Nuclear Townhall

January 6, 2011

From the Editors



Hats off to The Energy Tribune, which has done a fabulous job of chronicling the end of Spain’s wind/solar/renewable bubble that has left the country $26 billion in debt and desperately trying to rev up nuclear power.



This week Bloomberg reports that Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who originally opposed nuclear power during his election campaign of 2009, is now looking for 70-megawatt uprates at two reactors in order to meet an anticipated shortfall of power this year. All this is coming home to consumers in the form of a 9.8 percent rate increase, as the country struggles to clean up the mess created by the solar binge.



As Energy Tribune chronicles, Spain’s “bridge to the renewable future” started off a decade ago as a well-planned market intervention. Electrical rates were held unrealistically low while the government paid renewable sources a “feed-in tariff” (i.e., guaranteed above-market price) for the new renewable sources. Solar and wind flourished and for awhile Spain was advertising itself as the pioneer of the new renewable era.



A much-disputed 2009 study said that Spain was destroying five jobs for every two “green jobs” created by pushing up the price of electricity. The study came just as President Obama was touting a similar energy scenario for the U.S. Although renewable enthusiasts mocked the report, the whole thing came home to roost in 2010 when the money finally ran out and Spain was forced to cancel $4.2 billion subsidies for solar and another $300 million for wind. The reversal – which violated all kinds of contracts – has decimated the solar industry and turned several new production centers into ghost towns.



With Spain’s teetering financial condition now threatening the entire European monetary system, there seems to be one stark lesson from the entire experience – the road to solar utopia cannot be paved with good intentions.

Read more at the Energy Tribune and Bloomberg

Tags: Renewables, solar, Spain