The greatest scam being perpetrated against taxpayers and consumers is renewable energy, according to a new analysis published by the Australian, greater even than Ponzi, Madoff and Enron.

While sinking enormous financial resources into propping up renewable energy prospectors, national governments are providing no perceptible benefits to their citizens, writes Judith Sloan, a renowned Australian economist who has served on the Australian government's Productivity Commission.

"With very few exceptions, governments all over the world have fallen into the trap of paying renewable energy scammers on the basis that it is necessary, at least politically, to be seen to be doing something about climate change," Sloan writes, before providing readers with an avalanche of economic data to back up her assertion.

In Australia, more than 2 billion taxpayer dollars a year are funneled to renewable energy handlers by virtue of the operation of the renewable energy target and the associated renewable energy certificates, Sloan observes.

At the same time, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency "shovels out hundreds of millions of dollars annually to subsidise renewable energy companies, many of which are overseas-owned," she states, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation was given $10 billion in equity by the Gillard Labor government "to lend or grant money to renewable energy companies."

Despite this enormous taxpayer "investment," so-called renewable energy has yet to pay any dividends or to suggest it will be economically viable for the foreseeable future.

Sloan's grim analysis of the state of renewable energy as a financial sinkhole in Australia is mirrored by other countries such as the United States.

According to Forbes, on a total dollar basis, wind and solar together get more from the federal government than all other energy sources combined, despite the fact that neither is anywhere close to self-supporting. Wind has received the greatest amount of federal subsidies. Solar is second.

Based on production (subsidies per kWh of electricity produced), however, solar energy "has gotten over ten times the subsidies of all other forms of energy sources combined, including wind," writes energy expert and planetary geologist Dr. James Conca.