Clean, green and catastrophic – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – April 1, 2016)

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Green and clean, that’s how politicians all over the world like to describe their national energy profiles. From Europe to North America to China, action plans and policies are in place, subsidies have been dispersed and new ideas are in constant production.

In Washington Thursday, Prime Minister Trudeau brought his Liberal green message to Washington, telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that green industries are the backbone of a strong economy.

Maybe it depends on what “backbone” means and on one’s definition of a “strong economy.” The latest news on green and clean energy fails to support the standard definitions of either concept.

In the wake of government action around the world, industrial plants are closing, so-called green operations are failing, prices are soaring, subsidies are rampant, jobs are being lost, competitiveness eroded and energy consumers, especially the poor, are threatened by regressive carbon taxes.

What’s green and clean is turning catastrophic.

Scanning news stories and the work of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, there are signs of green economic turmoil everywhere. Here’s a sampling, in no particular order.

Albengoa, the Spanish green-energy giant, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. this week. With help from subsidies, the company built giant wind and solar farms all over the world, from Arizona to Uruguay. Shares once worth $25 are now all but worthless.

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