Slowly, we’re starting to see property owners with large acreage add solar generators, as the Lawrenceville School and Dow Jones are doing. It is a positive trend, though one that has moved far too slowly to address the real dangers of climate change. This is where a real government incentive could work, and create new jobs to boot.
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Hank Kalet 
Germany has made a huge commitment to wean itself off of fossil fuels and even nuclear power. They have thrown themselves into a mini Marshall Plan to transfer their power sources to renewable energy, such as wind, solar, biomass and thermal power. Germany is not building new nuke plants and plans on phasing them out over the decades. Belgium and Spain are also phasing out their nuclear power though, like Germany, they have recently delayed the phase out by 12 to 17 years. Spain has made amazing strides in wind and solar power, it is in the top tier of countries innovating in wind and solar power. Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Norway have no nukes and in some cases, have legally restricted the building of nukes.
In 2010 Spain overtook the United States as the solar power world leader, with a massive power station plant called La Florida, near Alvarado, Badajoz. In 2009, more than 50% of the produced energy in Spain was generated by wind mills, and the highest total production record was reached with 11.546 eolic Megawatts. On particular windy days, wind power generation has surpassed all other electricity sources in Spain, including nuclear. On November 8, 2009 wind power production reached the highest percentage of electricity production, with wind farms covering 53% of the total demand. On November 9, 2010, the maximum power output was reached being 14,960 MW. From Reuters, May 2010:NO RENAISSANCE SEENAlthough Spain is prepared to keep its nuclear plants, there is no sign it will join in a \”nuclear renaissance\” under way in other countries and build new reactors.A government source noted that utilities were allowed to build nuclear power stations in Spain, subject to approval by the regulator, but had no plans to.\”Electricity generation has been liberalized in Spain since 1998, but so far not one utility has applied for a permit to build a nuclear plant,\” he said.Nuclear power is unpopular in Spain and even if Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government loses elections in 2012, as polls predict, the opposition Popular Party has not committed to building new plants.Furthermore, national grid operator REE says Spain does not need more than the steady 20 percent of its electricity supply provided by nuclear plants.REE Chairman Luis Atienza estimates expanding nuclear power would force too many of Spain's other, more flexible generating plants to halt when demand drops to overnight lows.\”We don't have the base demand to make building new nuclear plants viable,\” Atienza said in a recent lecture at the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN).(Reporting by Martin Roberts)