Furthermore, according to the Fraser Institute, the 4% solar and wind provides accounts “for about 20 percent of the average commodity cost,” even though the Ontario Energy Board said last year that solar and wind would provide 7% of Ontario’s power and “their direct costs would account for about the same fraction of the average commodity cost.”

This wouldn’t be the first time that the government’s estimates were wildly off.  Dalton McGuinty promised in 2009 that the Green Energy Act would create 50,000 jobs by the end of 2012, but as Lorrie Goldstein wrote in the Sun last year, as of mid-2013 only 31,000 jobs had materialized.  Most of them were temporary (lasting only one to three years) and were “indirect” jobs, so even the claim that 31,000 jobs were created is difficult to verify.

To make matters worse, the figure of 31,000 did not take into account the jobs that would be permanently lost as a result of increased electricity prices.  A Fraser Institute report published last year found that the Green Energy Act “will not create jobs or improve economic growth in Ontario.” Lorrie Goldstein wrote that the 31,000 new jobs cost the economy 62,000 to 124,000 jobs in other sectors, as a result of high energy prices.

Such dismal results for government investments in green energy are not unique to Ontario, of course.

Consider, for example, this paper published in 2009 by researchers from the King Juan Carlos University in Spain.  The researchers found that for every “green job” created by the government, 2.2 jobs were lost elsewhere in the economy (note that this number falls into the range of Lorrie’s estimate).

The researchers also found that every green energy job created by Spain since 2000 cost the government, on average, 571,138 Euros.  The final cost of the Spanish experience with renewable energy subsidies is massive.   Between subsidies and higher electricity prices, tens of billions of Euros were lost.  The researchers also found that these enormous costs “do not appear to be unique to Spain’s approach but instead are largely inherent in schemes to promote renewable energy sources.”

It is unclear to me, therefore, what the Ontario Government expects its residents to gain in return for all the time and money poured into green energy projects.  Ontarians are paying outrageous electricity prices, jobs have been lost, and billions of dollars have been wasted – and all we have appeared to gain is a few kind words from ‘Saint’ David Suzuki, which is of no value to anyone.