While Australia is increasing expenditure of consumer and taxpayer money to the renewables industry, governments around the world have decided that “enough is enough”.

Other countries are realising that renewable energy is a massive waste of tax payer funds and has zero or negligible effect on CO2 emissions. They are thus cutting or eliminating subsidies to the grossly inefficient green power generators.

Here are some recently reported examples:

Spain cuts subsidies to wind and solar:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6611YR20100702

Italy cuts subsidies to wind and solar:
http://www.windfair.net/press/7606.html

Germany cuts subsidies to solar:
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2265976/germany-poised-phase-solar

Denmark to cut subsidies to wind:
http://www.ref.org.uk/PressDetails/163

France to slash solar subsidies:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/182530-european-solar-subsidy-slashing-bad-news-for-investors

Ontario cuts incentives for solar:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/07/07/ottawa-solar-rate-drop.html

Wind power does not reduce CO2 emissions:
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/subsidizing-co2-emissions/

Here are a few examples of the ways in which Australian state and federal Governments subsidise or give unfair advantage to renewables:

• Bans on nuclear power
• Renewable Energy Targets
• Renewable Energy Certificates
• Feed in Tariffs
• Direct government subsidies for renewable energy
• Tax and other incentives
• Cost of the electricity grid enhancements that are needed to accommodate the disruptive, erratic renewable energy generators is shared by everyone instead of being attributed to the renewable energy generators.
• Super Profits Tax on coal mining.
• Threats to shut down or in other ways disadvantage coal fired power plants without fair compensation for the investors.

PDF version: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/sunset-for-subsidies.pdf [PDF, 15KB]