Green Investors Face Bankruptcy As Spain Cuts Subsidies Even Further

By Ilan Brat and Christopher Bjork

Juan Antonio Cabrero is bracing for the savings he invested in a solar-energy farm in northern Spain to disappear into light.  In 2008 Mr. Cabrero put up his €20,000 ($26,200) life savings and took on a €80,000 bank loan to buy part of the solar farm, pledging his home in nearby Tafalla as a guarantee. Spain’s government was promising more than two decades of large subsidies to spur the growth of solar energy, and Mr. Cabrero thought his investment would safely provide a nest egg for his planned retirement in 2018.

Now, because of cuts in renewable-energy subsidies the government is said to be planning, the 60-year-old Mr. Cabrero may lose both his savings and his house.The Wall Street Journal, 6 June 2013

My Take - You can't help but feel sorry for a person in later life that makes such a large financial mistake.  If you have to make big mistakes in life it should be when you're young because then you have time to fix them.  As we age that option isn't as viable.  However, this is what happens when radical thinking becomes mainstream.  Some time back I posted an article about these 'alternative' energy companies suing the Spanish government for backing away from these subsidies.  I commented that I didn't care who won because they both deserved to lose.  These so-called 'energy' companies deserved to lose because they are supposed to be experts on 'alternative' energy and should have known that neither solar nor wind can be an alternative to traditional sources of energy.  As for the government officials who made the decisions to 'green' Spain.  There should be a criminal penalty for stupidity for political leaders, except it is never these people who suffer.  It's always Royko's people who suffer.  The average guys on the street. 

We have two things that should have made the 'experts' aware if that. One, all those schemes touted and promoted by Jimmy Carter failed in every practical way. Two, the technology has advanced, but they had to know there was no advancement in solar or wind technology that would allow it to compete with traditional energy sources without massive infusions of the public's money.  And the 'leaders' of Spain should have known that.  We have more than enough historical foundation to realize this wasn't going to work.  One of the absolutely most fundamental rules of leadership is that to be a 'real' leader means being willing to be unpopular for long periods of time.  "Going Green" was the path to popularity, but it absolutely wasn't the path of leadership. 

Previous Spanish leaders committed themselves to radical green thinking and lost 2.3 jobs for every 'green' job created...and that is a shaky figure because it is almost impossible to define a green job.  In short....it cost the public money and jobs.    In order to stop the bleeding - which clearly was going to be unending - the Spanish government decided to end this insane radical program of ‘greening’ Spain.  It is also clear that this will be painful for a great many people.  This is the end result of allowing radicals to influence society and its leaders.  In the end….people will suffer.    When will we learn?  Green solutions are created by people who have no practical knowledge or experience in energy or anything else they spout off about.  They create solutions to non-problems while convincing everyone that we are at the ‘tipping point’ to disaster if we don’t do what they say.  Yet their solutions are always disasters.  They are only good at finding fault.  They really stink at finding solutions, and any solutions they promote today they will find fault with tomorrow if some dumb businessman actually attempts to make it work and a bunch of dumb governments support it. 

Dystopia follows the green movement like Sancho Panza followed Don Quixote.  A madman!