Charlottesville, Virginia
July 4, 2020
Some of you know I spent the last 10 years of my career working for the federal "green bank." We provided loan guarantees to innovative energy and auto-related projects that due to where they were in the development life cycle were not able to secure debt financing (and you are not going to finance a capital-intensive project with expensive venture equity). Our loan guarantees backstopped funds that came from the Treasury Department (primarily). Yes, my group did Solyndra. We also did Tesla. And we did the first five utility-scale solar, the largest wind farms, came close to doing the first offshore wind farm in the US, and the nuclear plant being built in Georgia. Overall we guaranteed almost $40 billion of investments. It wasn't the most lucrative period of my career, but I felt and feel that I made a noteworthy contribution to the U.S. expanding its presence in the renewable sector.
I found this McKinsey article interesting. There are times when governments need to provide stimulus to move the market in the "right" direction. Some would argue that renewables is not the right direction for the U.S. Not that I want to be a lemming, but the rest of the developed world has embraced a low-carbon future. The U.S. used to be a leader in so many industries - power generation being one of them. Now we ceded that position (in the energy sector) to the Chinese and the Europeans. This article makes the point that investing in a low-carbon technologies can provide more jobs than staying the course that MAGA would have us pursue.
It is certainly worth having the debate.
I respectfully submit that the article waves its contradiction proudly -- if the "green" energy sector creates more jobs than does fossil fuel, it is -- by its very definition -- less efficient! The purpose of any industry is to make usable/desirable goods and services with the least amount of labor necessary to get the job done. That is the very definition of increases in productivity . . . which is one of only two ways to actually create new wealth (the other is increases in trade). This is even more pertinent in the creation of energy, for the bulk of energy is not an end-consumption item (like cars, clothes, or manicures). Since the production of "green" energy is…