Well, whaddyaknow, Spain’s boom in government-created “green jobs” has left them . . . without enough energy to support even a faltering economy (with unemployment projected to go from 17.5 to 20.5 percent this year).

Referring to a Bloomberg story, ClimateWire reports:

Spain likely to renew Franco-era reactor’s license
Spanish regulators are likely to extend the license of a Franco-era nuclear reactor, despite repeated government promises to phase out atomic power, according to a former government adviser.
Officials are expected to decide by July 5 whether to issue a 10-year operating permit for the 38-year-old Santa María de Garoña plant . . .
“I don’t think the president will close Santa María de Garoña, because you would unjustifiably shut down an industry that makes energy for €36 ($51) a megawatt-hour,” said Manuel Lozano Leyva, nuclear adviser to Spain’s research and development plan from 2004 to 2007. In contrast, a megawatt-hour costs €60 ($85) from coal and natural gas, €85 ($120) from wind and €450 ($636) from solar, he said.
By approving the reactor’s operating life, Spain would be joining a host of other European countries vowing to use nuclear power to curb carbon emissions and satisfy future energy needs [NB: including Germany, Italy and, though the story doesn’t mention them, the Swedes] …
In Spain, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s government vowed in 2004 and 2008 to phase out the use of nuclear power. Industry minister Miguel Sebastián Gascón said in November that Spain would not build any new nuclear reactors before 2030, but rather would depend on wind and gas to generate its electricity and ramp up energy efficiency programs.

This tale is all very instructive, although the most important take-away is this: Large deployment of wind and solar demands “easy” backup, which means something that can be dialed up and down quickly to respond to nature’s whims. Nuclear and hydro are easy; coal is very difficult, natural gas less so but Spain’s insistence on wind and solar has already led (imported) gas to be its principal energy source.

As a result, Spain has been hectoring nuclear-dependent French to expand their shared grid interconnection. The French have tired of filling Spain’s intermittent needs — managing one nation’s grid is headache enough, never mind two — balked, leaving the Spaniards with the horrible conundrum of possibly having to produce their own energy to support their “renewables” folly.

This is the same problem the windmill-happy Danes have caused with Germany (connected to Denmark’s “East” grid, which is the island on which Copenhagen sits) and the hydro- and nuclear-powered Swedes and Norwegians (interconnected with Denmark’s West grid, which is essentially the windmill-carpeted Jutland). “Nuclear-free” Denmark actually gets about 10 percent of its electricity from its neighbors’ nukes.

That’s right: you don’t retire fossil with your expensive “renewable” games, you just increase demand for nukes and hydro. Which we Americans, apparently, aren’t allowed to construct here. And if only Canada had an absolutely staggering amount of idle hydropower lying around then, yes, Mr. Obama, we could replicate the Danish miracle (if, uh, that’s the word for it). All of this is just another real lesson to learn now that our president has insisted we benefit from the experience of “green” Europe on energy.