Spain is planning to correct its renewable energy experiment gone wrong by spreading the pain, a powerful lessons for a White House with an incoherent energy policy that has often cited its model as one to emulate.
This week Obama’s campaign bashed challenger Mitt Romney for planning to end tax incentives for wind power if elected. “By opposing an extension to the wind production tax credit, Mitt Romney has come out against growth of the wind industry to support 100,000 jobs by 2016 and 500,000 jobs by 2030.”
Obama’s expectations though are based on European policy support models that are being revised and corrected. Ahead of November elections, both candidates must realize America’s energy policy more than ever demands a coherent policy based on its best interest not ideological imperatives.
Putting renewable on steroids can come to damage a country’s power sector, consumers, and the renewable industry itself, and in Spain’s case, even a national economy.
Public support for renewable power in America thus should be reconfigured to achieve realistic economic or geopolitical net gain, not winning elections.
During the first two years of his administration, President Barack Obama and top officials praised Spain as a successful model to create employment and improve energy security. So did everyone else, for that matter, but it’s time to heed the lessons.
As long as we’re pulling numbers out of exhaust ports, why not 100,000,000 jobs by 2015? That’s just as valid as the nonsense spewed by Obysmal and others.
In fact, not only is Spain dropping unaffordable subsidies to the windmill scam, so are Germany and others. Hawaii has already pulled the plug on a huge wind farm. Others are following in trail as they go broke supporting unreliable nonsense producing nothing but cashflow for cronies.