Major Energy Paradigm Shift: World Bank Announces It Will No Longer Fund Oil & Gas Projects

In a significant policy change, the World Bank announced that it will stop funding most of its oil and gas exploration and extraction projects after 2019.

Damning Study Shows Govts Rob Taxpayers $5 Trillion a Year to Keep Fossil Fuel Industry Going

As the global energy paradigm is undergoing the next great transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, a new report shows that fossil fuels continue to be propped up by governments with staggering amounts of subsidies.

A study published in the World Development journal, by researchers from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), found that fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $5.3 trillion dollars in 2015, rising from $4.9 trillion in 2013. This amounts to 6.5 percent of global GDP.

The authors use an expanded view of subsidies, not only “direct financial cost that result in consumers paying a price that is below the opportunity cost of the product” but also externalized, hidden costs. These hidden costs include environmental damage from air and water pollution, and damage to human health from the burning of fossil fuels, as well as “taxes applied to consumer goods in general.”

The cost of fossil fuels to human health is estimated at $74.6 billion a year; the environmental costs are more difficult to quantify but no less important, as human health depends on healthy ecosystems. The cost of U.S. military protection of overseas oil sources amounts to as much as $1 per gallon at the pump.

Advertisment

It is absolutely justifiable to include these hidden costs of fossil fuels as subsidies. Every economist knows that externalized costs matter, and in the case of fossil fuels these are not shouldered by the coal and oil industries profiting from their extraction. These costs are placed on consumers via the state, and they must be quantified to achieve a true picture.

READ MORE:  Congress Approves Measure for Crusade Against “Fake News” -- Using DoD Funding

According to The Guardian:

“[T]he authors discuss both consumer subsidies (when the price paid by a consumer is below a benchmark price) and producer subsidies (when producers receive direct or indirect support which increases their profitability). The authors then quantify what benefits would be achieved if the fossil fuel subsidies were reformed…

Pre-tax (the narrow view of subsidies) subsidies amount to 0.7% of global GDP in 2011 and 2013. But the more appropriate definition of subsidies is much larger (8 times larger than the pre-tax subsidies). We are talking enormous values of 5.8% of global GDP in 2011, rising to 6.5% in 2013.”

The authors also note that, unsurprisingly, coal and oil receive the most subsidies, and that China, USA and Russia are the top three subsidizers of fossil fuels.

For some in the U.S. coal industry, this is not enough. West Virginia governor and long-time coal baron, Jim Justice, is in discussions with President Trump about having the federal government (taxpayers) pay a direct subsidy of $15/ton to Appalachian coal. Justice cites bogus “national security” threats for his proposal, but it’s really about using government to prop up the dying eastern U.S. coal industry. Workers in that region would be far better served diversifying into renewable energy, which provides five times more jobs than coal.

It’s important to note that coal is going down due to market forces, not a fictitious “war on coal.” The rapid fall of natural gas prices that came with the fracking boom is the primary threat to coal. In addition, wind and solar energy prices are crashing due to leaps in technology.

READ MORE:  REPORT: IRS Continues SWAT Raids for Evasion While Hundreds of Agents Avoid Paying Any Taxes at All

A third factor is flattening energy demand due to rising efficiency. No new regulations were put on coal since the 1970s — including during the rapid 5-year decline of coal — until Obama-era rules began going into effect in 2016.

On the subject of subsidies, it is certainly true that renewable energies have received subsidies as well, although the aforementioned study shows that they are dwarfed by fossil fuel subsidies. The externalized costs of fossil fuels in terms of damage to human and environmental health, military protection of overseas oil sources must be factored into the equation.

The fact is, renewable energy is now competitive or even cheaper than fossil fuels due to market forces – not subsidies. And this trend will continue as renewable prices keep falling due to rapid technology advances, despite the best efforts of administrations allied with the fossil fuel industry. Renewable energy is also an incredible economic machine, as solar and wind jobs are now growing 12 times faster than the U.S. economy.

To make the right choices concerning our energy paradigm, we must have accurate information, as study author Dr. David Coady notes.

“A key motivation for the paper was to increase awareness among policy makers and the public of the large subsidies that arise from pricing fossil fuels below their true social costs—this broader definition of subsidies accounts for the many negative side effects associated with the consumption of these fuels. By estimating these costs on a global scale, we hope to stimulate an informed policy debate and provide renewed impetus for policy reforms to reap the large potential benefits from more efficient pricing of fossil fuels in terms of improved public finances, improved population health and lower carbon emissions.”

READ MORE:  Secret Saudi Trade Deal Exposes How the Terrorist Nation Holds the US Govt and Economy Hostage

It is past time to break fossil fuel’s grip on government, which appears to be the primary reason why fossil fuels are being sustained as top energy sources. If the true price of coal and oil were known to consumers – instead of being hidden through subsidies, taxes, military costs, and health and environmental costs – we would be much farther into the transition to renewable energy.

It’s Here – Geoengineering Now Normalized as Scientists Spray Chemicals to Dim the Sun, Soak Up CO2

Undeterred by steep cost and the interminable controversy on the very concept of global warming, scientists will again experiment with geoengineering — as a means to bolster the effect of cloud cover by seeding the atmosphere with chemicals meant to dim the light of the sun — in a concerted effort to cool the planet.

While the project will undoubtedly stir distrust among those already doubtful pumping the air full of chemicals could ever end well, ‘chemtrail’ theories have seemingly been proven recently, particularly as a growing number of projects aim to align with strictures from the laden Paris Climate Accord.

Unsurprisingly — considering the arrogance of meddling with nature — praise of its methods and even of its goal has been anything but unanimous.

Swiss company Climeworks coughed up $23 million and constructed a facility to begin collecting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the air in May using sizable fans and filters — billing itself the planet’s first “commercial carbon dioxide capture plant.”

Reuters reports,

Advertisment

“Climeworks reckons it now costs about $600 to extract a tonne of carbon dioxide from the air and the plant’s full capacity due by the end of 2017 is only 900 tonnes a year. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of only 45 Americans.”

Another, “Carbon Engineering, set up in 2009 with support from Gates and Murray Edwards, chairman of oil and gas group Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, has raised about $40 million and extracts about a tonne of carbon dioxide a day with turbines and filters.”

Image: Reuters.

Several additional companies have similar projects underway in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands — but nascent technology and lack of cost-benefit efficacy mean carbon scrubbing, alone, won’t be sufficient.

Obviously, even that effort sees the world falling behind in guidelines agreed upon by major world powers in Paris in April 2016 — a grave concern for scientist-adherents who laud the cooperative attempt to stave off what many believe will be untenably hot conditions (a global average rise from the birth of industry of over 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degree Celsius), should dense gases and particulates, like methane and carbon, continue filling the atmosphere, unhindered.

Considering renewable energy has only recently begun dethroning fossil fuels as the go-to source for power generation, emissions from manufacturing, vehicle exhaust, and innumerable other polluters should be expected to continue for decades — a dire concern, according to U.N. data — meaning additional solutions may have to take up the slack to make the goals of the Paris accord attainable, particularly now that President Trump announced the U.S.’ withdrawal.

“We’re in trouble,” Janos Pasztor, head of newly-created Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Project, told Reuters of Earth’s putatively perilous warming. “The question is not whether or not there will be an overshoot [of the post-industrial maximum tenable temperature rise] but by how many degrees and for how many decades.”

“If you want to be confident to get to 1.5 degrees you need to have solar geo-engineering,” David Keith, of Harvard University, explained, referencing the preferred maximum 1.5-degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature, compared to what is considered the 2-degree point of no return.

Harvard will conduct a geoengineering experiment of its own in Arizona next year, for which private donors have already contributed some $7.5 million, as Reuters adds,

“Keith’s team aims to release about 1 kilo (2.2 lbs) of sun dimming material, perhaps calcium carbonate, from a high-altitude balloon above Arizona next year in a tiny experiment to see how it affects the microphysics of the stratosphere.”

Perhaps in response to popular but unproven allegations aircraft have been spraying the atmosphere with chemicals for years — a burgeoning theory called “chemtrails,” whose adherents believe aerosols are being sprayed from planes to fend off global warming (or for more nefarious purposes) — Keith asserted,

“I don’t think it’s science fiction … to me it’s normal atmospheric science.”

READ MORE:  Conspiracy Theory No More, Harvard Reveals Big Oil-Approved "Stratospheric Injection" Geoengineering

In this race to ostensibly undo damage inflicted upon the planet by human activity, some scientists would rather slam on the brakes. How the manipulation of weather and dimming of the sun’s rays at surface level will affect intricately-related planetary weather patterns — for example, monsoons — remains the subject of, pun intended, heated dispute.

Critics peg carbon scrubbing and other geoengineering tactics as only slightly palliative smokescreens masking the monumental task of actually cutting industrial and personal greenhouse emissions — and generally ending reliance and fealty to fossil fuels and polluting power-generation methods.

Instead of foisting tens or hundreds of millions on projects to compensate for greenhouse gas pollution stemming from dirtier energy, detractors imagine the money put to better use improving and implementing wind, solar, and other green energy sources. Curbing the amount of contaminants spewed into the atmosphere — rather than removing them after the mess has been made — seems infinitely more prudent and cost effective.

Even pro-geoengineering scientists haven’t aligned entirely behind a method to cool the earth — while some believe reflectant chemical additives may be necessary for adequate dimming effect, others admonish against the use of anything other than water vapor.

Whether geoengineering in any form — from simple cloud seeding to capturing, filtering, and using carbon from the air for other uses — will ultimately have any measurable effect on the Earth’s temperatures and climate is a question long from an answer.

Considering the topic of global warming has been itself fraught with unending contention, any plans to manipulate nature further as compensation for the stunning failures in foresight humankind has displayed over the decades since the birth of industry won’t necessarily find welcoming ears in the public.

After all, the same governments sanctimoniously warning of grievous consequences from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases reach deep into their coffers to subsidize the exact oil and gas industry — as well as other notorious environmental villains — largely responsible for the presence of such pollutants in the first place.

Company Behind DAPL Reported 69 Accidents, Polluted Rivers in 4 States in Only 2 Years

Although it obstinately insists pipelines are safe, the company responsible for the Dakota Access Pipeline racked up 69 reported accidents in just two years — leaking hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil products and tainting rivers in four states.

That averages nearly three spills each month.

A new report from the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and DisasterMap.net on Energy Transfer Partners and subsidiary Sunoco Logistics documents accidents filed with the National Response Center — the federal contact point for oil spills and industrial accidents — noting 69 accidents between 2015 and 2016.

However, as the study crucially notes, “These are just the accidents that are reported.”

“Heavy rain was the explanation for some of the worst accidents,” the report states, noting, “Bad weather, however, just exposes faulty equipment. While Energy Transfer Partners and other companies portray weather related accidents as unavoidable, they are in reality a result of poor planning and neglected maintenance. For example, the largest tank fire in history happened in south Louisiana in 2001. Because it occurred during a storm, Orion Refining blamed the weather. In truth, a faulty drain on the tank sank the roof, exposed the gasoline and attracted lightning.”

According to the report, ETP’s horrendous track record over the two-year period in the analysis — including the contamination of the Delaware River in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania, and the Red River in Louisiana — “thereby confirm[s] the concerns of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe who fear the Dakota Access Pipeline would pollute the Missouri River.”

“Sunoco and ETP accidents stretch from Texas to Massachusetts,” asserted Dr. Ezra Boyd, a geographer with DisasterMap.net who analyzed data for the report. “While these accidents cover a large area of the map, the Bayou Bridge pipeline would put an entirely new area at risk: south central Louisiana, including the Atchafalaya Basin.”

EcoWatch reports:

“Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners owns about 71,000 miles of natural gas, natural gas liquids, refined products and crude oil pipelines across the country.

“The report lists 42 known oil spills, 11 natural gas spills, nine gasoline spills, three propane spills, two ‘other’ spills and two ‘unknown’ spills. Those 69 incidents led to eight injuries, five evacuations and a total damage dollar amount of $300,000. In all, the total known amount of various substances spilled was 544,784 gallons.”

Pipeline companies and the oil and gas industry contend pipelines are the safest means of transporting fossil fuels — and, in comparison to rail and tanker truck methods, they are technically correct.

However, while pipeline accidents occur less frequently, the quantity of oil released tends to be far larger, given the substance is under pressure to flow through the lines and equipment tasked with sensing and stopping leaks doesn’t always function properly — meaning many accidents in desolated areas aren’t discovered immediately.

Take the case of a North Dakota wheat farmer less than two miles from where water protectors remain encamped in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, which will run under the Missouri River’s Lake Oahe reservoir and could threaten the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation’s water supply, and that of around 18 million people downstream.

In 2013, Steve Jensen discovered thick, black, crop-killing crude contaminating a distant corner of one of his wheat fields — not realizing at the time a pipeline under the property had bled nearly one million gallons of the hydrocarbon. Tesoro Corporation got the alert for the spill from Jensen, not from remote pipeline sensors as it should have, and has since dug 50 feet in some areas to alleviate the environmental nightmare sprawling across the land the size of 13 football fields.

Now estimated to soar to $60 million, the cleanup isn’t projected to ever reach full completion.

Incidentally, that spill — and a second belching 176,000 gallons into Ash Coulee Creek — were the handiwork of six-inch steel pipelines. Dakota Access, in comparison, is a 30-inch steel pipeline slated to transport nearly 20 million gallons — daily.

Nasty track record aside, ETP has nearly completed construction on DAPL — to the condemnation of the Standing Rock Sioux and a global movement of water protectors seeking to halt all new fossil fuel infrastructure and shift to renewable energy. And DAPL, like the Tesoro pipeline under the Jensens’ field, will be located underground in bedrock — something ETP claims is the safest possible method of crossing the Missouri, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

This week, the final battle to halt Dakota Access began winding down in federal courts after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted the easement necessary for ETP to complete the pipeline.

A judge denied the tribe’s request for an emergency restraining order to stop ETP from drilling under the river — but a new motion was filed by the tribe on Tuesday, attempting the same, under the premise an imperative environmental impact study should have been carried out as promised.

Dakota Access isn’t the only controversial pipeline project on Energy Transfer Partners’ roster — the Trans-Pecos Pipeline in Texas and Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana have sparked new encampments like those in Standing Rock as water protectors branch out from North Dakota.

Bayou Bridge — a relatively short, 162-mile pipeline planned to run through precarious ecosystems in the Louisiana bayou — is of particular concern to the Bucket Brigade, whose mission per the website is to “end petrochemical pollution” in the state. EcoWatch explains:

“The planned route crosses major bodies of water and important ecological sites, including the Atchafalaya Basin, Calcasieu, Vermillion and the Mermentau Rivers, as well as Bayou Lafourche and Bayou Teche. The Vermillion River and Bayou Lafourche are sources of drinking water and the Atchafalaya Basin is the country’s largest wetland and swamp, and home to several endangered species.”

With such an atrocious safety and spill record under its belt, Energy Transfer Partners seems so hell bent on profiteering, potential destruction of the environment matters little — if at all.

“Energy Transfer Partners’ records contradict their claim that pipelines are a safer way of transporting oil,” Renate Heurich of 350 Louisiana told EcoWatch. “Pipelines make transporting tar sands cheaper, thus stimulating dirty tar sands extraction despite low oil prices. The real question is: Why do we still invest in more pipeline infrastructure when we urgently need to invest in sustainable alternative energy sources?”

The real answer is simple, at least when it comes to ETP: profit from foreign markets. In preparing to construct the Dakota Access Pipeline, ETP worked furiously behind the scenes to ensure a ban on the export of unrefined crude in place since the 1970s would be lifted specifically so the company could cash in on exporting the Bakken sweet, light crude it would carry.

That single act of surreptitious legislative legerdemain opened the crude and cash floodgates for Big Oil — nearly guaranteeing the fossil fuel industry will opportune the chance to run roughshod over anyone or anything in the way of profit, while duplicitously claiming in the face of evidence otherwise that pipelines are perfectly safe.

Paradigm Shift — Solar & Wind Jobs Growing 12 Times Faster Than US Economy

In yet another indication that the clean energy revolution is well underway, a new report finds that solar and wind jobs are growing 12 times as fast as rest of the U.S. economy. These jobs have grown by about 20 percent annually in recent years.

The report from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) notes that renewable energy jobs, totaling about 769,000 by the end of 2015, experienced “a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 6% since 2012,” while “fossil fuel extraction and support services slumped, with a -4.25% CAGR over the same period.”

Market forces are driving this phenomenon, due to dramatic reductions in manufacturing and installation costs, coupled with stagnant demand for oil and coal. Unsubsidized solar is now as cheap as coal and natural gas and even wind in emerging markets, and solar prices will continue to rapidly fall.

What’s more, these renewable energy jobs cannot be outsourced due to their on-site nature and they pay above average wages.

“Many jobs in the solar and energy efficiency space are in installation, maintenance and construction, making these jobs inherently local and contributing to the growth of local economies. Average wages for energy efficiency jobs are almost $5,000 above the national median, and wages for solar workers are above the national median of $17.04 per hour.”

Sustainability jobs – meaning those in energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as in waste reduction, natural resources conservation and environmental education – now total 4-4.5 million in the U.S., up from 3.4 million in 2011.

READ MORE:  Dog Rescuer Visited By Homeland Security for Making Facebook Posts About Cops Shooting Dogs

Energy efficiency jobs represent about half of these jobs at 2.2 million, the majority of which are in small businesses with 10 employees or fewer. Investing in this sector is wise, as “energy efficiency investments create more jobs than those in fossil fuel industries: estimated at approximately 8 jobs (direct and indirect) per $1M invested compared to about 3 jobs in fossil fuels.”

As we reported in January, the solar industry employed more people in electricity generation than gas, coal and oil combined. Cheap solar and natural gas prices – not government policy – have been driving coal out of the market since 2006.

Trillions of dollars will be invested worldwide in clean energy over the coming decades, and utility companies in the U.S. have already focused on clean energy due to a variety of factors including the predicted continual drop in prices.

All of this means that any efforts by the Trump administration and new Congress to prop up fossil fuels and stymie clean energy would bring a severe detriment to economic and job growth. Trump has been harping on ‘bringing back coal jobs,’ but as Bloomberg News points out, “renewable energy provides five times more jobs than coal mines.”

Not to mention the fact that mountaintop removal – the preferred method of coal companies – obliterates vast swaths of forested habitat and fills streams and valleys with toxic waste. The pollution from coal mining degrades the health of nearby communities where coal miners live. The health impact of fossil fuel burning is estimated at $74.6 billion every year.

READ MORE:  What I Don’t Like About Life in the American Police State

Bloomberg notes that solar and wind jobs, totaling more than 300,000 in the U.S. in 2016, are “a significant source of employment in many of the rural red states that supported Donald Trump’s campaign.”

“We’re hiring workers in the rust belt,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association. “We’re helping families keep farms they’ve held for generations. The lifeblood of our industry is in rural America.”

Most indications at the moment are that Trump and his cadre of fossil fuel advocates set to run federal agencies plan to cut clean energy research and development programs. While the free market will continue pushing our energy paradigm toward renewable energy, a federal government working against the tide could mean that the U.S. misses out on the economic opportunity of the clean energy revolution.

Largest Diesel Pipeline Spill in Years Floods Iowa Farmland with Toxic Slush

Just after President Donald Trump signed sweeping executive actions greenlighting both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines, a 12-inch underground diesel pipeline in Iowa spilled an estimated 138,600 gallons of fuel into agricultural land.

“It’s a big one — it’s significant,” Jeff Vansteenburg, field office supervisor for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, told the Des Moines Register.

According to federal authorities, this is the largest diesel spill in the United States since 2010.

An investigation is now underway to determine the cause of the rupture and cleanup crews have thus far removed “about 25,000 gallons of diesel and a slush-diesel mixture” from the area near Hanlontown.

Magellan Midstream Partners L.P. operates the pipeline, which has sensors to alert for any sure problems occurring — but company spokesman Bruce Heine said the cause of the rupture remains unclear.

As Vansteenburg explained, for perspective, sizable underground diesel tanks at a typical gas station hold between 10,000 and 15,000 gallons — this leak spilled enough fuel to supply ten stations.

“The product is under pressure,” he continued, “so as soon as a leak develops, it starts coming out pretty fast.”

Karen Grimes, spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, noted for the Register neither a nearby wildlife protection area nor Willow Creek had been contaminated by the spill, which was discovered on Wednesday.

“They found that it’s basically pooled into a farm field that’s near the break and has not reached the water in the state,” Grimes explained. “There’s a little creek, but it has not reached any surface waters at this time.”

Although the 939-acre Hanlontown Slough Waterfowl Production Area nature preserve sits just south of the spill, David Miller of the Department of Natural Resources told the Globe Gazette, “There’s a big pool of diesel fuel out in a field and it has not gotten into Willow Creek or the Hanlontown Slough as far as we can tell,” and Magellan’s crews are “going to recover all the liquid product and they’re going to excavate all the contaminated soil.”

Despite the size of the spill, the Worth County Sheriff’s Office claimed no evacuations were necessary and there was no immediate risk to public health.

Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources initially responded to the scene, and the leak has reportedly since been contained.

Magellan deployed vacuum and tanker trucks to the scene to contain and collect the pooled fuel, which will then be transported to the company’s Clear Lake terminal, reports the Register. Once the liquid portion of the leak has been collected, crews will remove contaminated soil from the area.

NPR, noting maps of the pipeline have been redacted from the public, reports a “safety plan submitted by the company to the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2014 lists the pipeline, which runs through Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, as a transport route for multiple refined oil products, “including Diesel, Gasoline, Jet fuel, Natural gasoline, [Naphtha], Propane, Natural Gas, Butane.”

Although the leak occurred just three miles north and one mile east of Hanlontown — and a half mile west of Interstate 35 — officials insisted no evacuation was necessary. A stretch of road had to be closed to the public to allow Magellan crews access to the contaminated area.

Initial reports from Magellan assessed the size of the leak to be around 63,000 gallons, or 1,500 barrels — less than half the current estimate of 3,300 barrels.

Magellan’s last major accident occurred just three months ago in rural Nebraska near Decatur, reported the Omaha World-Herald, when a pipeline carrying anhydrous ammonia burst, releasing a cloud of the deadly gas which took the life of a farmer who drove through the plume. Around 40 people from 23 households were evacuated as a precaution.

As a number of bitter battles rage to halt various pipeline construction projects around the country, this 138,600 gallon diesel fuel spill serves as a potent reminder claims of safety from the oil and gas industry are merely relative. Pipelines, technically, are indeed a safer means of transport for fossil fuel products than trains or tanker trucks — but the lesser number of spills doesn’t quantify that pipeline accidents release far larger amounts of product.

As public media project, Inside Energy, noted,

“According to data from federal regulators, there is actually a low probability of a pipeline accident. But when there is an accident, the impact can be huge.”

In 2016, Solar Employed More People in Electricity Generation Than Gas, Coal, & Oil COMBINED

A new U.S. Energy and Employment Report is providing yet another indication that our energy paradigm is rapidly shifting away from fossil fuels. The most promise for jobs lies in clean energy, with solar jobs in particular rising at a tremendous rate.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy’s second annual report found that, in 2016, solar employment was almost double that of fossil fuel employment in the Electric Power Generation sector.

“Proportionally, solar employment accounts for the largest share of workers in the Electric Power Generation sector. This is largely due to the construction related to the significant buildout of new solar generation capacity. Solar technologies, both photovoltaic and concentrating, employ almost 374,000 workers, or 43 percent of the Electric Power Generation workforce. This is followed by fossil fuel generation employment, which accounts for 22 percent of total Electric Power Generation employment and supports 187,117 workers across coal, oil, and natural gas generation technologies.

Rising employment in solar, wind, and natural gas coincides with the shift in energy generation by source, especially given recent large-scale distributed and utility-scale solar capacity additions.”

The total number of jobs in the Traditional Energy and Efficiency sectors was 6.4 million for 2016, which includes: 1) electric power generation and fuels, 2) transmission, distribution and storage, 3) energy efficiency, and 4) motor vehicles.

More than 300,000 new jobs were added across the entire spectrum, making up about 14 percent of total jobs created in the country. The report notes that the “solar workforce increased by 25% in 2016, while wind employment increased by 32%.”

READ MORE:  First of Its Kind Study Shows that Change in Diet Alone — Not Drugs — is Curing Diseases

These revealing job numbers mirror dramatic shifts going on in the sources for electricity generation, driven by crashing solar prices and the fracking boom which led to a glut of natural gas. Cheap solar and natural gas prices – not government policy – have been driving coal out of the market since 2006.

“…net generation from coal sources declined by 53 percent between 2006 and September 2016, while electricity generation from natural gas increased by 33 percent and solar by over 5,000 percent—from 508,000 MWh to just over 28,000,000 MWH.”

The report comes on the heels of news that unsubsidized solar is now cheaper than fossil fuels in many countries for large-scale electricity generation. Solar prices will continue dropping, and within a decade or two solar energy will be half the cost of coal or natural gas.

This transition is being driven by market forces, as Bloomberg highlighted in late 2015. Their analysis shows that within 25 years, solar will be the primary electricity source as it outcompetes natural gas and coal on every level.

Speaking of subsidies, the U.S. fossil fuels receive about $37 billion a year in subsidies. The only industry that will be reliant on government to prop it up in the near future is the fossil fuel industry. The cost of fossil fuels also does not include the cost to human health from pollution, estimated at $75 billion per year, and the cost of military protection of overseas oil, which amounts to about $30 billion per year.

According to the DOE report, three sources of energy made up 93 percent of new additions to the energy grid in 2016, with solar coming first at 9.5 GW. Natural gas added 8 GW and wind energy added 6.8 GW).

“In fact, between September 2015 and September 2016 alone, distributed solar photovoltaic generation increased 35 percent nationwide, while estimated total solar—both utility-scale and distributed generation—increased by 52 percent across the country.”

While market forces are driving a remarkable shift toward clean energy in the power grid, transportation remains firmly dependent on oil. But transportation too will be experiencing a remarkable shift in coming years, as automakers such as Ford Motor Company are set to invest billions in electric vehicles. A breakthrough technology called an ‘artificial leaf’ – which turns sunlight into hydrocarbon fuel – will further revolutionize our transportation paradigm.

READ MORE:  Drug War is Crumbling -- Town Converts Prison into Cannabis Grow Facility

World markets have firmly indicated that the future is clean energy, with trillions of dollars in investments coming over the next few decades. The new jobs report tells us that solar and wind energy provide the best opportunity for job growth in the U.S.

China got the message, and just announced it will invest $361 billion over the next three years in clean energy, marking a major turn away from coal.

President Trump has repeatedly called for using his power to ‘bring back the coal industry,’ but doing so would be in complete contravention of market forces and would be a great disservice to Americans looking for jobs.

If the new administration and Congress continue with their obsession over fossil fuels – and the antipathy toward clean energy – it could mean America loses out in the massive economic opportunity that is clean energy.