I received a press release on Thursday about a new Emerging Energy Research [EER] study on wind power installations in the US for 2009 and beyond. EER argues that US installations could be down as much as 24% in 2009 from a record 8.55 GW in 2008. While utility-led projects remain mostly on track, smaller IPPs and developers that rely on project finance or other forms of external financing are finding the current market environment challenging.

European countries have been pushing a green jobs agenda far longer than America. Matthew Kahn, professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, summarizes their record in the May/June issue of the centrist journal Foreign Policy. While "an optimist can certainly find success stories" in green job creation, Kahn concludes, there's no doubt that the "subsidies are costly," and that they not only "distort consumption and investment decisions" but result in "a less robust economy."

Despite expensive and extensive green-job policies, a surprisingly low number of jobs were created. And about two-thirds of those "green" jobs were just to set up the energy source, in construction, fabrication, installation, marketing and administration. Only 10 percent of the green jobs created were permanent jobs actually operating and maintaining the renewable sources of energy. Each wind industry job created in Spain required a subsidy of about $1.4 million.

Europe is several years ahead of the US in implementing policies intended to mitigate global warming. All of the European Union's member countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and adopted a wide range of policies to lower their emissions and meet their Kyoto targets. These policies include a cap-and-trade initiative known as the emissions trading scheme, steep fuel taxes, and ambitious programs to build windmills and other renewable energy projects. These policies were undertaken at a time when the EU economy was doing well and - one hopes - with full knowledge that they would have significant costs.

It is important to understand why the Danish government, which appears to have commissioned Mr. Pedersen's comments, is sensitive to critiques of the Danish experience with wind power. Denmark is home to Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, with 20,000 employees and a market share of between 20% and 25%. As the market for its turbines in Denmark and other European countries becomes saturated, it seeks to export the Danish experience worldwide. To this end, it recently ran a multi-million dollar global ad campaign with the slogan, "Believe in the wind," claiming that Denmark has solved the problem of dirty electricity through wind power.

President Barack Obama has praised Spain as a global leader in renewable electricity generation and has lauded its success at creating so-called "green jobs." However, a recent Spanish university study concluded that Spain's mad rush to meet overly aggressive renewable standards has destroyed jobs and driven up the real cost of electricity, without cutting carbon emissions.

The bill would require doubling in three years of the share of electric utility output that comes from renewable sources-wind, solar, geothermal, biomass-from three percent now to six percent in 2012. In a further leap of central-planning arrogance, the bill would raise that standard in stages to 25 percent in 2025. Sounds good? Maybe, but the technology to do it doesn't exist.

"Green jobs" are touted as the universal cure-all, saving the environment and the economy at the same time. Congress included more than $80 billion in spending and tax incentives to promote them in the recent stimulus bill. Van Jones, President Barack Obama's "green" jobs adviser, even recently called for using ex-convicts to build solar cells ...Unfortunately, claims about the wonders of green jobs are all too often constructed on myths about economics, forecasting, and technology.

President Obama in a speech at the Southern California Edison Electric Vehicle Technical Center last month favorably cited Spain as an example of how to boost an economy by creating green jobs. ...A new study by researchers at Spain's King Juan Carlos University suggests that the president may want to rethink Spain as a model for stimulating the economy with green jobs.

In signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this week in Denver, President Barack Obama claimed that the law -- which among other things will ramp up funding for renewable energy development -- is "laying the groundwork for new green energy economies that can create countless well-paying jobs." ...If the green-jobs claim sounds too good to be true, that's because it is.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has run afoul of two fallacies which plague governments with his new "Green Energy Act." The Act, which does not have a defined price-tag, would supposedly create 50,000 new jobs, putting people to work building windmills, solar power plants ...But there are some hard realities that suggest Premier McGuinty's plan isn't the smartest way to do it. Let's review the reasons why governments cannot create jobs, and why labelling them "green" doesn't change the basic dynamics.

How many people work inside an industrial wind turbine? How long do the construction jobs last post-project? This is industrialization of a vast area of land without many sustainable local jobs. Wind energy development on such a large scale will certainly seal the fate for the area. It is a life sentence which defines the land use for decades.

Every Landowner should know that a wind farm lease may damage and limit the use of one's own ground.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was all smiles in 2006 when he signed into law the toughest anti-global-warming regulations of any state. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his green supporters boasted that the regulations would steer California into a prosperous era of green jobs, renewable energy, and technological leadership. Instead, since 2007 -- in anticipation of the new mandates -- California has led the nation in job losses.

In the 20 years I have lived in Colorado, I have seen the transition from a growing, functional economy into an economy that increasingly relies on obscure, "politically correct" subsidies such as solar- and wind-power generation that are touted as solutions to our economic woes. ...these partisan policies are undermining Colorado's economy.

Clean energy stocks crashed by two thirds. The chart of the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation index resembles the Nasdaq Technology index in 2000. ...International Energy Agency analyst Ralph Sims, who attended Poznan, said everything depended on US President-elect Barack Obama rebuilding momentum. He would deliver comfort, but an effective response to climate change would need him to push the political, business and fiscal agenda in favour of a green new deal. This is a tall order when his priority is to rebuild the US economy.

Solar and wind now are the darlings of "new green economy" advocates for producing solar panels and wind turbines are supposed to replace lost manufacturing jobs from industries such as steel and automobiles. Never mind that solar energy has been shown to have only limited applicability and that the best wind farm in the world only operates 30% of the time. American taxpayers would be better served by being told the truth by politicians, rather than the economic nonsense that surrounds the hype regarding the green economy.

The negative prices appear to be the result of the large installed capacity of wind generation. Wind generators face very small costs of shutting down and starting back up, but they do face another cost when shutting down: loss of the Production Tax Credit and state Renewable Energy Credit revenue which depend upon generator output. It is economically rational for wind power producers to operate as long as the subsidy exceeds their operating costs plus the negative price they have to pay the market. Even if the market value of the power is zero or negative, the subsidies encourage wind power producers to keep churning the megawatts out.

Once a booming industry thanks to sky-high oil prices, the feel-good trend, carbon reduction and subsidies, the financial crisis has pushed investors to give up on green energies, and like the dot-com bubble of 2000, some analysts say it's about to burst. ..."I think economic reality will kill the green industry," said Mr. Buckee, who now lives in Britain and lectures on climate change. Solar energy isn't alone in its woes. Wind, biomass, biofuel and other "clean-tech" companies are getting pasted too as the financial crisis sends investors fleeing from technology names, dries up credit and freezes the IPO market.