Can we afford "Green Jobs"? - Germany can't.

As the Liberals prepare to join hands with the Labor party as they jump off the cliff in passing the RET legislation, it's worth looking at the results which are beginning to emerge from Germany's brave and foolhardy experiment with solar energy.

In short, renewable solar energy threatens to bankrupt Germany's electricity sector.

The following stories appeared in the media in the last couple of days.

German Solar Industry Faces Collapse

The young German solar industry faces an unprecedented wave of bankruptcies. After many cell manufacturers suffered losses in the first half of the year, industry experts fear the collapse of many solar ventures. "A large part of the German solar cell and solar module manufacturers will not survive," says UBS analyst Patrick Hummel. [translation by Benny Peiser]

Billions For Nothing: The Crisis of Germany's Green Energy Policy

Foreigners like to make fun about Germans: Little good weather - but lots of solar panels. Although Germany is not situated in the sunny part of the world, no country has more solar panels. The boom, however, is artificial. And it costs consumers an absolute fortune.

The sum can be spelled out quite precisely: the expected installation of new solar panels in 2009 alone will cost German consumers ten billion euros in the next 20 years. This will produce about 1.8 billion kilowatt hours of solar electricity each year, which corresponds to about 0.3 percent of Germany's current electricity consumption. That's near to nothing.

But the ten billion euros are just the cost for the new systems. The panels built up to 2008 will burden consumers with an additional cost of 30 billion euros, according to calculations by the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI).

And the cost avalanche is growing. If the forecast of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association were to materialize, there will be so many solar panels installed in Germany by 2013 that the cost will grow to more than 77 billion euros - adjusted for inflation. [translation by Benny Peiser]

Germany Solar Cell Producer Q-Cells To Slash 500 Jobs

Germany’s Q-Cells, the world’s second-largest producer of solar cells, will cut 500 jobs after reporting a loss of EUR 696.9 million ($994 million) in H1 2009.

Say what? A loss of primary jobs in the green energy sector? That can't be right. After all, no less an authority than Sharan Burrow has assured us that “Australia can create up to a million clean energy jobs" - if only we pass the legislation and follow Germany over the cliff.

H/t to Tom Nelson's Blogspot and Benny Peiser/CCNet.