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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

What the science says...

Wind power is a fast-growing industry, employing roughly 120,000 U.S. workers in 2021 and creating roughly 5,400 new jobs (up 4.7%) since 2019.

Wind power is a fast-growing industry, creating many U.S. jobs. In 2021, wind energy production employed roughly 120,000 U.S. workers, creating roughly 5,400 new jobs (up 4.7%) since 2019.¹ The Department of Energy suggests that this sector could employ as many as 600,000 U.S. workers by 2050.² As noted previously, the United States’ Fifth National Climate Assessment predicts that there will be nearly 3,000,000 new solar, wind, and transmission-related jobs by 2050 in a high electrification scenario and 6,000,000 new jobs in a 100% renewable scenario, with less than 1,000,000 fossil fuel-related jobs lost.³

Figure 1: Energy employment from 2020 to 2050 under various U.S. net-zero GHG emissions scenarios. Source: U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Most of the current domestic jobs are in manufacturing.⁴ Over 500 U.S. manufacturing facilities now specialize in producing components for wind power generation.⁵ For turbines installed in the United States, approximately 70% of tower manufacturing and 80% of nacelle assembly also occurs domestically.⁶ Furthermore, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics identified wind turbine service technicians as the fastest growing occupation between 2022 and 2023, growing roughly 45% in size during that time.⁷

Footnotes:

[1] United States Energy & Employment Report 2022, Office of Policy, Office of Energy Jobs, U.S. Department of Energy, 24 (June 2022).

[3] U.S. Global Change Research Program, Fifth National Climate Assessment at 32-31 (2023).

[4] James Hamilton et al., Careers in Wind Energy, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Sept. 2010)

[5] Wind Energy Technologies Office, Wind Manufacturing and Supply Chain, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy (last visited March 25, 2024).

[6] The nacelle is the housing that holds the gearbox, generator, drivetrain, and brake assembly.

[7] Fastest Growing Occupations, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Sept. 2023).

This rebuttal is based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Skeptical Science sincerely appreciates Sabin Center's generosity in collaborating with us to make this information available as widely as possible.

Updated on 2024-09-02 by .

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