
The U.S. wind industry now employs more than 100K people - doener
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/19/the-u-s-wind-industry-now-employs-more-than-100000-people/
======
jMyles
I live in a school bus, traveling the country. I think wind turbines are
absolutely beautiful; I always marvel at them when we drive by.

Does anybody here know how to break into this industry, working on a mobile,
on-site basis? Maybe with embedded tech?

~~~
ThomPete
Windmill technology is fairly low tech. there are a few things around the
wings but besides that it's not really a "tech" business IMO.

~~~
tormeh
How did you reach that conclusion? Those things scream "advanced material
tech" to me. Almost as much as space rockets.

~~~
maxerickson
The towers are just lots and lots of steel.

A lot of them are made in facilities that were built to make railcars
(including big tank cars).

~~~
CydeWeys
> The towers are just lots and lots of steel.

And a lot of engineering is involved to optimize that design, to build the
towers as strong as is necessary to survive high wind loads while using as
little material as possible so as to minimize cost. You're trivializing
something that has a lot of thought put into it just because you don't really
understand it well. I can guarantee you that more thought, simulation, and
calculation goes into the design of windmill towers than goes into the average
software project.

~~~
maxerickson
And from a material standpoint they are still just lots and lots of steel.

If it helps, I'm not a software engineer and have an unused degree in
mechanical engineering.

~~~
CydeWeys
From a reductive material standpoint, everything is just a collection of
ingredients. Processors are "just" silicon. That doesn't make them trivial to
engineer. What is your point?

~~~
maxerickson
It's thick, rolled plate steel. The manufacturing process isn't amenable to
the exquisite engineering you are imagining and steel is cheap.

They are pretty damn sure it is strong enough. It isn't the minimum material
necessary to ensure that.

------
rodionos
According to the EIA [0], wind energy reached 5.6% of total electricity
production.

Having worked with raw EIA data I can say that the inputs are not very
reliable: a) a lot of smaller farms are not included in EIA data b) reporting
is voluntary and 30%+ of wind sites stopped reporting data in 2016, for
example [1], and c) reporting is based on surveys which means errors, delays,
etc.

The US is really lagging behind when it comes instrumenting and monitoring its
energy infrastructure.

[0]([https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3))

[1]([https://www.eia.gov/opendata/qb.php?sdid=ELEC.PLANT.GEN.5214...](https://www.eia.gov/opendata/qb.php?sdid=ELEC.PLANT.GEN.52143-WND-
WT.M))

~~~
llccbb
As someone who is working with global powerplant data I can say that the US is
the global leader. It is not perfect, but it is miles ahead of 170 other
countries.

~~~
alblue
Bollocks.

The UK has a live feed of the makeup of the power plants that is updated on
this website every 15 minutes.

[http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/](http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/)

~~~
anigbrowl
Not only is the generation instrumentalized, but real time consumption by
heavy electricity users (steel mills, rail operators and so) has been A Thing
since the early 1990s. I know because I built very early versions of
consumption dashboards* for the sales/billing department of National Power,
one of the major UK generators.

* in fucking Lotus 1-2-3, of all things

------
mmanfrin
I love this -- and many of those 100K jobs are maintainatory jobs, permanent
and not tied to continual production and growth.

I always hate how projects are touted as 'bringing X many jobs to the region'
when a majority of cited jobs are in the construction or building of whatever
the project is, and then evaporate away once it's built.

~~~
eagletusk
That's the way construction happens. It's a temporary thing.

*Except for the Sagrada Familia building in Spain which started construction in 1982 and is expected to be finished in 2026.

~~~
tgjsrkghruksd
> which started construction in 1982

I think you mean 1882.

------
tuna-piano
When something is cheap, people buy more of it. If you are someone who wants
more wind power to be produced, you want it to be cheap. You should be rooting
for cheaper wind prices, which come with increased efficiency (including less
employees per unit of energy produced).

Of course, less employees per unit of energy could equate to more total
employees if the increase in energy produced is greater than the increases in
efficiency.

As far as I can tell, the types of energy policies we have in the US do a
pretty good job of incentivizing increased efficiency in all types of energy,
including renewables. I'm definitely not knowledgeable about this though, so
maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

~~~
mtempleton
>If you are someone who wants more wind power to be produced, you want it to
be cheap. You should be rooting for cheaper wind prices, which come with
increased efficiency (including less employees per unit of energy produced).

This is a pretty good point, and it also leads in to an argument to be made
for an important distinction between productivity and jobs.

People like jobs. Politicians and corporations talk about creating jobs.
They're seen as universally good, but that is not necessarily the case.
Especially as tech becomes more capable of automating more tasks, which may
displace labor at a rate in which people have increasing difficulty in
retraining quickly enough, it's appropriate to have a cultural shift in
perhaps still valuing jobs, but not over valuing human dignity and economic
productivity. An example I witnessed: The very grumpy woman in Paris who took
a Euro from me to use the toilet could be given the same amount of money
generated by an automated toll while she does something productive. Or even
she could just do something which she enjoys and would be happier doing, but
is non-productive, and that would still be Pareto efficient: it makes one
better off without making anyone else worse off.

Policy should not seek to create jobs just for the sake of creating jobs. With
appropriate, just and fair economic policies, it really shouldn't matter how
many jobs an industry creates: it matters how much utility, and at what
utility per dollar the industry is capable of. That is, assuming you care most
about human welfare. I think most politicians care most about money and power.

------
JohnTHaller
For comparison, coal employs about 77k people. About the same as the bowling
and skiing employment numbers.

~~~
djrogers
That 77k is only the mining/fuel side, if you include the power generation
side of the coal industry the number is a little over double that at 160k

[1][https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/2017%20U...](https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/2017%20US%20Energy%20and%20Jobs%20Report_0.pdf)

------
mrfusion
I've always wondered why we don't combine wind and solar on the same land. The
shadows from the turbines would be negligible and you could reuse the same
electrical hookups and wiring.

In fact you could raise mushrooms under the solar panels and get triple use of
the land.

~~~
bfstein
Uninformed speculation: maybe because the places where it's windy are not
necessarily the places where it's sunny (and vice versa).

~~~
CydeWeys
That's definitely part of it, but as solar panel prices continue to fall I
suspect that the marginal cost of adding on solar panels to a wind
installation will be low enough to justify it even in sub-optimal sunlight
conditions. You've already got the land and the power transmission
infrastructure taken care of, so it's just the additional cost of the panels.
It could start making sense.

~~~
eagletusk
Exactly, anywhere plants grow you can put solar, Germany has one of the
highest concentrations of solar but pretty dismal sun. Germany stopped
building Neuclear Plants and didn't like buying Natural Gas from Russia, so
they basically invented the modern Renewable industry.

------
titojankowski
From a programming/hardware hacker perspective, are there any opportunities in
wind generation worth exploring? Perhaps mini-turbines, or a turbine array
with wind positioning?

~~~
ghaff
There was some hype around microturbines a few years back but a lot of the ROI
claims were found to be, um, "optimistic." I assume that today's PV tech makes
them even less interesting even if some of the assumptions that go into
pricing solar can be questionable as well.

~~~
samcheng
Because a wind turbine is limited to the area of the swept blades, and larger
turbines can reach the faster winds that occur higher off the ground, large
turbines are MUCH more effective than small ones. Turbine blades that are
twice as long can capture four times as much wind, and the tops of those
blades capture faster wind, too.

On the other hand, ignoring integration and installation costs, solar panels
scale linearly with size. So small solar makes much more sense than small
wind.

------
tinco
The article does not respond to the claim of the president that windmills kill
birds. Do they really in a significant way? Is it worthy of being called an
environmental disaster?

~~~
chasing
[http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-
safe-...](http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds)

I didn't realize that was such a big issue. Over time, humanity will figure
out ways of making wind turbines less of a danger to birds.

In the mean time, I would assume that wind power still remains a net positive
for the overall environment versus coal, etc.

~~~
tim333
>Over time, humanity will figure out ways of making wind turbines less of a
danger to birds.

Or the birds will evolve to dislike wind turbines.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I'd assume this is the case, as birds already use the earth's magnetic field
for navigation and wind turbines generate a significant magnetic field.

~~~
maxerickson
Detecting a small field while flying at 10-15 meters / second (30 miles per
hour) might not be possible with whatever they use to detect the wider field.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Bookmarked to research.

------
tyingq
The figures appear to come from an "Energy and Jobs Report" on energy.gov:
[https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/2017%20U...](https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/2017%20US%20Energy%20and%20Jobs%20Report_0.pdf)

See page 29.

Solar, for example, employs 373,807. Natural Gas: 362,118 Nuclear: 76,771

------
mrfusion
I still think kite based systems have a ton of potential.

I've also designed a super low cost wind power system anyone can just stick in
their yard. Basically a flat wide pole you stick in the ground that the wind
blows up and down. (Think wind blowing across a grassy field). I need help
with engineering to make any more progress though.

~~~
passivepinetree
That sounds pretty cool. Do you have any details/photos/specs?

~~~
eagletusk
Google X backed startup using kites for wind energy.

[https://x.company/makani/](https://x.company/makani/)

------
nashashmi
So how many jobs is that per kilowatt of power? Or vice versa?

------
quickben
Anybody has a good link to compare TOC of solar vs wind?

From what I've heard, solar panels have a definite lifespan, but are
maintenance free until then.

Wind could last longer provided you maintain it right.

~~~
philipkglass
See figure 3-6 in this report:

[https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/Electricity%...](https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/Electricity%20Generation%20Baseline%20Report.pdf)

The EIA thinks that the levelized cost of energy from utility scale solar PV
in the US is still above wind. NREL and Lazard seem to think they're about at
parity now. PV is lowering costs (both initial construction and O&M) faster
than wind, so I expect it to start underpricing wind in the US. Of course
there are going to be places where wind remains cheaper for a long time just
because they have much better wind resources than sunshine resources.

Utility scale solar farms and wind farms both require maintenance labor,
though little compared to coal, hydro, or nuclear facilities. Gas based power
plants also require little maintenance relative to the power they produce.

I'd generally expect a PV module installed this year to have a longer useful
lifespan than a wind turbine installed this year. Turbines have to endure much
more mechanical stress. I'd say a typical rule of thumb right now is 20 years
for a turbine and 25 years for a PV module. Both numbers are creeping up over
time.

------
douche
The future, where everyone involved in a major industry can be fitted into an
SEC football stadium.

~~~
awinder
500K for oil in us jobs, at 36% of energy. It's 4% for wind. By 2050 it's
projected wind could support 600K jobs so we aren't talking orders of
magnitude difference.

~~~
vermontdevil
But with more powerful political clout by then.

------
laughfactory
Number of jobs, by itself, is a worthless statistic. What's the median wage?
If it's $10/hr then it's like reporting on how many people are employed in
fast food.

Reality is that most jobs, in most sectors, pay crap. Wind energy is no
exception.

~~~
8ytecoder
Did you check the linked BLS statistics page from the article? Median is
$25/hr

~~~
Consultant32452
For reference, the median US hourly wage is $22/hr.
[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-
states/wages](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages)

~~~
randomdata
Are you sure that is not the _mean_ wage?

1\. The link says average, which usually implies mean.

2\. The mean yearly income for an individual in the US is ~$45,000[1], which,
assuming 2080 working hours per year is ~$22/hr. That seems almost a little
too coincidental.

3\. The median yearly income is ~$30,000[1]. If the median wage is truly
$22/hr. it must be for part-time work, which still comes up about $20,000 per
year short compared to the numbers from the article.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States)

------
notadoc
I recall some years ago T Boone Pickens had a plan for a large scale wind
project throughout the midwest, but it fell through for various reasons.

At what point will solar efficient enough to lay out massive solar grids in
Texas, Arizona, and SE California?

~~~
15charlimitdumb
in terms of efficiency not for the foreseeable future. hydrocarbons are
essentially condensed solar power. when will it become more economically
efficient to move and assemble all the materials for a solar panel vs
extracting hydrocarbon stored energy (sapiens living in poverty can't care
about the environment of tomorrow if they are struggling to thrive today,
admittedly this is my global view)

~~~
erikpukinskis
Now ish

------
tim333
For comparison a recent Vox article had coal mining jobs at 50,000 employees.
Another reason to favour renewables. [http://www.vox.com/energy-and-
environment/2017/2/21/14671932...](http://www.vox.com/energy-and-
environment/2017/2/21/14671932/donald-trump-coal-mining-jobs)

~~~
x1798DE
Why would a technology being labor-intensive be a reason to use that
technology? Human labor is an extremely expensive resource.

~~~
llukas
Still it is cheaper to outsource to third-world countries than to use robots
to do many simple tasks.

Human labor may be extremely expensive.

------
hueving
What's the quality of these jobs? Stable long term employment with good pay?

------
kumarski
Vaclav Smil has written extensively on the embodied chemistry of Wind-
turbines, I figure it's worth sharing here because it seems relevant to the
conversation. Chemical, petroleum, and nuclear engineers are scarce in Silicon
Valley.....

"Wind turbines are the most visible symbols of the quest for renewable
electricity generation. And yet, although they exploit the wind, which is as
free and as green as energy can be, the machines themselves are pure
embodiments of fossil fuels.

Large trucks bring steel and other raw materials to the site, earth-moving
equipment beats a path to otherwise inaccessible high ground, large cranes
erect the structures, and all these machines burn diesel fuel. So do the
freight trains and cargo ships that convey the materials needed for the
production of cement, steel,and plastics. For a 5-megawatt turbine, the steel
alone averages 150 metric tons for the reinforced concrete foundations, 250
metric tons for the rotor hubs and nacelles (which house the gearbox and
generator), and 500 metric tons for the towers.

If wind-generated electricity were to supply 25 percent of global demand by
2030 (forecast to reach about 30 petawatt-hours), then even with a high
average capacity factor of 35 percent, the aggregate installed wind power of
about 2.5 terawatts would require roughly 450 million metric tons of steel.
And that’s without counting the metal for towers, wires, and transformers for
the new high-voltage transmission links that would be needed to connect it all
to the grid. A lot of energy goes into making steel.

Sintered or pelletized iron ore is smelted in blast furnaces, charged with
coke made from coal, and receives infusions of powdered coal and natural gas.
Pig iron is decarbonized in basic oxygen furnaces. Then steel goes through
continuous casting processes (which turn molten steel directly into the rough
shape of the final product). Steel used in turbine construction embodies
typically about 35 gigajoules per metric ton.

To make the steel required for wind turbines that might operate by 2030, you’d
need fossil fuels equivalent to more than 600 million metric tons of coal. A
5-MW turbine has three roughly 60-meter-long airfoil, each weighing about 15
metric tons. They have light balsa or foam cores and outer laminations made
mostly from glass-fiber-reinforced epoxy or polyester resins. The glass is
made by melting silicon dioxide and other mineral oxides in furnaces fired by
natural gas. The resins begin with ethylene derived from light hydrocarbons,
most commonly the products of naphtha cracking, liquefied petroleum gas, or
the ethane in natural gas.

The final fiber-reinforced composite embodies on the order of 170 GJ/t.
Therefore, to get 2.5 TW of installed wind power by 2030, we would need an
aggregate rotor mass of about 23 million metric tons, incorporating the
equivalent of about 90 million metric tons of crude oil. And when all is in
place, the entire structure must be waterproofed with resins whose synthesis
starts with ethylene.

Another required oil product is lubricant, for the turbine gearboxes, which
has to be changed periodically during the machine’s two-decade lifetime.
Undoubtedly, a well-sited and well-built wind turbine would generate as much
energy as it embodies in less than a year. However, all of it will be in the
form of intermittent electricity—while its production, installation, and
maintenance remain critically dependent on specific fossil energies.

Moreover, for most of these energies—coke for iron-ore smelting, coal and
petroleum coke to fuel cement kilns, naphtha and natural gas as feedstock and
fuel for the synthesis of plastics and the making of fiberglass, diesel fuel
for ships, trucks, and construction machinery, lubricants for gearboxes—we
have no nonfossil substitutes that would be readily available on the requisite
large commercial scales.

For a long time to come—until all energies used to produce wind turbines and
photovoltaic cells come from renewable energy sources—modern civilization will
remain fundamentally dependent on fossil fuels."

~~~
_ph_
What a long row of impressive numbers. But what counts, is only one single
number: how long does it take for the wind turbine to produce more power than
it took to produce. And as far as I know, it is a rather small amount of its
life time. After that it starts to improve our carbon balance. And all of this
does not take into respect, that with the raising ratio of our energy being
produced by wind or solar, the production of windmills and solar cells becomes
more and more carbon free too.

~~~
CydeWeys
Exactly. This litany of numbers without meaningful comparison is just an
attempt at obfuscation. Of course wind turbines require resources to
construct; no one ever claimed otherwise. But they create _a lot_ more energy
over their lifetime than they cost to create, which is the whole reason
they're built at all.

And as impressive as those figures sound, they pale in comparison to how much
fossil fuels are being burnt simply to provide energy, at a complete dead
loss, with no future energy dividends paid whatsoever (as you'd get with wind
turbines). Constructing turbines is like buying stock in a good company,
whereas burning fossil fuels for energy needs is like frittering away all your
income and living paycheck to paycheck.

~~~
tgjsrkghruksd
Actually, the little point that undermines this litany is buried right in the
middle: "Undoubtedly, a well-sited and well-built wind turbine would generate
as much energy as it embodies in less than a year."

So, do turbines last more than a year? Much more than a year? Ok then!

~~~
_ph_
I missed that in the huge bunch of less relevant numbers. This makes the
article an even bigger troll, trying to hide the true number. Also the talk
about "intermittent" is quite misleading. Yes wind power depends on the wind.
But that is quite well predictable in those places, where you would install a
wind generator. With a reasonable electrical grid, this can be quite well
managed.

------
venture_lol
That's quite a few people flapping wings :)

------
agumonkey
Very nice considering the fan in office.

------
jnordwick
This is NOT a good thing. Producing the same amount or less with more
resources is generally considered a very very bad thing. It is the definition
of being less efficient..

~~~
chris_va
That's the beauty of capitalism. You can just let it run its course and not
worry about it. If something is less efficient, it will not be able to compete
in the market for very long.

~~~
reducesuffering
Yes, but in the U.S. case we don't have theoretical free markets like that.
There's too complex a network of government subsidies, unequal taxes, and
corporate lobbying putting many things on the market that would not survive
normally. I'm not saying this is inherently bad, just that we shouldn't think
we can just let things run its course and the less efficient things will be
weeded out.

~~~
okreallywtf
I would argue that if human beings and their well-being is important, a
theoretical fee market system would not be ideal. Thats fine if you are
willing to suffer as a result and the system is more important than you (or
others) but because that will generally not be true we have to kludge it
together and make the market as free as we generally can with exceptions to
not ruin too many lives. Once you kludge it here and there you can start
introducing kludges just for your own gain.

------
paulcole
I haven't seen this many people employed by hot air since Theranos.

~~~
WJW
Technically all of the gas turbine industry lives by making hot air.

~~~
amorphid
Nuclear, coal, and geothermal all use steam, so there's a bunch more hot air
for ya.

------
xutopia
I worry many of these jobs will be temporary. We're just ramping up production
of turbines and other equipment. Installations will peak within the next
(maybe) 10 years and from then there will be less and less demain as
maintenance will be the only thing we will require.

~~~
lucasmullens
Won't our energy requirement keep increasing, requiring new turbines?

~~~
ZoeZoeBee
US energy requirements peaked in 2007 and have been on the decline, we use
less energy in 2016 than we did in 2000, thanks to gains in efficiency.

[https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30652](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30652)

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/189723/us-energy-
consump...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/189723/us-energy-consumption-
per-person-since-2000/)

~~~
epistasis
As we electrify our transit sector, there will be a bump in consumption.

~~~
ZoeZoeBee
Those stats are not for electricity, they're for total energy consumption
including transportation.

~~~
altcognito
In fact it wouldn't be surprising if much of the savings is actually due to
efficiencies in transportation

~~~
lkbm
This thread got me curious, and while I didn't find a lot of sources talking
about it, this one[0] gives some likely possibilities: urbanization means less
transport energy costs and less domestic manufacturing means less industrial
energy usage.

It doesn't talk much about why residential energy usage has dropped. I'm
guessing it's people moving from their giant houses into smaller homes or
apartments following the recession (combined with the general trend towards
urbanization). I'm assuming it's not just that LED bulbs changed the
landscape.

[0] [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-10/why-capita-
energy-c...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-10/why-capita-energy-
consumption-recession-levels-after-six-years-recovery)

~~~
philipkglass
I believe it's mostly efficiency measures. Americans are collectively driving
more now than in 2007:

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA)

Note that petroleum consumption by transportation is nonetheless lower now
than circa 2005 (eyeballing the graph):

[https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30652](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30652)

Coal-to-gas switching in electrical generation (and increased renewables
generation, to a smaller extent) also reduces the primary energy consumption
for a given level of generation. You might need 3 megajoules of primary
(thermal) energy to produce 1 megajoule of electricity using coal-fired
generation. It's more like 2 megajoules of primary energy using gas-fired
generation in a modern combined cycle plant. And it's just 1 megajoule of
primary energy to deliver 1 megajoule of electricity with wind power or PV
(they're not heat engines; the electricity is the whole of the energy).
Someone can consume exactly the same amount of electricity now as in 2007 but
the changing generation mix would still reduce the primary energy input
required to generate that electricity.

------
iharhajster
This "clean" energy sources are nice, but we all know how do we resurect a
dead transmission network [1]. Remember EU, Nov '06 [2]. And pray to have
water in accumulations. It's all cool, this wind and solar, but it must be
strategically globally built to be effective during major blackouts in one
part of the globe.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_start](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_start)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout)

