I worked in the (figurative and literal) trenches of a previous “green jobs” boom-bust cycle in California … the underground storage tank remediation bubble, which happened to coincide with the ’90s recession.
Enormous sums of money went to waste (pun intended) in an effort to clean up contamination caused by leaking gasoline/diesel/solvent/etc. tanks, much of it coming from “user fees” that were indirectly passed on to consumers. Much of the money came from struggling small businesses too, especially mom-and-pop gas stations. Who profited? Much of it went to snake-oil vendors and other charlatans who charged extortionate prices for unproven technology. Some of it went to incompetent or borderline criminal contractors. Certainly the general public and the business community did not benefit in proportion to the amount of money spent.
In the end I saw some efficient, cost-effective technology emerge from the mess. But by then the public and private sectors were both flat broke.
