A recent study by the University of Michigan finds that local wind and solar jobs can fully replace the jobs lost at coal plants across the United States as the country’s power generation system transitions away from fossil fuels in the coming decades.
The Study
Nearly 80,000 workers were directly employed in the coal industry at over 250 plants in 43 U.S. states as of 2019. The U-M study estimates the costs and technical feasibility of switching from coal jobs to local wind and solar employment across the nation for the first time.
The study, published in iScience on August 10th, suggests that local wind and solar jobs can fill the energy generating and employment void, even if all the new jobs must be located within 50 miles (80.47 kph) of each retiring coal plant.
According to the analysis, maintaining local employment would raise the cost of replacing U.S. coal plant workers by $83 billion, or 24% nationwide. “These costs are significant in isolation but are small relative to annual U.S. power investments of $70 billion and to the total costs of transitioning the U.S. energy system away from fossil fuels, which have been estimated to be as high as $900 billion by 2030,” noted Michael Craig, the study’s senior author.
Craig is an expert on power system emissions, operations and planning. He is an assistant professor of energy systems at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability.
Craig added:
“Our results indicate that replacing lost jobs in coal-plant communities would modestly increase overall energy-transition costs while significantly furthering a just transition for one category of frontline communities.”
Quantifying The Feasibility and Costs of Swapping Out Coal Jobs
According to the University of Michigan researchers, federal policymakers could create a new investment tax credit to help offset the costs of achieving local coal replacement with renewables. However, such a credit would only be available for wind and solar projects close to retired coal plants that hire retrained coal plant employees.
Previous research has found that deep, long-term reductions in emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas are necessary to combat the climate crisis effectively.
The electric power sector is the least expensive to decarbonize; thus, it has contributed significantly to the early reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. This is mainly because natural gas has replaced coal in the electricity-generation mix.
Within the next 10 to 20 years, many decarbonization pathways shut down most or all coal-fired power plants in the United States. These retired power plants will need to be replaced with new, low-carbon energy sources to continue producing electricity. Despite the tremendous growth of wind and solar power in the U.S., previous studies have yet to measure the feasibility and costs of swapping coal jobs with local clean energy jobs across the country.
The clean energy transition will require substantial investment in new transmission lines, renewable energy sources, and storage technologies. However, the study found that the transition could be achieved without increasing electricity prices because it would result in lower operating costs for renewables than for coal.
In addition to providing more affordable energy, the transition would also reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
The latest U-M study contributes to closing those research gaps. It uses a bottom-up optimization model for all coal plants in the contiguous U.S. and assumes that all coal-fired power plants in the U.S. will be shut down by 2030.
To replace each coal plant’s electricity production and employment as it shuts down, the model calls for additional clean energy investments. The model swaps coal-plant power generation and employment for wind and solar at defined distances from retiring power plants.
U-M Study Conclusions
The researchers looked at three “siting limits,” or the furthest distances that new solar and wind power facilities can be located from retiring coal plants: 50 miles, 500 miles, and 1,000 miles. The 1,000-mile limit includes occupations that would need relocation of coal plant workers, while the 50-mile limit roughly corresponds to local wind and solar facilities and jobs that do not require relocation.
The team found that annual renewable energy employment completely replaces coal employment throughout most U.S. regions and siting limits. Retired coal plants are replaced by a mix of wind and solar power in all areas and for all siting limits.
According to the study, jobs in operations and maintenance make up between 57% and 92% of replacement employment at wind and solar facilities, with construction occupations playing a smaller part. In addition, operations and maintenance jobs include administrative and management staff and field technicians.
Coal-fired electricity will likely continue to be replaced by a mix of new renewable investments and an increased dependence on existing natural gas facilities. However, the U-M study did not examine how much employment in the renewable energy sector will be affected by using existing assets nor the effect of coal plant workers’ needing to undergo workforce retraining.
