Spain wanted to be a world leader in solar power and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. So they implemented generous subsidies and in 2008 Spain installed half the world’s solar-power installations by wattage.

But the Spanish subsidies were unsustainable and were drastically scaled back, contributing to an unemployment rate of 20%. Spain’s jobless rate is the highest in the eurozone and their economy shrank 3.6% in 2009.

The Spanish subsidies are not unlike the U.S. model for alternative energy. The fundamental problem is that, without subsidies and mandates requiring municipalities to buy a percentage of renewable energy, the solar power industry is not economically viable. Unless support is continued almost indefinitely, solar power cannot sustain itself with current technologies.

The Congress of the United States knows this and still opted for solar subsidies, though on not as grand a scale as in Spain. To make up the difference the plan is to cause fossil fuels to be more expensive, thus making solar more attractive economically. This is done by Congress mandating mechanisms like Cap and Trade or a Carbon Tax. To justify these new subsidies and taxes it was necessary to cook up anthropomorphic global warming, or at least pin the blame on climate change.

The real surprise in all of this is that much of the populace actually buys it. Which just leaves me one alternative — start a carbon credit agency.