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While other governments are reducing their feed-in schemes, UK is moving towards them.

This merits revisiting. With the recent collapse of the Spanish market, the correction of the German market and the expected collapse of the French PV market, FITs prove unsustainable or victim of their own success. Once the market picks up, governments can no longer support their price tab. Moreover, they are based on a false premise: the cost of taking a technology through the learning cycle is prohibitive - it requires too many tens of billions.

The topic is complex. Some underlying questions: * Why promotion of renewables was set-up? * What is the complete economic balance of renewables promotion? (expenses in subsidies, but savings in fuel imports, job creation, exports.... some interesting studies have been done on this - see for instance Macroeconomic study on the impact of Wind Energy in Spain - http://www.aeeolica.es/userfiles/file/aee-publica/091211-executive-summary-2009.pdf) * Is the allocation of subsidies cost done correctly? Electricity consumers often pay extra-cost, but benefits go to other pockets. Should there be a cost re-allocation to make the model sustainable? * Is regulatory framework evolving less rapidly than technology? FITs on PV in 2008 could be significantly reduced compared to FITs in 2007, and so on. How to accomodate regulation to that quick cost reduction? * Had governments defined a cap in global subsidies amount? Not really, this explains why they are all reacting to initial plans. * Development of technology and market drives costs down. Why some few countries should make this investment to the benefit of the entire world? * Have we excessively promoted market growth and neglected technology development? Are we paying too much for building power plants with primitive technology?

@Fernando - I agree that the topic is complex. However, I'd refrain from making claims on employment effects. This is an area where secondary effects are rarely taken into account. While I realise these claims are popular, basically nobody knows.

"The objective of this study is to:  compile the available recent literature on ILUC emissions;  compare these emissions with the assumed gains of biofuels;  assess how ILUC changes the carbon balance of using biofuels;  formulate policies to avoid these extra emissions associated with ILUC. Trends in land use, with and without biofuels All the studies on global agricultural markets reviewed predict that new arable land will be required to meet future global demand for food and feed. Although there will be increased productivity on current arable land (intensification), food and feed demand will probably grow faster, which means that mobilization of new land is likely to occur. Biofuels produced from crops (the current mainstream practice) will add extra demand for crops like wheat, rice, maize, rapeseed and palm oil. This will increase prices for these crops (as well as for land) and lead to two impacts: intensification of agricultural production and conversion of forests and grasslands to arable land. In this report we consider the issue of indirect land use change initiated by EU biofuels policy and seek to answer the following questions:  What is the probability of biofuels policies initiating land use changes?  What greenhouse gas emissions may result from indirect land use change, expressed as a factor in the mathematical relation given above?  What technical measures can be applied and what policy measures adopted to limit or entirely mitigate indirect land use change and the associated greenhouse gas emissions? We first (Chapter 2) broadly discuss the mechanism of indirect land use change. We next discuss why there is a perception among stakeholders that there is a serious risk that EU biofuels policy will initiate indirect land use change (Chapter 3) and consider the figures cited by other studies as an indication of the magnitude the associated greenhouse gas emissions  (Chapter 4). We then broadly consid

"A Japanese trade ministry panel today proposed expanding the feed-in tariff to require utilities to buy electricity at a premium from hydropower stations, wind turbine and geothermal operators. Utilities may have to buy renewable power at between 15 yen (17 cents) and 20 yen a kilowatt hour, according to a report released in Tokyo today. The incentive program would run for between 10 and 20 years, it said. The government wants to supply 10 percent of the country's primary energy from renewable sources by 2020, compared with about 3 percent in 2007, according to the International Energy Agency. The proposed tariff compares with 5 to 7 yen a kilowatt hour utilities pay for nuclear power and about 8 yen for oil- fired generation, said Tomohiro Jikihara, an analyst at Deutsche Securities Inc. in Tokyo. "

Powering the Green Economy The Feed-in Tariff Handbook By Miguel Mendonça, David Jacobs and Benjamin Sovacool 'This insightful book explains how to implement the most effective policy to get onto a path towards renewable energy.' Dr David Suzuki, scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster

"The Chilean government has set its sights on significantly increasing its geothermal energy capacity. The Ministry of Energy recently announced a new contract for the development of 20 areas by 2012. 70 bids from 13 domestic and foreign firms were submitted for the rights to exploit the newly released regions of Rarapacos and Los Ricos. Earlier in the year, Energy Minister Ricardo Raineri announced more than 170 concessions for geothermal energy by 2012. He further specified that these concessions would be supported by US$200 million in funding from the government. The country is striving to increase its geothermal capacity to 1,000 megawatts in order to meet an ever-growing energy demand in a sustainable manner"

Mexico, one of the leading suppliers of oil to the United States, has increasingly embraced alternative energy in the face of dwindling crude output, infrastructure and investment. In response to energy and economic woes, President Felipe Calderón has pushed through energy reforms, pledging that Mexico will be producing a minimum of 2,500 megawatts of wind capacity by the time his term ends in 2012. So far, Mexico's progress has been impressive. In 2005, the nation only produced 3 megawatts electricity from wind. By the end of 2010, the country had 519 megawatts of installed wind power. And the future prospects look promising.