When President Obama called for us to look to other countries with “green economies” to see what such an economy could do here, he didn’t mention the Czech Republic. And because things haven’t worked out so well in the countries he did mention, he doesn’t even bother offering green-economy paragons anymore.
But Reuters has a quick item telling us what’s happening in the Czech Republic anyway:
Generous feed-in tariffs helped make the Czech Republic Europe’s third-biggest solar market in terms of new capacity last year behind Italy and Germany as investors locked in guaranteed high rates for electricity with little risk.
The boom has led to predictions of a sharp rise in electricity prices next year, which could hurt competitiveness of the heavily manufacturing and export-dependent country.
Either the inevitability of this outcome escaped our president and his team, or they thought we wouldn’t figure it out.
So, once again, I’m with (the old) Obama on this. Let’s look to where his scheme has been tried to see what it would do here.