Spain’s Green Energy Experiment
The Institute for Energy Research released today a case study on Spain’s failed green energy policies. This is the second entry in a series of case studies on Europe’s green energy disaster (click here to read IER’s case study on Germany).
For years, President Obama has pointed to Europe’s energy policies as an example that the United States should follow. However, those policies have been disastrous for countries like Spain, where electricity prices have skyrocketed, unemployment is over 25 percent, and youth unemployment is over 50 percent.
IER’s study found:
- In 2000, Spain began a new program to subsidize renewable energy with the passage of its “Promotion Plan for Renewable Energies.”
- Spain’s feed-in tariffs have created a “rate deficit” amounting to $41 billion (about $850 per person).
- In 2011, Spain’s domestic electricity prices (including taxes) amounted to 29.46 U.S. ¢/kilowatt-hour (kWh), nearly 2.5 times more than U.S. prices.
- Spain’s electricity prices increased by 92 percent from 2005 to 2011.
- Rising energy costs hit low-income Spaniards the hardest–driving them into energy poverty
- Despite myriad renewable subsidies and mandates, Spain’s CO2 emissions increased by 34.5% from 1994-2011.
Click here to read the full case study.
Click here to read IER’s previous study on Spain by Dr. Gabriel Calzada Alvarez.
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 
I am a wind/solar/micro-hydro system designer and builder.
When I see these industrial/commercial sized systems, I see an enormous waste. I don’t mean it energy-wise, but is real estate and local ecologies.
The reason they are so big, is to be efficient. That’s the only way the utilities can make a profit and profit is the only reason they exist. And – the power they provide is more costly because of the distances they have to be from the population, the support infrastructure needed and high maintenance costs. People get suckered in on the cost because they believe they are helping the environment.
Small private systems are more than enough to meet the energy needs of the country but they get a lot of resistance from the utilities and lobbyists for the profiteering corporations, who some how manage to get the wind, the Sun and gravity of falling water taxed and fees levied upon.
Small systems do not need to be really efficient, nor do they need to have enormous support and infrastructure in place to use. They are simple, easy to maintain by anybody handy with automotive systems or similar and the power source is FREE!
Solar panels need not be any more than the size of your own roof. Wind turbines are much smaller and birds can see them entirely, not being blinded by the sheer size of the commercial ones. If you are lucky enough to have a flowing stream or river on your property, a few feet of drop in the water level through a hydro turbine can provide a constant power supply, without losing any water from the natural system.
That’s what irks governments – the word FREE. They want to tax you for your energy use, no matter how you extract it. Ridiculous! They do not own the Sun, the wind or the effects of gravity, yet they try to force you to pay for them. They do not want energy independence by the people.
These gigantic systems do more harm to the environment that they help. Birds fried in mid-flight by heliostats. Birds whacked out of the sky by wind turbine blades traveling at 500MPH, Plant life blocked of the sunlight they need to grow, leaving the land barren beneath acres and acres of solar panels and mirrors. Giant patches cleared of all vegetation around windmills – all leaving the landscape open to flooding and accelerated erosion.
Let’s not forget the oceanic wind farms: They have another layer of bad effects beneath the surface of the sea, causing mass migrations to go the wrong ways, and still killing avian life above.
So, if you really want to help the environment, install a small scale system on your property. If there are enough of them, the loads on the big utilities will settle down and they will burn less coal or natural gas to keep up with the demands. National security of the power grid is bolstered because it takes the centralized sources out of the picture.
Thank you for sharing your info. We do not oppose private wind and solar, as a matter of fact, many of our citizens have them. We object to industrial projects, shoehorned into rural communities, against their will. That is disgusting! Noise, and other complaints are ignored, and the people’s suffering is discounted. That is bad for the entire renewable energy industry! The whole fiasco was implemented in a barbaric way! We’ll keep fighting to expose the truth….Thanks Again, Shellie
My pleasure!
Granted, I am in the business to make a living but not like the corporate pirates that sell you the Sun and Wind.
There are many ways to reap the benefits without causing harm to the environment and upsetting local ecologies. Profit seeking corporations invest a lot of $$ into studies that benefit their endeavors and don’t think about the negative side. We small system people have it the other way around; Using common sense over profit and still saving $$ in the end.
I agree! Saving money for the people struggling to pay for electricity, makes a lot more sense, than robbing the poor ratepayers, to make the rich investors, even richer. The truth is, they don’t care at all about our environment, just our money! Governments are riding this charade, all the way to the bank, on our dime! Let private citizens benefit from the “green economy”! At least that way, they always have the right to say “no”.