We Don't Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors

Western environmentalists have been pointing to China and saying "See how we're getting beat out in this lucrative new market due to under-investment!"

Be harder to make that claim now.

As a long-time investor, I learned decades ago to avoid bleeding-edge markets. For every good Apple, there are a thousands rotten ones.

Give me a soap company or a railroad any day.

wait until BamBam gets a whiff of the NBT (Next Big Thingy) in Eco Greenie Planet Saving gizmo's.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/16/view/23214/spherical-glass-solar-energy-generator-by-rawlemon.html

He'll be shoveling money off the truck so fast it will make Solyndra look like amateur hour at a backwater Crony Club.

Information BamBam needs to digest before he buys that Volt.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9436

I wonder what it means when they put their staff on "gardening leave".

Time for a panel discussion.

There's a failed premier in Ontario by the name of McGuinty who should take note of this information...

So Solyndra was supposed to buy their panels,but the board,CEO,CFO,etc. took their multi-million bonus,the rest of the 565 million loan disappeared,and they declare bankruptcy,thus not buying a single panel.Hummmmm....maybe the chinks were sucked in???

I hope the greenbots don't get too excited, this is China buying some dead green tech product from Europe on order to gain access to their markets.

It's Biz folks, nothing more. There is no China there is no US there is only one ecumenical holistic global business community.

It is to be expected but is a pity. The power output of the Sun is enormous, and even the one part per billion which strikes the Earth is still enormous.

China is one of the most polluted countries on the planet AND its "green" ventures (whatever their purpose might be) is a bust.

Let's stop trading with this octopus.

Give it a few more years and they'll all look like this:

http://notrickszone.com/2011/07/04/weed-covered-solar-park-20-acres-11-million-only-one-and-half-years-old/

It's what happens when government has easy access to taxpayers money and no clue to what they are doing.

"Gardening Leave??" Is that New Speak for, sent back to the collective farm to work in the fields planting rice??

Only greenies didn't see this coming.

Why would China be immune from reality?

"gardening leave"?

Is that the same as "pushing up daisies"?

Another One Bites the Dust with lyrics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWsJcg-g1pg

John Lewis

As most all energy technologies but nuclear are derived from the Sun either directly (hydro) or indirectly (fossil) the failure of large scale PV panels is nothing that should surprise anyone with a smidgen of Physics and Economics in their repertoire. Unfortunately, and thanks to the pathologically innumerate electorates, politics trumps all. PVs work great for small scale off-grid charging systems.

For years I've had the thought that someday I'd cover the roof of my house with solar panels and be free of BC hydro. A big disincentive was the roughly $50 K cost for the panels, the massive battery bank one needs and the high power inverters. The big payoff, unique in my case, would be a brand new electronic toy to play with where I could monitor power output by the second, have very detailed records of power consumption and also be independent of the crappy power I currently get. Never thought of cleaning solar panels and finally decided that a cheaper toy would be a 10 Kw natural gas powered backup generator.

If the Chicoms can't make a profit making solar panels with their creative cost accounting and slave labor, then this means the end of large scale solar power for now. It also means that all those squeegie kids in Vancouver will never get the dream green job they were hoping for.

For remote applications, solar panels make a lot of sense but, with new nanopower circuitry, even fairly small solar panels with an ultracapacitor for night time energy storage can power an incredible amount of sensor/processing capacity.

Solar is just another example where failure to comprehend the concept of energy density has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions.

Good rant, loki.

Solar, or solar plus wind, can make sense for an off-grid home if the cost of bringing in grid power exceeds a few thousand dollars, which it might well do if you needed a half mile of pole line to bring the grid to your site. But if you are already on the grid, or so close to it that a drop from the line is all that is needed, you are throwing money away to go "green".

I work in the semiconductor industry, and we know that solar panels, unless some new technology emerges, is a dead end.

As the panels age, they lose efficiency, and if they get covered with dust, leaves, etc., they lose efficiency. Being that they are only 15% efficient at the best on their installation, they are a DEAD END.

Now if the general population would understand this.

The usual answer from the green loons is that government must now fund development of the missing link, storage.
The super power storage battery or capacitor. Or as some might call it, the the randomly exploding electricity bomb.
Think of a bunker with a few thousand of those babies ticking away on the nearby hydro right of way behind your subdivision.
Sort of a combination fireworks and poison gas attack right out of Star Wars when she blows.

Texas, that makes sense, as the garden walk solar lights we have already begin to loose their light during the second summer and are generally useless in the third year.

Ken, have the same problem with garden solar lights as you do. I suspect the problem is not the aging of the the solar cells but rather the deterioration of the NiCad batteries that these garden solar lights use. Unfortunately, NiCad batteries aren't the most reliable long term energy storage source.