How many jobs does clean energy create?

Declining costs of wind, solar power and energy efficiency is helping to drive a shift from fossil fuels generally — and coal in particular—可再生能源和能源效率。从2015年上半年到2016年上半年，可再生能源的使用增加了9％，而在美国的煤炭使用下降了18％，according tothe Energy Information Administration.

What does this shift mean for jobs? From 2014 to 2015 solar employment increased by 6 percent while employment in upstream oil and gas and support services dropped by 18 percent. This reduction reflects both declining coal consumption and continued reduction in labor intensity. There are now more jobs in the U.S. in solar than in either oil and gas extraction or coal mining.

What would a continued transition from fossil fuels — particularly coal — to renewable energy and energy efficiency mean for U.S. employment? The answer depends largely on how many jobs each sector creates — that is what is the employment intensity of each energy sector? The electricity sector involves millions of jobs, and arguments for one form of energy versus another usually involves claims about how many jobs investments in each form of energy will create.

这里将继续成为数千亿美元的能源投资，因此，如果能量的一种形式创建一个比另一个更大量的工作关系重大。There are confusing and contradictory claims about job creation from different forms of energy.

这里将继续成为数千亿美元的能源投资，因此，如果能量的一种形式创建一个比另一个更大量的工作关系重大。

Energy-related employment is a slippery subject — are jobs permanent or just for one year (called job years)? Some job creation estimates count just direct jobs while others include indirect and induced jobs, so to be meaningful, a job creation claim must be an apples-to-apples comparison.

There are a few good independent rigorous sources on job intensity of energy efficiency and renewable energy relative to other forms of energy. The chart below is from the World Bank:

The World Bank estimates那美国风能和太阳能产生大约每百万美元的13.5作业spending,and that building retrofits — energy efficiency — creates 16.7 jobs per million dollars of spending. This is more than three times the 5.2 jobs per $1 million for oil and natural gas, and more than two times the 6.9 jobs per $1 million for coal.

A more detailed job analysis is provided byAltEnergyStocks, which finds5.3 jobs per $1 million for fossil fuel investments, and a bit over three times this — 16.7 jobs per $1 million for clean energy (energy efficiency and renewable energy). Importantly, this analysis also documents the substantially higher quality and higher pay nature of clean energy jobs relative to fossil fuel employment.

U.S. state level energy employment impact analysis also finds large employment benefits from clean energy investments. For example, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, in a2015 review (PDF)of state-level energy efficiency programs, found that an energy efficiency investment of $1 million creates 66 job years (this includes both direct and indirect jobs).

Clean energy jobs are also more distributed and are largely higher quality jobs.

国际研究还发现，相对于化石燃料的清洁能源，劳动强度大的差异。例如，2014年英国能源研究中心报告显示，"Low Carbon Jobs,"found that the average employment creation for fossil fuels is 0.14 jobs per Gigawatthour (coal 0.15, gas 0.12), that the average across all renewable energy is 0.65 jobs/GWh, and that the average across both renewable energy and energy efficiency is 0.80 jobs/GWh.

Thisbroad government studyfinds that renewable energy creates 4.3 times as many jobs as coal and 5.4 times as many as natural gas. It also finds that job creation from clean energy generally (renewables plus energy efficiency) is 5.3时greater than from coal and 6.7 times greater than from natural gas.

Renewable energy and energy efficiency clearly areseveral timesmore labor-intensive than fossil fuels. Clean energy jobs alsogenerallyaremore distributed and are largely higher quality jobs. For these reasons, the ongoing shift to clean energy is very good news for employment and workers, and any politician interested in creating jobs should embrace and support the clean energy transition.