Solar power projects have created few jobs, even in green-energy-rich Nevada, KLAS in Las Vegas reports:
Solar projects have still managed to open, including the first to be built on public land which is the 50 megawatt plant near Ivanpah. In early May, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar flipped the on switch. He and other federal officials are predicting hundreds of thousands of Americans will work in green energy by 2020, but where are all those jobs? The Ivanpah plant created hundreds of temporary construction jobs but the plant needs only two employees to operate. Is that worth the $50 million loan guarantee that helped build it?
"Despite the difficulties, there is a record amount of installations on the solar market in 2011. The market continues to increase 10, 15, and 20 percent a year. It's still growing, but it's growing from a small base," Solar Reserve CEO Kevin Smith said. [...]
The jobs will come, Smith says, pointing to his company's Crescent Dunes project near Tonopah. It's a 110 megawatt solar plant using a unique technology. Thousands of heliostats or solar reflectors will surround a 600-foot tower which will absorb the reflected heat, storing it in molten salt. The project created 600 construction jobs and 4000 peripheral jobs. When it's operational it will employ 45 to 50 people.