Yes it is!

Spain is punishing "a small but growing segment of the middle class" who have installed solar panels to generate their own electricity, the influential business daily reported on Sunday.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said that while European countries like Germany and Italy have jumped on the solar energy bandwagon, Spain policy flip-flop is hurting what was once a budding industry.

Whereas Spain once flung money at companies who set up solar power programs in the country, it now plans to slap people who create their energy for personal consumption for a fee.

The plan is to raise cash to help pay off the Spanish government's 'tariff deficit', or the difference between the cost of operating the country's electricity grid and the money it rakes in.   

"We're afraid to make decisions, to invest a single euro," Spanish energy consumer Diego Nicolás told the WSJ.

Having spent €42,000 ($57,000) on solar panels to generate his own power, he now wonders how long it will take to recuperate that cash.

"They take away laws, they put in new laws, prices change. It's like being in a bullring with four doors and not knowing from which one the bull is going to charge."
http://www.thelocal.es/20131022/solar-panels-radioactive-leaks

They love wind power, but force generators to buy yearly "permits" to keep from being fined for killing protected birds.

They love hydro, but have squeezed the industry to the point that almost none is being built because they claim it hurts fish populations.

They love solar, and the desert is a pretty good place to put solar panels to use, but... now they're realizing that large solar arrays can alter the desert environment.

Check it out. http://phys.org/news157617181.html

Quote from: TboneAgain on October 23, 2013, 12:48:54 PM
They love wind power, but force generators to buy yearly "permits" to keep from being fined for killing protected birds.

They love hydro, but have squeezed the industry to the point that almost none is being built because they claim it hurts fish populations.

They love solar, and the desert is a pretty good place to put solar panels to use, but... now they're realizing that large solar arrays can alter the desert environment.

Check it out. http://phys.org/news157617181.html

I'm not sure that's correct...

Quote from: taxed on October 23, 2013, 09:08:41 PM
I'm not sure that's correct...

I'm not sure either, but that's where folks are building the large arrays. Did you take a look at my link?

Quote from: taxed on October 23, 2013, 09:08:41 PM
I'm not sure that's correct...

You're absolutely right, it's no different than building a power plant 500+ miles from the nearest town, it simply makes no sense, the recoverable useful power from a solar array in the desert at this distance, is about 1/3rd it's output.

It would be semi OK idea if the city was in the desert, but even then, it's a colossal waste of money.
Libs never think things through, they jump in head first with emotion as their guide and driving force.

Think about it, why aren't all power plants built in the desert, far from the cities where no one has to look at them and where no accidents will effect them?
Nuclear plants in the desert, libs should be all for that, right?

I guess my point was that there's lots of sunshine in the desert. Also, not much else. I understand the idiocy of it, but the fact remains that the desert is where the large solar arrays are being built, and now environmentalists are raising objections about it because the arrays rob the ground beneath them of sunshine (which I think is kinda the point).

Conversely, the greenies utterly despise nuclear, which is probably the cleanest and least impacting source of energy we have today. In fact, unless there is some earth-shattering technological breakthrough in the next fifty years or so, we will either be building nukes or we will be learning to do without electricity.

Quote from: TboneAgain on October 24, 2013, 10:57:05 AM
I guess my point was that there's lots of sunshine in the desert. Also, not much else. I understand the idiocy of it, but the fact remains that the desert is where the large solar arrays are being built, and now environmentalists are raising objections about it because the arrays rob the ground beneath them of sunshine (which I think is kinda the point).

Conversely, the greenies utterly despise nuclear, which is probably the cleanest and least impacting source of energy we have today. In fact, unless there is some earth-shattering technological breakthrough in the next fifty years or so, we will either be building nukes or we will be learning to do without electricity.

I knew what you meant, I was just agreeing with Taxed.
Hell, the enviros shut down come of their beloved solar farms in Ca because they claimed it would endanger specie not yet discovered. Not yet discovered?

Liberals will eat their own previously mandated utopias for just a few more tax dollars.

Their sycophants can't make them happy with compliance.  It will just earn abuse at a later date if there's any green chutes to emerge from the last taxation slash & burn.