- JoNova - https://joannenova.com.au -

Renewables industry collapsing in Europe — still a $329 billion subsidised global cash cow

The EU has led the way to convert to “clean energy”. But the subsidies  ran out.  Investment in Europe in renewables is plummeting:

Renewable Energy Investment, Europe, 2015, 2016.

Thanks to BloombergEuan Mearns and h/t to GWPF for that graph.

Europe’s once world-beating clean technology industry has fallen into a rapid decline, with investment in low-carbon energy last year plummeting to its lowest level in a decade.

Michael Liebreich, chairman of the BNEF board, said the global financial crisis and its aftermath were to blame only in part. “Europe’s failure to respond [to the crisis was a factor and] global investors, scared about the survival of the euro, had plenty of reason to hesitate about putting money into euro-dominated clean energy projects,” he said.

What bad luck – it’s nearly, almost, really competitive. Any day now:

Liebreich … “The tragedy is that Europe lost its renewable energy mojo just as costs were plummeting to the point where green power is fully competitive without subsidies in more and more parts of the world.”

Shame investors are too stupid to see how renewables are going to make lots of money. Only governments have that kind of vision, right?

The solution to save the industry? Not efficiency. Not competitiveness. It’s “politics”:

Oliver Joy, spokesman for the European Wind Energy Association, told the Guardian: “The outlook for 2016 is not as rosy and we’re likely to see a dip in installations this year. Beyond this, the future for onshore wind is not clear as an uncoordinated patchwork of policies across Europe continues to stifle progress, not least in the UK and Spain. We need to see more political appetite at European and national level, which means putting in place a vision for renewables into the next decade.”

Here’s a detail that tells us how big the malinvestment is here. There are nearly half a million people in Europe working in wind and solar to generate expensive electricity:

Jobs are being lost as a result. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, employment in solar photovoltaics in Europe fell by more than a third to 165,000 jobs in 2013, the last year for which it has yet collated figures. Jobs in wind energy rose slightly, by more than 5% in 2013, to nearly 320,000 across the bloc, with more than half of these in Germany.

Imagine if those people were doing something useful?

Globally $329 Billion is wasted on renewables

Here’s $329 billion very committed dollars worth of vested interests pushing the Climate Scare. Unlike the fossil fuel industry their profits depend almost entirely on government policy.

As Oil Crashed, Renewables Attract Record $329 Billion

Renewables Investment, global, 2004 - 2015

Media spin to save the day

The financial disaster can be spun to “success” if we ignore the collapse in the EU industry and pretend that what matters is that other countries are picking up the futile baton. If China “overtakes” the EU we can use rose colored glasses and see a hyperbolic “turning point”.  We can toss in graphs about increases in capacity which always make renewables sound good, because their theoretical fantasy capacity is so high.

Bloomberg hyperventilate on renewables

Solar and Wind Just Did the Unthinkable

Cheap oil and gas couldn’t stop another record year for renewables, or a turning point for energy investment.

The sun and the wind continue to defy gravity.

Renewables just finished another record-breaking year, with more money invested ($329 billion) and more capacity added (121 gigawatts) than ever before, according to new data released Thursday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Whatever you do, don’t graph renewables output in actual megawatts. Don’t graph it in CO2 tons saved. Never ever even mention the number of global degrees of cooling.

 

9.4 out of 10 based on 77 ratings