylvania is benefiting from extensive shale gas drilling, which is producing cheap easily transportable fuel for power plants and the heating of homes and factories. This is exactly what the EPA and the environmentalist wackos were concerned about. They are trying to shut down shale gas drilling by banning "fracking" which an essential tool for securing this cheap energy.  The sooner we put EPA in a political coma the better off we will all be.

Prop 23 Update: Lost another one, moved to Texas after 42 years in CA

Russ Steele

The Orange County Register has the story: Manufacturer moves to Texas after 42 years in O.C.

EDM Laboratories Inc., founded in Orange County in 1969, has moved to Corpus Christi, Tex. because California taxes and fees are too high, said owner Mike St. Amand.

Here some cost details from the article:

“The main thing that was getting tough — and I think this is true of every manufacturing company in California — is the state charges sales tax on leased equipment,” he said. “If you leased $1 million in equipment, you’d pay $25,000 a month in lease payments and then pay $1,900 a month in sales tax. Most states don’t do that.”
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Plus the county charges property tax on the equipment, which many states don’t charge, he added.

“My company truck registration cost $600 a year (in California) and $85 in Texas,” he continued. “My car insurance is less here. Gas is 50-cents-a-gallon cheaper. Electricity cost me $3,000 a month in California; last month running the air conditioning full time it cost $800.”

These are the challenges that are facing every California Company. It is not wonder that companies are leaving the state.

 H/T to a regular readers for providing a link to this stroy.

Prop 23 Update: CA has to try harder to destroy the economy

Russ Steele

CA is still in a depression and the environmentalist are more worried that we are not meeting the goals set out in AB-32 the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, then crating jobs.  Never mind, they there has not been any significant warming for the last 15 years and in Sacramento, the source of AB32, for the last 30 years.

CA Political News has the story here:

California is not on track to meet the most ambitious goals of AB 32, the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, according to Carl Blumstein, director of the California Institute for Energy and the Environment.

“It’s very challenging,” said Blumstein, addressing an August 4 event at the University of California Sacramento Center.

Blumstein did not challenge any part of AB 32, which calls for reductions in greenhouse gasses (GHG) by 80 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2050. But Blumstein said that “we are not on course” to meet the 80 percent goal for 2050. The goal for 2012 is 20 percent.

According to the California Energy Commission, as of 2010 natural gas accounts for 41.8 percent of state energy, with nuclear power 13.9 percent, unspecified 12 percent, large hydro 10.7 percent and coal 7.7 percent. Renewable sources amount to 13.7 percent of state energy. Solar power accounts for only 0.03 percent of that amount.

California must “confront climate change,” said Blumstein, who did not indicate whether all scientists agree that climate change means inexorable warming by human agency, to be remedied by government regulation. He did not refer to 30-year data on temperatures, which show cooling in the Sacramento area.

Read the rest of the story here. I agree, that California needs to “confront climate change” but we need to ask, what happens if the cooling trend continues. Reputable scientists. in peer reviewed papers, have said the sun is going into a long slumber, and when that has happened in the past the planet has cooled, for 30 to 70 years. Past cooling has a huge impact on agriculture and millions starved. What happens to California agriculture, which is a major part of the states economy,  if the cooling continues?  Should we be preparing for cooling and not warming, that is what the real world data is telling us, but our political leaders are looking for problems elsewhere.

Prop 23 Update: Silicon Valley's smart people having doubts, VC confidence drops

Russ Steele

During the Prop 23 debate or local left tried to convince us that Silicon Valley would save the California
economy, even though AB32 would continue to put more job killing regulation in place to reduce CO2.

Now the smart people in Silicon Valley are not so sure about creating those jobs, according to an article
in the  Silicon Valley Business Journal:  Silicon Valley VC confidence drops

Silicon Valley venture capitalists confidence dropped significantly in the second quarter, according
to a report released Friday.

The survey of 35 venture investors dropped to 3.66 on a five-point scale, down from 3.91
in the first quarter. A reading of five represents high confidence and 1 is low confidence.

It is 30th quarter that Mark V. Cannice, professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the University
of San Francisco (USF) School of Management,has done the survey.

"While many of the participating venture capitalists continued to be confident in the future prospects
of the high-growth entrepreneurial environment, an increasing number found reason for caution due
to worrisome macro economic trends, seemingly inflated valuations, uneven capital availability,
and regulatory constraints in the life science arena," Cannice wrote in his report.

You can read the rest of the report here.  Now what?

Prop 23 Update: Skilled Immigrants Skipping Silicon Valley

Russ Steele

During the debate over Prop 23 we were told that Silicon Valley green job were going to lead California into the states economic future. We were told that Silicon Valley was a magnet for skilled immigrants, a creative engine who would bring forth the next generation of "must have" products and ignite our economy.  It is not happening.

According to a study by the Brookings Institutute usiing Census data the rust-belt cities of Pittsburgh, Cleveland and St. Louis are all drawing a higher proportion of highly skilled immigrants than Silicon Valley according to a story in The Bay Citizen: Skilled Immigrants Skipping Silicon Valley - Heading to Rust Belt

"We don't think of these areas as high-tech hubs, but they have been really active in trying to recruit and encourage the welcoming of foreign workers into their industries to rejuvenate their economy," said the think tank's Matthew Hall.

Those cities also have a lower cost of living than San Francisco or San Jose, where companies and government expect highly educated immigrants to gravitate, according to Brookings.

"Pittsburgh is an easier place to afford to live the American dream and get your foot in the door. That might sound like a pretty good option to a lot of people," Hall said.

Brookings findings represent "a danger sign" for the Bay Area's tech sector, said Russell Hancock, head of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a public-private think tank.

Read the rest of the article here.

Another AB32 green job myth has been over come by reality. Sacramento is out of control and the Bay Area cities are floundering on liberalism, and that is making Cleveland and Pittsburg look good to educated immigrants, they are not dumb, there is more opportunity outside of California. 

Prop 23 Update: A hockey stick of another kind

Russ Steele

The California Energy Commission has been holding workshops on how to implement the Governor's renewable energy vision.

There will be Committee Workshop on the California Clean Energy Future on the 6 July. I was wandering through one of the presentations prepared for this meeting called Overview and Metric Review, and found this graphic on slide 20 rather interesting, as it looked like a lumpy hockey stick.


No do not ask me what IOU and POU mean, I searched the presentation and could not find a definition. These must be insider terms.

In another section of the presentation, the Committee worries about how to support a million plug in electric vehicles by 2020.  Given the poor sales of the Nissan LEAF and Chevy Volt, I am not sure they need worry to much.

As of June, Chevy Volt has sold 2,184 cars in 2011, and the Nissan Leaf has sold 2,167. That is about 725 cars a month in the US and one third of those sales are in California.  To reach a million plug in vehicles  by 2020 Chevy and Nissan would have to sell about 9,800 plug in vehicles a month in California.

I do not think that will happen any time soon. But, when you are dealing with Governor Brown's renewable energy vision, you have to pretend it will happen and build a capacity to meet a non-existing demand.  Remember this is a vision not reality!

Prop 23 Update: CA Cap and Trade Delayed for a year

Russ Steele

Sac Bee has the AP Story here.

California regulators on Wednesday said they would give power plants, refineries and other major polluters another year to comply with a new state program that provides financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.

Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the Air Resources Board, said in testimony before a state Senate committee that the government is giving California's major polluters until 2013 to comply with its cap-and-trade program.

Most polluters previously were to have begun cutting emissions under the program in 2012. The program was passed in December by the board, which said it hoped other states would follow suit since Congress had failed to pass national climate change legislation.

"This would not affect the stringency of the program or change the amount of emission reductions that the program will achieve, keeping us on track to meet the 2020 target required by AB32," Nichols said.

Well, this one more year for the cooling to become more evident from the forecast Grand Minimum. However, the real cooling is still ten years off.  In the mean time we will see our weather pattens bounce up and down, but continue to trend cooler and cooler.  Scientific sanity may yet prevail.

In the mean time, the Republican's could win the House, Senate, and Presidency, and this whole AGW bull sh*t will be quickly dispatched, as we start the true economic recovery free from EPA socialism.

Read the rest of the story here.

Prop 23 Update: Rate Companies are Leaving CA is Accelerating (Updated)

Russ Steele

This came in over the e-mail transom from a regular reader the other day and It got buried in the mulch pile of mail. According to an article in the Orange County Register:

The pace of companies moving partly or completely out of California has accelerated in 2011, according to Irvine business relocation expert Joe Vranich.

Through June 16, 129 California companies have moved jobs, work and/or headquarters out of state, says Vranich who has been tracking what he calls "disinvestment events" for three years. That is 60 more since his last round-up April 15.

On average, 5.4 businesses are moving jobs, work and/or headquarters out of California each week, compared to 3.9 such moves per week in 2010, says Irvine business relocation expert Joe Vranich

So far this year, the departures average 5.4 a week, compared to 3.9 a week in 2010 and one a week in 2009, Vranich says.

In the debate over Prop 23 our local left assured us that his would not happen. In fact they claimed that companies would be flocking to California to create a plethora of "green jobs." Well the green jobs were just a myth and the simple fact is the rate that companies are leaving the state is accelerating.

Update (06-20-11, 06:55) Rebane's ruminations has an list of "green companies" that are leaving or expanding out side California here.

Prop 23 Update: No it is not global warming, or climate change, it is” global weirding”

Russ Steele

Remember AB32, The Global Warming Solutions Act, which was to solve global warming and Prop 23 was arguing it was time to use some real science and not a bunch of fudged computer models to kill the states economy.  While Mary Nichols was in Nevada City in 2010 to speak against Prop 23 and support AB32, she call the climate we were experiencing  “climate weirding.”  It was not warming a projected in the rent seeking climatologist's models.  Now she has more support from a climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab:

"It's what I call global weirding," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "This has been a very strange year all over the planet."

The Sac Bee has more on the strange California weather, and some of the potential consequences, here. But, this is my favorite quote in the story:

"We don't understand everything, and we don't understand how the different feedbacks affect different parts of the climate system," said Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a private firm in Lexington, Mass. "It's very complicated. So we should expect the unexpected."

Exit Question:  If we do not understand everything, then why are CARB’s scientific hacks, our Legislators and the Governor making job killing public policies on incomplete knowledge?