For years, Europe has claimed to be at the forefront in instituting policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. As part of that, Europe has been at the forefront of setting mandates for wind and solar generation coupled with hefty renewable subsidies as enticements. The Europeans have found that these subsidies have grown too large, are hurting their economies, and as a result are now slashing the subsidies. In fact, the costs have become so enormous that governments in European countries are unilaterally rewriting their contracts with renewable generating firms and reneging on the generous deals they initially provided. Spain, for example, ended its feed-in-tariff, which guaranteed an extremely high price for renewable power, replacing it with a much lower subsidy or in some cases no subsidy. Spain is reeling from unanticipated cost hikes and has not been able to recoup $41 billion that it provided to renewable generators since 2000.
