Academic

GREEN JOB FAIL: New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs. ?Despite all the talk of green jobs,?

By Glenn Reynolds

GREEN JOB FAIL: New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs. “Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C. . . . Even with the infusion of so much stimulus money, a recent report by American Wind Energy Association showed a drop in U.S. wind manufacturing jobs last year.”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

In the event you post this, please don?t use my name, but until last year I worked at a law firm that had a very strong wind power practice. One foreign client in particular has kept the wind power practice group very busy during a time when most lawyers have been surviving on a fraction of what they used to bill. Each deal to buy turbines and set them up and then sell the power results in lawyers and bankers in the US billing significant amounts of money to the foreign clients that manufacture the turbines. It?s not tens of thousands of jobs, nor is it blue collar employment, but the money spent in the US to expand wind power capabilities definitely has an effect on white collar jobs. I know that lawyers and bankers are not the ones Obama is trying to help with the green jobs stimuli, but the positive effects can?t be ignored.

Well, if it’s keeping lawyers employed, then it’s a big success! More wind subsidies, please!

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on February 10, 2010 (boomark / email).