As the financial crisis continues, countries – one after another – are finding that the cost of pandering to environmental correctness is unacceptable. Renewable energy is proving to be unsustainable.
- Poland: The government moves to overhaul its system of support for green energy by effectively cutting funding for onshore wind.
- Greece: Greece has slashed the guaranteed feed-in prices it pays to some solar operators and is no longer approving permits for their installation.
- Switzerland: Switzerland plans for using more gas until 2050 and “energy needs can be completely covered by renewable energy”.
- Spain: Government has introduced a new tax on electricity production revenues to try and curb Spain’s current energy sector deficit caused mainly by the government’s renewable subsidy program.
- UK: UK cuts feed-in tariffs for Solar panels.
- Germany: Germany to press on with energy changes to the renewable subsidy system and with the easing of environmental over-regulation to rein-in renewable energy costs.
- Australia: Victoria cuts solar subsidies as the amount paid to new solar customers for power sold to the grid will be reduced from 25 cents to eight cents per kilowatt-hour.
- US: Tax breaks for wind energy to be curbed. Hopes that wind power could be competitive without any subsidy have been dashed by the plunge in North American natural gas prices.
Subsidies for what are essentially inferior products for electricity generation are ineffective. Subsidies for what are misguided objectives are just not sustainable.
Tags: Energy, Feed-in tariff, Renewable energy, Subsidy
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