"The sun in Spain now mainly ends in pain": solar becomes a toxic asset

Is the Spanish government proposing to make solar panel users pay (backup toll) for using solar panels to generate their own electricity?

This headline of course is "Spain considers taxing the Sun".

The BBC do a straight forward piece which is picked up by infowars for those that would prefer a libertarian gun totting view on the story.
 

Spain’s sunshine toll: Row over proposed solar tax [BBC]

Spain considers taxing the sun [Infowars]

The quote from a Spanish sustainable energy firm is:

 “We will be the only country in the world charging for the use of the sun,”

 
The details are a little more mundane.  Instead of solar panels paying off the investment in eight years it will now take 25 years.

The signal this gives potential investors in solar across Europe is a poor one.  Basically it has become impossible to trust politicians when they set feed in tariffs which increases uncertainty and makes investing in green technologies less likely.

The irony of course is that the previous Spanish policy to go green worked too well.  Spain should be applauded for its previous (but very expensive) policy to reduce CO2 emissions but yet again the bill will be picked up by the tax payer.

This post will finish with a quote from  Alex Jones from infowars.

This is just the latest example of how big governments will stop at nothing to tax their people out of existence, all the while declaring it’s in everyone’s best interests. What’s next? An oxygen tax?

For some reason this cheered up my morning.