Due to the lack of own resources, Spain has to import all of its fossil fuels and the fluctuation in energy prices weakened their economy which was then crushed by the financial crisis. However before this happened they had 17 years of uninterrupted growth. Also you should keep in mind that in Europe the unemployment rate is percentage of unemployed persons in the labor force. In the US we only count those who have applied for a job in the last month and we do not count the 4 to 6 percent of people who have given up looking.

Edit. When making policy judgments in economics a little knowledge is often worse than none at all,

Why,I don’t now why.Jobs to make parts for wind turbines,solar panels,and plastic bags to breathe into.Exhaling will be taxed,the more co2 you exhale the greater the tax.Democrats will be exempt from said tax as they are ,for every other tax.The dept of energy was created in 1976 or there abouts under Carter for the sole purpose of reducing dependence on foreign oil,33 years later and we have major increased dependence on foreign oil.The dept of energy’s yearly budget has been 25 billion, employing 15,000 federal workers and 150,000 contract employees.Government sucks,we are all getting screwed.There will be a time when finally the governments obvious intrusions and destruction of the greatest country in civilization will be all to obvious.

So called green, clean energy is very expensive.

The result is that more manufacturing jobs will go overseas. The result will be massive unemployment.

Massive unemployment will cause dramatic declines in incomes as employers are able to pay much lower wages to people desperate for any kind of job in an environment with enormous numbers of unemployed people.

At the same time incomes are collapsing, the cost of energy will increase dramatically.

It will cost far more for fuel for your car and it will cost far more to heat and cool your house.

If you did not like gasoline at $4.00 per gallon, you will really be unhappy with green biofuels at $10.00 per gallon or more.

This will bankrupt far more people and cause many more foreclosures.

We will become a desperately poor nation.

Life will become nasty, brutish and short.

Welcome to the so called “green” revolution.

Don’t worry. We’re going to be too behind on the clean energy. China is already selling it to the world and making the billions of dollars. So we probably won’t see much jobs in the field cause we’ll be buying the technology from China.

Clean and alternative energies are in high demand.

By this time next month people here will be willing to give their right arm for a 17% unemployment rate.

We are in a world wide recession,

The only thing that would interest me are the countries that have LESS unemployment than the US, since we are still the worlds strongest economy,

perhaps Green, and Clean has little to do with unemployment in your question.

The trade off for “green” jobs is raising the energy cost through the roof and putting millions and millions of people out of work. 17% in Spain would be about 44% unemployment here.

In Spain, for every ‘clean’ job created, 2.2 jobs are eliminated, which Obama has apparently over-looked.

Obama wants America to be like Europe no matter what the cost.

Because most Americans don’t bother to examine the evidence and look it up for themselves, and he and his advisors know this.