Trending
Anyone who had the impression the severe crippling of the coal industry was an indication of soaring success for more federally acceptable electricity sources got a rude awakening last week, as First Solar announced it was cutting 450 jobs at its Perrysburg, Ohio, manufacturing facility.
In fact, First Solar is cutting 1,600 jobs worldwide, as it discovers "challenging market conditions," and the need to "retool operations to begin making a more efficient solar panel." In other words, no matter how heavily subsidized an industry, no matter how much the federal government has tried to cripple its competition, if it does not offer a product consumers want or can use efficiently, it will fail.
Still the loss of solar jobs pales in comparison with what has been done to the coal industry in recent years. Murray Energy Corp., headquartered in St. Clairsville, Ohio, had to cut 750 East Ohio and West Virginia coal mining jobs in one day, last year. The journal Energy Policy estimated the U.S. coal industry lost 50,000 jobs over a five-year span, during the Obama administration. The hits just keep coming, for states like Ohio.
Department of Job and Family Services numbers show employment decreased by 2,800 in Ohio last month. The unemployment rate rose to 4.9 percent.
First Solar's misfortune, particularly its acknowledgment that it needs to produce a more efficient product, demonstrates one of the major flaws in the war on coal and affordably priced electricity. Much of the federal government has been trying to back a horse that is not yet ready to run.
Now Ohio workers who had pinned their hopes on the solar industry are suffering, too.