EuroWire March 2017

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Transatlantic cable
March 2017 41
Presumably someone, at least, in the new administration
will have been aware of a survey, published in October by
London-based Ernst & Young LLP, which projected that the USA
under a Trump administration stands to lose its position as the
top-ranked renewable-energy market for investors.
If the warning reached candidate Trump, clearly it failed to
register with him; but, as president, Mr Trump should nd it
harder to ignore another report, released on the same day he
brought the pipelines back into play.
The real ‘energy revolution’
2017 USA Energy and Employment, from the US Department
of Energy, is full of statistics but none more compelling
than this: over the previous year, in the sector de ned by the
DOE as Electric Power Generation, solar energy employed
43 per cent of the workforce (374,000 people), while traditional
fossil fuels accounted for just 22 per cent (187,117).
In other words, over the year 2015-2016, the agency found that
solar power employed many more Americans than oil, gas and
coal together.
The DOE further demonstrated that the gap is growing. Between
the year 2006 and September 2016, electricity generation
from coal sources declined by 53 per cent; from natural gas,
it increased by 33 per cent. Over the same period, solar-sourced
electricity generation surged by over 5,000 per cent.
In 2016 alone, USA solar industry employment increased by
25 per cent, adding 73,000 jobs to the economy. Wind energy
employment saw an even larger increase of 32 per cent.
According to the DOE, the number of jobs in energy e ciency
overall increased by 133,000 to a total of 2.2 million for the year.
† President Trump has promised an “energy revolution,”
which he proposes to bring about by unleashing “America’s
$50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves,
plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves.”
This would in fact be a counter-revolution, to judge from this
conclusion from 2017 US Energy and Employment: “Whether
producing natural gas or solar power at increasingly lower
prices or reducing our consumption of energy through
smart grids and fuel-e cient vehicles, energy innovation is
proving itself as the important driver of economic growth in
America.”
Signs are strong that the real energy revolution in the USA is
already well underway.
Automotive
A high-pro le purchase of an electric car
reminds the German luxury carmakers that
range anxiety has not subsided
As noted by Stephen Edelstein of Green Car Reports, the
established German luxury brands provide plenty of options
for elected o cials choosing a vehicle for use on government
business. Indeed, he observed, given Germany’s considerable
investment in its auto industry, the preference for a
German-made car seems almost obligatory.