"But addressing a Heritage Foundation seminar last May, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, Professor of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid explained what Feed In Tariffs and other wind subsidies did to Spain (as well as Portugal and Greece) got into debt:
'The feed-in tariff... would make (utility) companies go bankrupt eventually. So...the government guarantees...to give back the money in the future -- when (they) are not going to be in the office any more. Slowly the market does not want to have these securities that they are selling. Right now there is a debt related to these renewable energies that nobody knows how it is going to be paid -- of 16 Billion Euros.'
In early 2009 the Socialist government of Spain reduced alternative energy subsidies by 30%. Calzada continues:
'At that point the whole pyramid collapsed. They are firing thousands of people. BP closed down the two largest solar production plants in Europe. They are firing between 25,000 and 40,000 people....'
'What do we do with all this industry that we have been creating with subsidies that now is collapsing? The bubble is too big. We cannot continue pumping enough money. ...The President of the Renewable Industry in Spain (wrote a column arguing that) ...the only way is finding other countries that will give taxpayers' money away to our industry to take it and continue maintaining these jobs.'
That 'other country' is the United States of America.
Waxman-Markey seems dead, and Europe's southern periphery is bankrupt. But the wind-subsidy proposals being floated in Congress suggest that American political leaders have yet to understand that 'green power' means generating electricity by burning dollars."
A great article that explains in detail why wind power generation "capacity" is usually vastly overstated. Coal and natural gas plants must be standing by at all times to cover the ~75% of the time when wind turbines aren't generating power. Also, I didn't know this - California is littered with the hulks of derelict windmills from the 80's and 90's.
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yeah, after riding thru San Angelo last Feb and talkin to the locals and finding out 99% of the thousands of whirlygigs were "non operational", I figgered T. Boone and the Admin. had sold us a "bill of Goods" on this deal......they sit idle now with no big fat wires to carry the "power to the people" as they were billed......what a freakin scam !!!!!!
ReplyDeleteLike I've said since 2000,
"tea party anyone?"