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Protests in Prague Signal a Troubled Winter Ahead in Europe

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Tens of thousands gathered in the Czech capital for the second such protest in a month, spurred by an energy crisis and rising prices that are affecting countries across Europe.PRAGUE — Thousands of protesters flocked into Prague’s Wenceslas Square on Wednesday, demanding the resignation of the government of the Czech Republic as an energy crisis stoked popular unrest that will be closely watched in other European capitals.Despite a rain-soaked start, demonstrators hoisting Czech flags and chanting, “Shame! Shame!” turned out for the second time in a month to rally under the slogan “Czech Republic First.” They were a hodgepodge of figures with a broad range of causes, including Kremlin sympathizers and those who said they are fighting a “global elite.”But many at the protest were there to express their concern about soaring prices and energy costs as winter loomed, with the Czech Republic one of the first countries in Europe to face such large protests over the issues.Many protesters linked their economic woes to the European Union’s tough sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine — repeating a line propagated by the Kremlin, which is advancing the narrative that E.U. sanctions against Russia are to blame for inflation and other financial troubles on the continent.E.U. leaders counter that their sanctions against Russia are not causing energy prices to surge, but rather Russia’s weaponization of its gas supplies. Russia’s decision to cut the gas supply to E.U. countries in response to their support of Ukraine has sent already high electricity prices — caused by pandemic-era distortions — skyrocketing. And while individual E.U. countries might take some measures tailored to each’s particular energy mix at home, the most effective intervention to stop the spiraling electricity costs will come at the collective level, analysts say. E.U. energy ministers are meeting in Brussels on Friday to assess, and most likely finalize, a set of new policies that will aim to support households and businesses, and tax profits from energy firms. Many of the protesters in Prague linked their economic woes to the European Union’s tough sanctions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Martin Divisek/EPA, via ShutterstockBut the E.U. efforts are viewed skeptically among protesters in Prague, the Czech capital, where some raised E.U. flags crossed with red Xs, while others raised the flags of the Czech Communist Party and far-right factions. The odd mix, spanning the extremes of the political spectrum, was spearheaded by Ladislav Vrabel, who brands himself as a populist leader seeking to force the resignation of the government and push for a deal with Russia for cheap gas.“It is the duty of the Czech government to ensure the security of its citizens and their economic stability,” he said before the protests. “Our government is bringing us to the edge of war and economic collapse.”The landlocked Czech Republic was particularly reliant on Russian gas and oil brought in through neighboring countries, even receiving E.U. exemptions from sanctions against Russia.Mr. Vrabel’s first protest, on Sept. 3, took the government by surprise when more than 70,000 people marched on Wenceslas Square, the iconic gathering point of the Czech capital where hundreds of thousands gathered in 1989 to oust the communist government. It appeared to be a surprise even to Mr. Vrabel himself — he initially registered the rally for 500 people, according to City Council records.“It has been a wake-up call, and I hope it has been a wake-up call for others across Europe,” said Tomas Pojar, an adviser to the Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala.Smaller protests have emerged in Germany, with thousands gathering in recent days in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to demand that Berlin open the recently completed gas pipeline from Russia, Nord Stream 2. The pipeline was ruptured this week in what European officials said appeared to be a deliberate attack.Similar to the protests against coronavirus pandemic restrictions that hit Europe in 2021, the demonstrations in the Czech Republic and Germany are drawing an unlikely pairing of right- and left-wing groups, as well as anti-vaccine and fringe conspiracy figures. And similar to those pandemic protests, analysts worry that radical groups will try to use the rallies to make inroads into the broader population.After the first Czech protest this month, Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s government offered a price cap on electricity prices for citizens.Virginia Mayo/Associated PressMatthias Quent, a German expert on far-right extremism, said that some disgruntled citizens might believe the far-right groups’ protests were their only outlet.“They may think they have no other place to express their displeasure,” he said.The far right is having a resurgence across Europe. This week, the Brothers of Italy party won the largest share of votes in Italian elections. And in Sweden, a group founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads looks set to become the largest party in the next government.In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany, known by its German acronym AfD, has risen to about 15 percent in public polls and is planning protests in Berlin next month.“People are not even using heating yet — that is still to come,” said Mr. Quent. “And, nevertheless, the AfD already had a visible upswing. This is, indeed, the scenario I have feared.”In the Prague protest, many who joined bristled at the idea of being called fringe or far right.“It’s not only energy prices rising — grocery prices, too. I am raising my granddaughter, and I am worried,” said Miroslav Kusmirek, who came from a town 30 miles outside the capital to protest on a rainy afternoon. “I see companies now struggling and I worry; if the company that employs me collapses, so will I.”As he spoke, a speaker onstage from Germany’s AfD, Christine Anderson, was shouting to loud cheers, “You no longer live in a democracy!”For energy experts, the populist surge adds yet another knot in the tangle of problems Europe is grappling with. On top of Russia’s cutting gas, France’s nuclear plants have been at half capacity because of maintenance issues, and a severe drought has hampered Germany’s ability to import coal over the summer.Supporters of Giorgia Meloni’s Brother of Italy party celebrating the victory of the right-wing coalition in Rome on Monday.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSimone Tagliapietra, an energy expert at Bruegel, a European research group, said that, in a worst-case scenario, some countries could find themselves facing a “vicious cycle” of popular discontent that pushes for populist responses that could stoke rivalries among European states. In that scenario, he said, countries could stop trading electricity.“If countries are to close down their energy borders, what you have is flaring political tensions between European countries,” he said. “That becomes very, very risky because we can really compromise European unity. Countries could start to fight about all other political issues.”Although that is still far from the current reality, he said, a false report suggesting that France might stop sending electricity to Italy sparked outrage among Italians and illustrated the sensitivity of the situation. “That’s just a preview of what could happen,” he said.In the wake of the first Czech protest this month, Prime Minister Fiala’s government offered a price cap on electricity prices for its citizens, but the protests on Wednesday show that it has yet to ease economic anxieties.Czech electricity trading prices have more than doubled compared with last year’s, according to some analysts. About 10 percent to 15 percent of households have been hit badly, according to research by the STEM Institute for Empirical Research in Prague, which advises the government. The middle class is also starting to feel the pinch, it said, with its disposable income falling by 50 percent compared with last year’s.Claudia Trantina, 27, was one such protester on Wednesday, driving an hour from her home city, Plzen, to protest in Prague. “I can’t provide my daughter with the things I had as a kid,” she said. “It’s not like I can’t pay the bills, but I can’t do things like take her to the zoo or restaurants.”What has confused analysts is that anxieties are at a higher level than during the recession in 2008, when economic indicators were worse, said Nikola Horejs, the STEM research director.“The mood is tense, but this mood is much worse than the actual situation, which is something that confuses the government and it confuses economists,” he said.Many experts say that part of what causes discontent is European leaders’ failure to find the right messaging on the energy crisis.“We need a kind of wartime mobilization,” said Mr. Tagliapietra. “Not exactly like Churchill — but something of that sort. The leadership needs to tell people: Look, this is a war. An economic war has been launched against us by Russia.”In Prague, officials say they have been trying to send that message, but are wary of provoking anger or fear.“If the subject comes up day after day and it is scaremongered, it will not have a positive effect,” said Petr Tresnak, a deputy minister of industry and trade. “You need an informed public, but you don’t want to cause panic.”The protest in Prague on Wednesday was the second such demonstration in a month.Martin Divisek/EPA, via ShutterstockMatina Stevis-Gridneff More

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    Ukraine Energy Company C.E.O. Tries to Keep Lights On During War

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    Keeping millions of customers in Ukraine supplied with electric power amid the Russian invasion is, to say the least, challenging. Especially when the electrical grid itself becomes a target. “What we see now is that they attack transmission lines, substations, power generating stations,” said Maxim Timchenko, chief executive of DTEK, a large private Ukrainian energy company. In the early days of the war, he said, the Russian military seemed to be wary of wrecking critical civilian infrastructure.Now, he said, “they are not selective anymore.”In a video call from an undisclosed location in western Ukraine, Mr. Timchenko described how DTEK, which supplies about 20 percent of Ukraine’s electricity, and other Ukrainian utilities were scrambling to keep the lights on during the Russian onslaught.Amid the urgency, Ukraine, which is not a member of the European Union, has also managed to achieve something in a matter of weeks that it had worked on for years: a linkup to the power grids of neighboring E.U. countries, including, according to Mr. Timchenko, Romania, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary.“This will help Ukraine to keep their electricity system stable, homes warm and lights on during these dark times,” said Europe’s energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, in a statement. “In this area, Ukraine is now part of Europe,” she added.In case of a major hit to its power system, Ukraine could now apply for emergency electricity supplies from the European system, Mr. Timchenko said. Ukraine also severed its electricity links to Russia and Belarus just before the invasion to establish independence from power sources in hostile countries.When its transmission lines are damaged or severed, DTEK arranges for Ukrainian soldiers to escort its emergency repair crews, dressed in flak jackets, to reach affected sites. Mr. Timchenko said six of DTEK’s roughly 60,000 employees had been killed during the war, although not while performing duties for the company.The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More

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    Winter Heating Bills Loom as the Next Inflation Threat

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    With consumers already dealing with the fastest price increases in decades, another unwelcome uptick is on the horizon: a widely expected increase in winter heating bills.After plunging during the pandemic as the global economy slowed, energy prices have roared upward. Natural gas, used to heat almost half of U.S. households, has almost doubled in price since this time last year. The price of crude oil — which deeply affects the 10 percent of households that rely on heating oil and propane during the winter — has soared by similarly eye-popping levels.And those costs are being quickly passed through to consumers, who have become accustomed to cheaper energy prices in recent years and now find themselves with growing concerns about inflation this year. More

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    China Power Outages Close Factories and Threaten Growth

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    High demand and soaring energy prices have forced some factories to shut down, adding further problems for already snarled global supply chains.DONGGUAN, China — Power cuts and even blackouts have slowed or closed factories across China in recent days, adding a new threat to the country’s slowing economy and potentially further snarling global supply chains ahead of the busy Christmas shopping season in the West.The outages have rippled across most of eastern China, where the bulk of the population lives and works. Some building managers have turned off elevators. Some municipal pumping stations have shut down, prompting one town to urge residents to store extra water for the next several months, though it later withdrew the advice.There are several reasons electricity is suddenly in short supply in much of China. More regions of the world are reopening after pandemic-induced lockdowns, greatly increasing demand for China’s electricity-hungry export factories.Export demand for aluminum, one of the most energy-intensive products, has been strong. Demand has also been robust for steel and cement, central to China’s vast construction programs.As electricity demand has risen, it has also pushed up the price of coal to generate that electricity. But Chinese regulators have not let utilities raise rates enough to cover the rising cost of coal. So the utilities have been slow to operate their power plants for more hours.In the city of Dongguan, a major manufacturing hub near Hong Kong, a shoe factory that employs 300 workers rented a generator last week for $10,000 a month to ensure that work could continue. Between the rental costs and the diesel fuel for powering it, electricity is now twice as expensive as when the factory was simply tapping the grid.“This year is the worst year since we opened the factory nearly 20 years ago,” said Jack Tang, the factory’s general manager. Economists predicted that production interruptions at Chinese factories would make it harder for many stores in the West to restock empty shelves and could contribute to inflation in the coming months.Three publicly traded Taiwanese electronics companies, including two suppliers to Apple and one to Tesla, issued statements on Sunday night warning that their factories were among those affected. Apple had no immediate comment, while Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.It is not clear how long the power crunch will last. Experts in China predicted that officials would compensate by steering electricity away from energy-intensive heavy industries like steel, cement and aluminum, and said that might fix the problem.State Grid, the government-run power distributor, said in a statement on Monday that it would guarantee supplies “and resolutely maintain the bottom line of people’s livelihoods, development and safety.”Still, nationwide power shortages have prompted economists to reduce their estimates for China’s growth this year. Nomura, a Japanese financial institution, cut its forecast for economic expansion in the last three months of this year to 3 percent, from 4.4 percent.A power generator at a shoe factory in Dongguan. The rental and fuel costs make electricity from the device twice as expensive as when the factory was simply tapping the grid.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesThe electricity shortage is starting to make supply chain problems worse. The sudden restart of the world economy has led to shortages of key components like computer chips and has helped provoke a mix-up in global shipping lines, putting in the wrong places too many containers and the ships that carry them.Power supplies are little different. Compared with last year, electricity demand is growing this year in China at nearly twice its usual annual pace. Swelling orders for the smartphones, appliances, exercise equipment and other manufactured goods that China’s factories churn out has driven the rise.China’s power problems are contributing in some part to higher prices elsewhere, like in Europe. Experts said a surge in prices in China had drawn energy distributors to send ships laden with liquefied natural gas to Chinese ports, leaving others to scurry for further sources.But the bulk of China’s power problems are unique to the country.Two-thirds of China’s electricity comes from burning coal, which Beijing is trying to curb to address climate change. Coal prices have surged along with demand. But because the government keeps electricity prices low, particularly in residential areas, use by homes and businesses has climbed regardless.Faced with losing more money with each additional ton of coal they burn, some power plants have closed for maintenance in recent weeks, saying this was needed for safety reasons. Many other power plants have been operating below full capacity, and have been leery of increasing generation when that would mean losing more money, said Lin Boqiang, dean of the China Institute for Energy Policy Studies at Xiamen University.A workshop producing shoe parts in Dongguan. Prices for the components have already increased 30 to 50 percent from last year.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesChina’s main economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, also ordered 20 large cities and provinces in late August to reduce energy consumption for the rest of the year. The regulators cited a need to make sure that the cities and provinces met full-year targets set by Beijing for their carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.Besides coal, hydroelectric dams supply much of the rest of China’s power, while wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear power plants play a growing role.China’s difficulty in keeping the lights on and the faucets running poses a challenge for Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, and the Chinese Communist Party. They have taken a triumphalist stance this year, emphasizing China’s success in quickly eliminating outbreaks of the coronavirus and in winning the release of a senior Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, in a dispute with the United States and Canada.But Mr. Xi risks getting tagged for problems as well as successes. He has moved strongly to quell any opposition within the Communist Party and has extended its reach into more sectors of Chinese life. If people in China begin to point fingers, there are few others to blame.China’s economic rebound from the coronavirus has been driven in large part by heavy investment in infrastructure as well as the rise in exports. Overall industrial use consumes 70 percent of the electricity in China, led by the mostly state-owned producers of steel, cement and aluminum.“If those guys produce more, it has a huge impact on electricity demand,” Professor Lin said, adding that China’s economic minders would order those three industrial users to ease back.Disruptions from power shortages have already been felt in Dongguan, at the heart of China’s southern manufacturing belt. Its factories produce everything from electronics and toys to sweaters.The local power transmission authority in Houjie, a township in northwestern Dongguan, issued an order shutting off electricity to many factories from Wednesday through Sunday. On Monday morning, the suspension in industrial electricity service was extended at least through Tuesday night.Air-conditioners outside a worker dormitory in Dongguan. Factories in the city produce everything from electronics to toys to sweaters.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesThe throaty roar of huge diesel generators rumbled on Monday morning through the streets and alleys of Houjie, where scores of five-story, concrete-walled factories are nestled among low-rise apartment buildings for migrant workers. Air-conditioners were not running as temperatures climbed into the 90s, and only a few fluorescent lights gleamed in some of the factories’ windows.One of the noisy generators rumbled in a 20-foot yellow shipping container behind a factory where workers in bright blue and orange jumpsuits labored to assemble men’s and women’s leather shoes for American and European buyers.Mr. Tang, the general manager, said his factory had already faced especially strict power usage rules because the government labeled it a “low-profit, high-energy-consuming factory.”Along nearby alleys, a warren of small workshops was making insoles and other shoe components for assembly at Mr. Tang’s factory and other similar plants nearby. Prices for the components have already increased 30 to 50 percent from last year as labor costs and raw material prices rise, Mr. Tang said.“Many of us working in this line of business say that we are basically losing money this year,” he said at his factory on Monday morning, adding that power outages began this summer.Mr. Tang had to turn off his generator for two days last week after residents filed noise complaints with the local government. He also rented a metal cage to cover the generator to reduce the din.Some in the neighborhood, particularly shoe component manufacturers, were sympathetic, voicing a mixture of business pragmatism and nationalism.“Although it’s a bit noisy, I understand it,” said Wang Weidong, the owner of a shoe insole processing workshop. “There’s no other way — we will answer the call of the country.”Li You More

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    High Natural Gas Prices Strain Europeans, Weighing on Recovery

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    Crimped supplies and increased demand have pushed energy prices to their highest in years, raising concerns about the winter.LONDON — As the world struggles to recover from the pandemic, soaring natural gas prices threaten to become a drag on the economies of Europe and elsewhere. Wholesale prices for the fuel are at their highest in years — nearly five times where they were at this time in 2019, before people started falling ill with the virus.The high costs feed into electric power prices and have begun showing up in utility bills, weighing on consumers whose personal finances have already been strained by the pandemic. The price jumps are unusual because demand is typically relatively low in the warmer summer months, raising alarms about the prospects for further increases when demand jumps in the winter.Spanish households are paying roughly 40 percent more than what they paid for electricity a year ago as the wholesale price has more than doubled, prompting angry protests against utility companies. “The electricity price hike has created a lot of indignation, and this is of course moving onto the streets,” said María Campuzano, spokeswoman for the Alliance against Energy Poverty, a Spanish association that helps people struggling to pay energy bills.The pain is being felt across Europe, where gas is used for home heating and cooking as well as electric power generation. Citing record natural gas prices, Britain’s energy regulatory agency, Ofgem, recently gave utilities a green light to increase the ceiling on energy bills for millions of households paying standard rates by about 12 percent, to 1,277 pounds, or $1,763, a year.Several trends are to blame for soaring prices, including a resurgence of global demand after pandemic lockdowns, led by China, and a European cold snap in the latter part of winter this year that drained storage levels. The higher-than-expected demand and crimped supply are “a perfect storm,” said Marco Alverà, chief executive of Snam, the large gas company in Milan.The worry is that if Europe has a cold winter, prices could climb further, possibly forcing some factories to temporarily shut down.“If it is cold, then we’re in trouble,” Mr. Alverà said.A Gazprom facility in Siberia. Russia, Europe’s largest gas supplier, and Algeria have substantially increased their exports but not enough to ease market concerns. Maxim Shemetov/ReutersThe jump has prompted some to call for an acceleration of the shift from fossil fuels to clean domestic energy sources like wind and solar power to free consumers from being at the mercy of global commodity markets.“The reality is we need to switch to renewables faster,” said Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, a British utility.On the other hand, the turbulence in prices may also be a harbinger of volatility if energy companies begin to give up on fossil fuel production before renewable sources are ready to pick up the slack, analysts say. In addition, the closure of coal-fired generating plants in Britain and other countries has reduced flexibility in the system, Mr. Alverà said.Gas prices in the United States have risen as well, but they are only around a quarter of those being paid in Europe. The United States has a big price advantage over Europe because of its large domestic supply of relatively cheap gas from shale drilling and other activities, while Europe must import most of its gas. The immediate worry for markets in Europe is that suppliers have not followed their usual practice and used the summer months to fill storage chambers with cheap gas that will be used during the winter, when cold weather more than doubles the consumption of gas in countries like Britain and Germany.Instead, suppliers responded to the cold weather late last winter by draining gas storage facilities. Subsequently, they have been reluctant to top them up with high-priced gas. As a result, European storage facilities are at the depleted levels usual in winter rather than the peaks of fall.“The market is very nervous as we move into the winter season,” said Laura Page, an analyst at Kpler, a research firm. “We have very low storage levels for the time of year.”Europe imports around 60 percent of its gas, with supplies coming by pipeline from Russia and to a lesser extent Algeria and Libya.Liquefied natural gas, arriving by ship from the United States, Qatar and elsewhere, usually helps balance the market. This year, though, L.N.G. carriers have been drawn to higher prices in China, South Korea and Brazil, where a drought has caused a drop in power generated by dams.As a result, Italy, Spain and northwest Europe have seen a sharp decline in liquefied natural gas infusions, according to data from Wood Mackenzie, a market research firm.The dispatching center for Snam, an Italian gas company. Its chief executive said “a perfect storm” of high demand and limited supply had pushed gas prices higher. Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesAdding to the tight situation in Europe, Groningen, the giant gas field in the Netherlands that long served as a safety valve for both its home country and western Germany, is being gradually shut down because of earthquakes. Over the last year European gas prices have risen from around $4 per million British thermal units to about $18.Russia, the largest gas supplier to Europe, and Algeria have substantially increased their exports but not enough to ease market concerns. Some analysts question whether Gazprom, Russia’s gas company, is pursuing a high-price strategy or trying to persuade the West to allow the completion of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which will deliver gas from Russia to Germany. “On the face of it, it looks as though some sort of game is being played here,” said Graham Freedman, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie. On the other hand, Mr. Freedman said, it could be that Gazprom doesn’t have any more gas to export.A spokeswoman for Gazprom said: “Our mission is to fulfill contractual obligations to our clients, not to ‘reduce the concerns’ of an abstract market.” She added that Gazprom had increased supplies to near-record levels this year.Construction of the 746-mile pipeline, which runs under the Baltic Sea, was halted last year just short of completion off Germany’s shores by the threat of sanctions from the United States. But in a deal with Germany in July, the Biden administration agreed to drop its threat to stop the pipeline. On Monday, the management company for the project said it aimed to have the pipeline operating this year.Stanley Reed reported from London, and Raphael Minder from Madrid. More

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    Building Solar Farms May Not Build the Middle Class

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    To hear Democrats tell it, a green job is supposed to be a good job — and not just good for the planet.The Green New Deal, first introduced in 2019, sought to “create millions of good, high-wage jobs.” And in March, when President Biden unveiled his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, he emphasized the “good-paying” union jobs it would produce while reining in climate change.“My American Jobs Plan will put hundreds of thousands of people to work,” Mr. Biden said, “paying the same exact rate that a union man or woman would get.”But on its current trajectory, the green economy is shaping up to look less like the industrial workplace that lifted workers into the middle class in the 20th century than something more akin to an Amazon warehouse or a fleet of Uber drivers: grueling work schedules, few unions, middling wages and limited benefits.Kellogg Dipzinski has seen this up close, at Assembly Solar, a nearly 2,000-acre solar farm under construction near Flint, Mich.“Hey I see your ads for help,” Mr. Dipzinski, an organizer with the local electrical workers union, texted the site’s project manager in May. “We have manpower. I’ll be out that way Friday.”“Hahahahaha …. yes — help needed on unskilled low wage workers,” was the response. “Competing with our federal government for unemployment is tough.”For workers used to the pay standards of traditional energy industries, such declarations may be jarring. Building an electricity plant powered by fossil fuels usually requires hundreds of electricians, pipe fitters, millwrights and boilermakers who typically earn more than $100,000 a year in wages and benefits when they are unionized.But on solar farms, workers are often nonunion construction laborers who earn an hourly wage in the upper teens with modest benefits — even as the projects are backed by some of the largest investment firms in the world. In the case of Assembly Solar, the backer is D.E. Shaw, with more than $50 billion in assets under management, whose renewable energy arm owns and will operate the plant.While Mr. Biden has proposed higher wage floors for such work, the Senate prospects for this approach are murky. And absent such protections — or even with them — there’s a nagging concern among worker advocates that the shift to green jobs may reinforce inequality rather than alleviate it.“The clean tech industry is incredibly anti-union,” said Jim Harrison, the director of renewable energy for the Utility Workers Union of America. “It’s a lot of transient work, work that is marginal, precarious and very difficult to be able to organize.”The Lessons of 2009Since 2000, the United States has lost about two million private-sector union jobs, which pay above-average wages. To help revive such “high-quality middle-class” employment, as Mr. Biden refers to it, he has proposed federal subsidies to plug abandoned oil and gas wells, build electric vehicles and charging stations and speed the transition to renewable energy.Industry studies, including one cited by the White House, suggest that vastly increasing the number of wind and solar farms could produce over half a million jobs a year over the next decade — primarily in construction and manufacturing.David Popp, an economist at Syracuse University, said those job estimates were roughly in line with his study of the green jobs created by the Recovery Act of 2009, but with two caveats: First, the green jobs created then coincided with a loss of jobs elsewhere, including high-paying, unionized industrial jobs. And the green jobs did not appear to raise the wages of workers who filled them.The effect of Mr. Biden’s plan, which would go further in displacing well-paid workers in fossil-fuel-related industries, could be similarly disappointing.In the energy industry, it takes far more people to operate a coal-powered electricity plant than it takes to operate a wind farm. Many solar farms often make do without a single worker on site.In 2023, a coal- and gas-powered plant called D.E. Karn, about an hour away from the Assembly Solar site in Michigan, is scheduled to shut down. The plant’s 130 maintenance and operations workers, who are represented by the Utility Workers Union of America and whose wages begin around $40 an hour plus benefits, are guaranteed jobs at the same wage within 60 miles. But the union, which has lost nearly 15 percent of the 50,000 members nationally that it had five years ago, says many will have to take less appealing jobs. The utility, Consumers Energy, concedes that it doesn’t have nearly enough renewable energy jobs to absorb all the workers.Joe Duvall, the local union president at the D.E. Karn generating complex in Essexville, Mich. The plant, about an hour away from the Assembly Solar site, is scheduled to go offline in 2023.Erin Schaff/The New York Times“A handful will retire,” said Joe Duvall, the local union president. “The younger ones I think have been searching for what they’d like to do outside of Karn.”While some of the new green construction jobs, such as building new power lines, may pay well, many will pay less than traditional energy industry construction jobs. The construction of a new fossil fuel plant in Michigan employs hundreds of skilled tradespeople who typically make at least $60 an hour in wages and benefits, said Mike Barnwell, the head of the carpenters union in the state.By contrast, about two-thirds of the roughly 250 workers employed on a typical utility-scale solar project are lower-skilled, according to Anthony Prisco, the head of the renewable energy practice for the staffing firm Aerotek. Mr. Prisco said his company pays “around $20” per hour for these positions, depending on the market, and that they are generally nonunion.Mr. Biden has proposed that clean energy projects, which are subsidized by federal tax credits, pay construction workers so-called prevailing wages — a level set by the government in each locality. A few states, most prominently New York, have enacted similar mandates.But it’s not clear that the Senate Democrats will be able to enact a prevailing wage mandate over Republican opposition. And the experience of the Recovery Act, which also required prevailing wages, suggests that such requirements are less effective at raising wages than union representation. Union officials also say that much of the difference in compensation arises from benefits rather than pay.A Different Kind of OwnerUnion officials concede that some tasks, like lifting solar panels onto racks, don’t necessarily require a skilled trades worker. But they say that even these tasks should be directly supervised by tradespeople, and that many others must be performed by tradespeople to ensure safety and quality. “If you hire people off the street at $15 per hour, they’re not skilled and they get injuries,” Mr. Barnwell said. “We would never let a bunch of assemblers work together alone.”One potentially dangerous job is wiring the hundreds or thousands of connections on a typical project — from solar panels to boxes that combine their energy to the inverters and transformers that make the electricity compatible with the rest of the grid.Mr. Barnwell’s union has developed a contract that would employ far more skilled workers than the industry norm so that two-thirds of the workers on a project are tradespeople or apprentices. To be more competitive with nonunion employers, the contract offers tradespeople only $18 an hour in benefits, roughly half the usual amount, and a wage of slightly under $30 an hour. Apprentices earn 60 to 95 percent of that wage plus benefits, depending on experience.So far, there have been relatively few takers. A key reason is that while utilities have traditionally built their own coal- and gas-powered plants, they tend to obtain wind and solar energy from other companies through so-called power purchase agreements. That electricity is then sent to customers through the grid just like electricity from any other source.Once construction is completed, many solar farms often operate without a single worker on-site.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWhen utilities build their own plants, they have little incentive to drive down labor costs because their rate of return is set by regulators — around 10 percent of their initial investment a year, according to securities filings.But when a solar farm is built and owned by another company — typically a green energy upstart, a traditional energy giant or an investment firm like D.E. Shaw, the owner of Assembly Solar in Michigan — that company has every incentive to hold down costs.A lower price helps secure the purchase agreement in the first place. And because the revenue is largely determined by the purchase agreement, a company like D.E. Shaw must keep costs low to have a chance of earning the kind of double-digit returns that a regulated utility earns. Every dollar D.E. Shaw saves on labor is a dollar more for its investors.“For third parties selling power to utilities, they are competing to get the contract,” said Leah Stokes, a political science professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies utilities. “And the difference between what they’re paid and what their costs are is profit.”Union Labor, ‘Where Possible’In mid-2019, the electrical workers union in Flint elected a trim and tightly coiled man named Greg Remington as its business manager and de facto leader. Around the same time, Mr. Remington ran into an official with Ranger Power, the company developing the project for D.E. Shaw, at a local planning commission meeting.“He was all smiles — ‘Oh, yeah, we look forward to meeting,’” Mr. Remington said of the official. “But he never returned another phone call. I sent emails and he never got back to me.”Development is the stage of a solar project in which a company buys or leases land, secures permits and negotiates a power purchase agreement with a utility. After that, the developer may cede control of the project to a company that will build, own and operate it.But the two companies often work in tandem, as in the case of D.E. Shaw and Ranger Power, which are joint-venture partners “on certain Midwest projects and assets,” according to a Ranger spokeswoman. D.E. Shaw helps fund Ranger Power’s projects, and its involvement provides the resources and credibility to get projects off the ground.Greg Remington, the business manager at the electrical workers local in Flint, Mich. “A lot of this stuff, you’ve got to strike while the iron is hot,” he said of getting a union foothold in green energy construction projects.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWhen a lawyer for Ranger Power appeared at a Board of Zoning Appeals hearing in Indiana to help advance a Ranger project there in 2019, he emphasized that “the development backing is from D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments,” adding that “they own and operate 31 wind and solar projects across the nation, and they have over $50 billion in investments.” (The firm’s project portfolio is now much larger.)Still, given the sometimes messy maneuvering that goes into obtaining land and permits, it can be helpful for a prominent firm like D.E. Shaw to stand at arm’s length from the development process.In a 2018 letter to a local building trades council in Southern Illinois, known as the Egyptian Building Trades, a Ranger Power official wrote that a solar project the company was developing in the area was “committed to using the appropriate affiliates of the Egyptian Building Trades, where possible, to provide skilled craftsmen and women to perform the construction of the project.” The letter said any entity that acquired the project would be required to honor the commitment.But the project mostly hired nonunion workers to install solar panels. According to a complaint filed by a local union last fall with the Illinois Commerce Commission, the construction contractor has used workers who are not qualified and not supervised by a qualified person “to perform electrical wiring and connections” and paid them less than the union rate.Prairie State Solar, an entity owned by D.E. Shaw that was created to oversee the project, has denied the claims. Prairie State has hired union tradespeople for a portion of the work. Ranger officials likewise played up the construction jobs that the Assembly Solar project would bring to Michigan. But by the time Mr. Remington got involved, the county had approved the project and he had little leverage to ensure that they were union jobs. “A lot of this stuff, you’ve got to strike while the iron is hot,” he said.County officials say that the project is bringing large benefits — including payments to landowners and tax revenue — and that they have no say over organized labor’s involvement. “I don’t think it’s our responsibility in any way to intervene on behalf of or against a union,” said Greg Brodeur, a county commissioner.‘Like a Moving Assembly Line’On an afternoon in mid-May, several laborers coming off their shift at Assembly Solar said they were grateful for the work, which they said paid $16 an hour and provided health insurance and 401(k) contributions. Two said they had moved to the area from Memphis and two from Mississippi, where they had made $9 to $15 an hour — one as a cook, two in construction and one as a mechanic.Jeff Ordower, an organizer with the Green Workers Alliance, a group that pushes for better conditions on such projects, said that out-of-state workers often found jobs through recruiters, some of whom make promises about pay that don’t materialize, and that many workers ended up in the red before starting. “You don’t get money till you get there,” Mr. Ordower said. “You’re borrowing money from friends and family just to get to the gig.”The Assembly Solar workers described their jobs installing panels: Two workers “throw glass,” meaning they lift a panel onto the rack, while a third “catches it,” meaning he or she guides the panel into place. Another group of workers passes by afterward and secures the panels to the rack.One of the men, who identified himself as Travis Shaw, said he typically worked from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. six days a week, including overtime. Another worker, Quendarious Foster, who had been on the job for two weeks, said the workers motivated themselves by trying to beat their daily record, which stood at 30 “trackers,” each holding several dozen panels.“Solar is like a moving assembly line,” said Mr. Prisco, the staffing agency leader. “Instead of the product moving down the line, the people move. It replicates itself over and over again across 1,000, 2,000 acres.”The solar industry is shaping up to look less like a workers’ paradise than something more akin to an Amazon warehouse: grueling work schedules, middling wages and steady profits for wealthy investors.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMr. Prisco and other experts said meeting a tight deadline was often critical. In some cases, project owners must pay a penalty to the electricity buyer if there are delays.Elsewhere on the site, Mr. Remington pointed out a worker whom he had seen splicing together cables, but she declined to comment when approached by a reporter. Mr. Remington, who visits frequently and has the moxie of a man who, by his own accounting, has been chased around “by some of the finest sheriffs” in Michigan during hunting season, said he had asked the worker the day before if she was a licensed journeyman or if a journeyman was directly supervising her work, as state regulations require. The worker indicated that neither was the case.A spokeswoman for McCarthy Building Companies, the construction contractor for D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments, said that all electrical apprentices were supervised by licensed journeymen at the state-mandated ratio of three-to-one or better and that all splices involved a licensed electrician.During a brief encounter on site with a reporter, Brian Timmer, the project manager who had exchanged a text with a union organizer, said, “That’s the reason I can’t talk to you” when he was asked about union labor. “It gets a lot of people upset.” (Mr. Remington said he was later told by McCarthy that it might use union electricians for a limited assignment — repairing some defective components.)The county electrical inspector, Dane Deisler, said that McCarthy had produced licenses when he had asked to see them, but that he hadn’t “physically gone through and counted” the licenses and didn’t know how many licensed electricians were on site.Mr. Remington is convinced there are far fewer than a project of this scale requires. “That’s a high-voltage splice box right there,” he said while driving around the perimeter, alluding to potential dangers. He pointed to another box and said, “Tell me if you don’t think that’s electrical work.”Later, explaining why he invested so much effort in a job site where few of his members are likely to be employed, Mr. Remington reflected on the future. “Well, this is going to be the only show in town,” he said. “I want us to have a piece of it.” More