General Motors has quite a goal to become a fossil-fuel-free automaker by 2050. While such an outlook should be taken with a few grains of salt, GM is making good on promises here and now.
The automaker officially announced its latest 100-megawatt wind farm, located in Paulding County, Ohio. The facility will bring 300 new jobs to the area and power produced will offset energy consumption at GM’s Ohio and Indiana plants.
When the new facility comes online, GM said in the Monday announcement it will be 20 percent of the way to its 2050 goal. Aside from the Paulding wind farm, GM also buys 200 megawatts worth of power from the Northwest Ohio Wind Farm. Additional power comes from another wind farm in Illinois.
The construction is good news for the Ohio area. Along with 300 new jobs, the facility should pump $1 million in additional tax revenue for the county.
Comments
So after the construction is complete what happens to those 300 jobs?
It’s a contract to build wind turbines, not the launch of a long-term employment strategy for 300 workers in a new factory. Construction contracts can describe the required number of skilled worker for the work, and the workers themselves know they are hired on and off as needed, and that once the contract is fulfilled their work is done.
You’re confusing long-term factory assembly jobs with the unskilled/skilled labor jobs in the habitually changing construction industry.
A factory can produce products for decades and can employ 300 workers for just as long, whereas 300 construction worker are either reassigned to a new project or find they way back into the labour market after the building is complete.
You could have saved, like, 4 coal worker’s jobs with all those resources.