Spain seeing the "green" light

Spain spent fifteen years seriously bankrolling some green energy development. At the height of this, they were only getting 6% of their energy from renewables. There was a report published in 2009 that offered a grim post-mortem. Excerpting from their 24 bullet points:

2. Optimistically treating European Commission partially funded data we find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain's experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.

7. The study calculates that since 2000 Spain spent �571,138 to create each �green job�, including subsidies of more than �1 million per wind industry job.

8. The study calculates that the programs creating those jobs also resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,500 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every �green job� created.

10. Each �green� megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy: 8.99 by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy, 5.05 by mini-hydro.

Fortunately in May of this year, their voters tossed out the Socialists Now, they are defunding the remaining manufacturers. From Bloomberg:

Spain Cuts Payouts, Ejects Clean-Power Industry
Spanish renewable-energy companies that once got Europe�s biggest subsidies are deserting the nation after the government shut off aid, pushing project developers and equipment makers to work abroad or perish.

From wind-turbine maker Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA (GAM) to solar park developer T-Solar Global SA, companies are locked out of their home market for new business. These are the same suppliers that spearheaded more than $69 billion of wind and solar projects since 2004 that today supply more than 50 percent of Spain�s power demand on the most breezy and sunny days.

Saddled with a budget deficit more than twice the European Union limit and a ballooning gap between income and costs in its power system, Spain halted subsidies for new renewable-energy projects in January. The surprise move by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy one month after taking office helped pierce investor confidence in stable aid for clean energy across Europe.

We have seen the results of this spending in the above referenced report. More:

In the 2000s, Spain copied the German clean-power aid model, as did nations from Portugal to Israel and Japan, increasing subsidies to a pinnacle in 2007. That�s when a law granted 444 euros ($556) a megawatt-hour for home rooftop solar panels feeding the power grid, compared with an average 39 euros paid to competing coal- or gas-fired power plants.

And, like anything from the Commissars at Central Planning, it fell flat on its face. They gave it ten years, it failed and it's time to shut down the last vestiges. All of this wasted time and money spent to combat a non-issue. There is plenty of oil for the next 200 years, Liquid Thorium reactors are a profound improvement over traditional Uranium reactors and their waste only needs to be sequestered for a few hundred years (assuming that it is not being reprocessed and recycled into new fuel). It is a shame to see that this great nation squandered their resources for such a long time but it is uplifting to see that they have turned the corner and are back to sustainable development. Development is not a bad word when done well... Hat tip to Anthony for the link to the Bloomberg article.