Britain's less productive because we're going green

British productivity numbers have not been doing well these recent years. As we all also know we’ve been building out those renewables over that same time period. These two things are connected. In fact, the one is causing the other.

Just to remind, productivity is the value of output divided by the number of labour hours. This means that if labour is used to produce something more valuable then productivity is going up. It also means that if more labour is used to produce something of the same value then productivity goes down. The other thing to know is that while productivity isn’t everything it is, in the long run, pretty much everything as a determinant of lifestyle and wealth. Rising productivity makes us richer.

The IMF has thoughts on this (page four, here). Coal and natural gas require 0.21 job years per GWh of electricity produced. Wind requires 0.32. Replace coal and gas with wind power and productivity declines and we get poorer.

No, this is not arguable. This is simple fact. It might be worth it to save Gaia, that’s at least logically possible. But it is indeed simply true that wind requires more labour therefore lowers labour productivity. Of course, by the same standard, solar requires 1.5 man years so solar is one seventh as productive as coal or gas.

So, what have we been doing recently? Closing down coal and gas in favour of wind and solar. We’ve been deliberately reducing labour productivity.

As we say, maybe this is worth doing for Gaia. But there are those out there who have the nerve to complain about the productivity numbers - exactly the same people who desire those renewables. That’s just damn cheeky. Worry about one or the other by all means, but don’t demand the one then complain about the results of your own insistences.