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Solar Beats Coal on U.S. Jobs
The industry put twice as many people to work last year than its fossil-fuel counterpart
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For all the talk about coal-industry employment, solar energy accounted for more than twice as many jobs last year, about 350,000 workers, according to a report Wednesday from the Energy Futures Initiative, a Washington-based nonprofit headed by former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Solar produces about 1.9 percent of U.S. electricity, and is deepening its reach in the Southeast. And while natural gas employs about 7.7 percent more people than solar, more than 80 percent of those jobs are related to producing the fuel rather than using it to generate electricity.