Spain spent astronomical amounts of money on their renewable energy. Solar PV cost per KWH is 3x nearly every other energy source. Wind is still more expensive as other non-renewable energy sources.

Is it better in the long run? I question that. You still have to mine rare earths to build the plants, make the metals, and replace them every few years when they die. In the end, your hurting the economy significantly for these energy sources, because of the tax monies that are being taken away from the people or other projects, and put into subsidies to fund these projects.

Spain is being forced to cut their PV energy subsidies, as they have spent gargantuan amounts of money on them with very little return. It is costing them billions of Euros per year to subsidise renewables, hurting their already-collapsing economy.

According to estimates, Spain has spent over $15 billion on energy subsidies over the past 5 years (http://ianscityscope.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/heavy-subsidies-sustain-spains-wind-power/). That is, on average, 10% of their entire government budget just for renewables to run in their country. That model is unsustainable. Say what you want about the environment - if your country is going to collapse, I think that it may be in your best benefit to abandon subsidizing 'green' energies in favor of survival.

So, in other words: people don't think of what is best in the long run, and saving money is more important than having a planet to live on.

Well... that and most countries don't have the space to build power plants the size of Arizona... because there is no way to make much more efficent wind, solar and hydro plants because there is a very finite amount of energy put in one spot.

Pretty much this.

Most renewables have strategic problems that will prohibit them from replacing non-renewables. Hydro is great, but its very limited in capacity. Geothermal has significant environmental problems (see Germany's fracking issues), PV is insanely expensive and may take generations to be reasonable, and only works during the daytime, and wind is limited as to where it can be used.

I'm not against renewables. However, I am against the government forcing businesses into certain energy production methods. We have seen in Spain, who has adopted significant usage of solar, that it doesn't benefit the country nearly as much as billed - they've lost jobs due to it, it can be very expensive, and the government has invested billions into it with very little return on investment.

The free market must be the one to come up with the right solutions - regardless if it is MSR thorium breeders, PV, wind, or something else. Germany is making a huge mistake by banning nuclear by 2022.

I'm surprised that Salon is the source of your citation, Kasz. CATO had a much better presentation on green energy:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energía_renovable_en_España#Coste_de_las_energ.C3.ADas_renovables

It's in Spanish but in a nutshell: in 2008 Spain spent €2.6bn on renewable energy, and saved €2.7bn on fuel imports. Meaning they even saved €100m.

Even if those 2.8bn weren't recovered keep in mind that is absolutely nothing compared to what european states have been throwing at the market to contain the crisis.

Edit: Also where did you get Spain spends 10% of the budget on renewable energies? It's not even 1%:

http://graficos.lainformacion.com/politica/finanzas-publicas/en-que-gasta-espana_GOKnXNSkES9pTHKnt1YdS5/

You really think $15bn (€10bn) is 10% of the Spanish budget in 5 years? They spend €350bn a year...

Do you have a source that's in english?  I can't find any in english that suggest it's remotely that cheap... including the economists.

If it is... we're getting ripped off.

Since we're loaning a spanish company 2 billion dollars for a few solar plants in Arizona and Colarado that aren't going to produce remotely as much energy as Spain does.

http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/07/obama-announces-2-billion-for-solar-energy-projects/#

Not counting subsides.

Well, I'll try to look for the links, but you can use babelfish or google translate to translate the wikipedia page. It's always gonna be easier to find sources from spanish pages.

Anyway, in regards of what you say: solar energy is much, much, much more expensive than wind energy, which is the main source of renewable energy in Spain. Also, Spain has so much more output because they have been doing it over the course of the last decade. Of course if you put all that money together it'll probable amount to tens of billions, but as I said the return over time should compensate.

I would actually say that people who claim we will see cost effective and practical renewable energy from solar, wind or biofuels in our lifetime are like the people in the 1960's who envisioned everyone having a flying car by the year 2000.

Realistically, Fusion and Thorium reactors are the practical energy sources of our future and most "Green" energy projects are forms of governmental waste designed to appeal to a very vocal loby while giving kickbacks to the friends of the government who is in power.

I think Scottie already answered this point.