67 replies to this topic

[diogenes227]

North America's Biggest Coal Plant Reopening AS Solar Farm

 

Ontario made a commitment to building a clean economy, and as part of that commitment managed to completely phase out coal in 2014. This has been partially blamed for a significant increase in energy prices for consumers, who have seen prices rise from 7 cents US per KWh in 2006, to 13 cents US per KWh in 2015. However, the health benefits have been also been significant, as the province reduced its smog days from 109 between 2005 and 2007, to zero in 2015.

 

[stocks]

Once a Darling, Spanish Solar Company Abengoa Faces Reckoning

 

Saddled with debt from its expansion, the company is scrambling to avoid what would be the largest bankruptcy in Spanish corporate history. Creditors and shareholders are taking the company to court as losses mount and crucial financial support disappears.

 

Its fall from grace, said Valeriano Ruiz Hernández, a retired professor at Seville University who taught many of the company’s engineers, is “a genuine hammer blow” for Spain and its renewable energy sector.

 

In 2007 Abengoa’s stock price hit a record high of 7.39 euros a share. By November, when it began insolvency proceedings, it had fallen below 40 euro cents. It now sits at 71 euro cents.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.c...oning.html?_r=1

 

 

[diogenes227]

Wind And Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuel

 

From the link:

 

Wind and solar have grown seemingly unstoppable.

While two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal triggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, renewables have been thriving. Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels.

One reason is that renewable energy is becoming ever cheaper to produce. Recent solar and wind auctions in Mexico and Morocco ended with winning bids from companies that promised to produce electricity at the cheapest rate, from any source, anywhere in the world, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). 

"We're in a low-cost-of-oil environment for the foreseeable future," Liebreich said during his keynote address at the BNEF Summit in New York on Tuesday. "Did that stop renewable energy investment? Not at all."

 

[Rogerdodger]

If you take enough money from the treasury, even pigs can fly...but not for long.

 

ANOTHER TAXPAYER-FUNDED SOLAR-ENERGY COMPANY FAILS...

The bankruptcy is the largest in Spain's history.

 

 

CLOUDS GATHER OVER INDUSTRY...

The success so far has been driven by a combination of falling product prices – solar panels are 80% cheaper now than they were five years ago – but also by generous subsidies ultimately paid for by the consumer.

 The introduction of the generous feed-in tariff (FiT) aid scheme in 2010 kickstarted a revolution. By 2011 around 1GW of solar had been installed, with this figure doubling over the next 12 months even though FiT rates had been cut in half.

By 2013, helped in part by the use of another subsidy scheme set up for wind, the renewables obligation (RO), large ground-mounted arrays began to be put in place.

But over the last year both the RO and FiT support mechanisms have been either removed or wound dramatically further down – with the government arguing the industry should largely be fending for itself while bill payers should be spared unnecessary cost.

 

"Solar in Britain has been an amazing success.” Really?

Only 2.2% of the total electricity generated in the UK in 2015 was from solar sources, at a massive cost to taxpayers.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 17 April 2016 - 09:44 AM.

[stocks]

Seeking Alpha:  

 

SunEdison Is The Canary In The Coal Mine For Solar Energy

 

Summary

Solar energy is not the future of energy, SUNE will not be the last company to collapse in this sector.

The solar industry cannot survive without government subsidies.

Falling oil/natural gas prices and the advent of shale indicate that the fate of solar energy is sealed.

Solar is not the future of energy.

 

The first rule of investing is to make decisions with your mind not your heart. Investing with your emotions is the best way to lose your money. While I love the environment as much as anyone it is simply not logical to let this feeling drive me to make unsound investments.

 

 

http://seekingalpha....ne-solar-energy

 

 

 

[diogenes227]

Seeking Alpha:  

 

SunEdison Is The Canary In The Coal Mine For Solar Energy

 

Summary

Solar energy is not the future of energy, SUNE will not be the last company to collapse in this sector.

The solar industry cannot survive without government subsidies.

Falling oil/natural gas prices and the advent of shale indicate that the fate of solar energy is sealed.

Solar is not the future of energy.

 

The first rule of investing is to make decisions with your mind not your heart. Investing with your emotions is the best way to lose your money. While I love the environment as much as anyone it is simply not logical to let this feeling drive me to make unsound investments.

 

 

http://seekingalpha....ne-solar-energy

 

 

 

 

Oh, no!  SUNE is down another 19% for the week!  Eight whole cents!  The same week as the great Peabody coal company went broke!  The rest of the Solar stocks must be dying too, like coal! This is tearing my heart out!

 

...

 

Uh, never mind...

 

 

[Rogerdodger]

Artificial markets steal from their victims:

 

Warren Buffett defended NV Energy's role in a recent rate hike that regulators approved for rooftop solar customers.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns the Nevada utility, so he was asked about the issue at Saturday's annual meeting.

Buffett says people with rooftop solar power systems were allowed to sell power to the utility at prices roughly three times the market price.

Supporters of renewable energy complained that the new rates will discourage solar power investments. But Buffett says the old rates had the effect of forcing other ratepayers to subsidize the small group of people who invested in solar systems.

[diogenes227]

Subsidies, subsidies, subsidies.  Renewable energy subsidies -- an investment in the future, clean air and thousand of jobs and still only on pocket change compared to the subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry.

 

TAX PAYERS SUBSIDIZING THE WORLD'S BIGGEST FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES

 

Maybe a 20% annual tax surcharge on current oil company profits would be a better way to transition to a sustainable energy future?

 

 

 

[stocks]

Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., once the world’s biggest solar manufacturer, plunged the most in more than seven months after signaling it may be teetering toward bankruptcy.

 

Yingli declined 21 percent to $3.60 at the close in New York, the most since Sept. 29. That followed an 8.1 percent drop Friday after the Chinese solar company acknowledged “substantial doubt as to its ability to continue as a going concern.”

 

http://www.bloomberg...bankruptcy-risk

  

 

  

 

 

 

[diogenes227]

Always harping on this little bankruptcy here, that little failure there...

 

Well, as emerging technology inevitably stumbles and fumbles here and there it's going to remain just that, "little", compared to what we're going to be seeing as we slide down the back side of peak oil --

 

THE PARTY'S OVER IN ALASKA