Category: Alternative Subsidy

Y2Kyoto: Schadenfrozen

Alternative Subsidy Y2Kyoto 26 Comments

VW warns soaring EU energy costs render battery plants unviable;

Investment in German and EU industrial projects such as battery-cell factories will be unfeasible if the region’s policy makers fail to control ballooning energy prices in the long-term, the head of Volkswagen Group’s namesake brand, Thomas Schäfer, said.

“Unless we manage to reduce energy prices in Germany and Europe quickly and reliably, investments in energy-intensive production or new battery cell factories in Germany and the EU will be practically unviable,” VW Schaefer wrote Monday on LinkedIn.

“The value creation in this area will take place elsewhere.”

VW plans to have six battery factories in full operation across Europe by 2030 under its battery company PowerCo, which broke ground on its lead plant in Germany in July of this year and signed a 3 billion euro ($3.1 billion) joint venture with Umicore in September for cathode material production.

An outline for industrial-policy cooperation hatched by the French and German economy ministers last week “falls short in crucial areas and does not address the envisaged priorities,” Schaefer said.

You’re Gonna Need A Bigger Landfill

Alternative Subsidy 12 Comments

The industry’s current circular capacity is woefully unprepared for the deluge of waste that is likely to come.

Economic incentives are rapidly aligning to encourage customers to trade their existing panels for newer, cheaper, more efficient models. In an industry where circularity solutions such as recycling remain woefully inadequate, the sheer volume of discarded panels will soon pose a risk of existentially damaging proportions.

To be sure, this is not the story one gets from official industry and government sources. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)’s official projections assert that “large amounts of annual waste are anticipated by the early 2030s” and could total 78 million tonnes by the year 2050. That’s a staggering amount, undoubtedly. But with so many years to prepare, it describes a billion-dollar opportunity for recapture of valuable materials rather than a dire threat. The threat is hidden by the fact that IRENA’s predictions are premised upon customers keeping their panels in place for the entirety of their 30-year life cycle. They do not account for the possibility of widespread early replacement.

Related: China’s coal production is set to climb for the sixth year in a row, reaching a new record [4.4 billion tons]. If you’re doing anything to reduce your emissions, you’ve just been offset… forever.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 22 Comments

New York Times;

These should be great times to be in the wind energy business, especially in Europe. Governments here have long promoted offshore wind projects, and those efforts have accelerated since Russia started cutting natural gas shipments in its war against Ukraine.

“We need clean, we need cheaper and we need homegrown power,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Union president, said in August.

But Europe’s wind turbine makers, the crown jewels of the region’s green energy industry and a source of manufacturing expertise, are reporting losses and laying off workers. Their problems stem partly from lingering supply chain issues and competition from Chinese manufacturers, and the issues could ultimately hinder Europe’s, and even the world’s, ambitions to quickly develop emission-free energy sources.

This month, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, a Madrid-based company that is the premier maker of offshore wind turbines, reported an annual loss of 940 million euros ($965 million). The company has announced a cost-cutting program that is likely to lead to 2,900 job losses, or nearly 11 percent of its work force.

Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest maker of turbines, recently reported a loss of 147 million euros (about $151 million) for the third quarter.

General Electric, a large maker of wind turbines in the United States and Europe, has also struggled in its clean energy businesses. The company said last month that its renewable energy unit was likely to record $2 billion in losses this year.

Several problems are battering the industry, including rising costs for materials and shipping, as well as logistics snags, some of them a legacy of the pandemic. As a result, prices agreed on earlier for turbines, which cost millions of dollars apiece and can add up to hundreds of billions for large offshore wind farms, can result in huge losses for the manufacturers when they are delivered.

“Every time we sell a turbine, we lose 8 percent,” Henrik Andersen, the chief executive of Vestas, said in an interview.

Clearly, this demands more subsidies.

Solar Energy Firm Collapses Owing British Taxpayers £655 Million

Alternative Subsidy 26 Comments

Bloomberg;

Toucan Energy Holdings 1 Ltd., which owns 53 solar farms across the country and was run by the financier Liam Kavanagh, had borrowed £655 million ($773 million) over four years from Thurrock Council to fuel its expansion.

In September, Rob Gledhill, the former leader of the council, resigned after the government appointed a commissioner to take over the Conservative-led authority. At the time of his resignation, Gledhill said in a statement: “As Leader of the Council the political buck stops with me and as such it would only be right, and expected, that I resign as Leader of the Council.”

In July, John Kent, the council’s opposition leader, described the investments as “a scandal of huge proportions.”

Last week, Thurrock Council appointed administrators from Interpath Advisory, which has been tasked with selling off the farms to return cash to the council. While Toucan Energy Holdings 1 is in administration, Interpath said in a statement that the underlying parks were not, and would continue to operate as normal.

Mark Coxshall, leader of Thurrock Council, said in a statement that the move would “maximize recovery” for taxpayers.

Related: If Wind-Solar-Batteries were mined and manufactured using only the energy produced by Wind-Solar-Batteries, I would have no objections whatsoever. But I like food.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 7 Comments

Hey, can we try this?

Rural voters delivered a crushing blow to plans for a 375 megawatt wind farm in mid-Michigan, where several local renewable energy ordinances were defeated across three townships and multiple officials were thrown from office for supporting the project.

On Tuesday, Nov. 8, midterm voters resoundingly rejected ordinances enabling the Montcalm Wind project by Apex Clean Energy, a developer attempting to erect 75 turbines on farmland in Montcalm County northeast of Grand Rapids.

We Don’t Need No Smoking Sparky Cycles

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 56 Comments

Reducing our carbon footprint, one smoldering corpse at a time.

Four times a week on average, an e-bike or e-scooter battery catches fire in New York City.

These bikes when they fail, they fail like a blowtorch,” said Dan Flynn, the chief fire marshal at the New York Fire Department. “We’ve seen incidents where people have described them as explosive — incidents where they actually have so much power, they’re actually blowing walls down in between rooms and apartments.”

As of Friday, the FDNY investigated 174 battery fires, putting 2022 on track to double the number of fires that occurred last year (104) and quadruple the number from 2020 (44). So far this year, six people have died in e-bike-related fires and 93 people were injured, up from four deaths and 79 injuries last year.

h/t Raymond

We Don’t Need No Smokin’ Sparky Cycles

Alternative Subsidy 16 Comments

Daily Mail;

Thirty-eight people were hurt, with two suffering life-threatening injuries, after a fire broke out inside a 37-story building in Manhattan on Saturday.

The FDNY reported that a three-alarm fire erupted from the battery of a micro-mobility device – an e-scooter or an e-bike – at around 10:30am on the 20th floor of an apartment building at 429 East 52nd Street.

Officials said at least two dozen residents rushed to the roof while others hung out of their windows to try and escape the fire.

Video at the link.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy 37 Comments

Petro-Canada issues huge EV charging fee increase across the country;

Plugging in and charging on Petro-Canada’s Electric Highway just got a lot more expensive for EV owners. Instead of billing owners at differing rates in each province, the oil giant has now instituted a flat rate across the country.

According to the Petro-Canada website, the standard EV charging fee for all of Canada is now $0.50 per minute.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy 47 Comments

Everything new… is a step backward;

[Henry] Payne, an auto critic for the Detroit News, set out to travel from Detroit to Charlevoix, Michigan. His trip was to be around 280 miles, and he was driving a new 2022 F-250 Lightning EV.

Payne wrote that he charged the truck to a full 100 percent charge ahead of the trip, and that the manufacturer claimed that a full charge should have allowed him to travel the whole distance without another charge.

I won’t spoil the ending.

Oh, nevermind.

But it wasn’t even close.

Payne wrote that as he sat at his third charging station of the day, another driver asked what sort of mileage he was getting on his roughly $93,000 EV truck.

Read the rest, it gets better.

h/t roaddog

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 39 Comments

This summer my 2002 Chev Astro van turned over 350,000km. I’ve put 270K of those on it myself after buying it used in 2013 – for $7.500.

But what would someone like me know about the economics of driving?

Some electric car owners, especially those with earlier models, have been shocked to find out how much it costs to replace their batteries.

“I don’t understand why they make the battery so expensive when you have to change it,” Scarborough resident Phyllis Lau said, who owns a 2018 KIA Soul all-electric vehicle.

Lau’s electric SUV came with a warranty for the battery that covers 160,000 km, or eight years, whichever comes first.

The family said this year their vehicle clocked in more than 170,000 kilometres, which put them outside the warranty period when the battery failed.

When the vehicle wouldn’t work, Lau took it to her local dealership and was told it needed a battery replacement. With the new battery, labour and taxes, she said it would cost about $23,000.

Cute paperweight you got there.

Y2Kyoto: What’s The Chinese Word For “Never”?

Alternative Subsidy Y2Kyoto 16 Comments

Bloomberg;

In a two-hour speech to kick off the week long Communist Party Congress, Xi said that prudence would govern China’s efforts to peak and eventually zero out carbon emissions. The cautious wording comes after a spate of high-profile power shortages in recent years, and as global energy costs have soared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended trade flows.

Xi’s speech made China’s path to decarbonization clear: It won’t stop burning fossil fuels until it’s confident that clean energy can reliably replace them. The speech shows more emphasis on energy security and the significant role of coal in China’s energy supply given the resources endowment, said Qin Yan, lead analyst with Refinitiv. […]

China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and Xi electrified climate activists two years ago when he vowed to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 after peaking emissions before 2030. The announcement sparked a massive surge in investment in clean energy by local governments and state-owned firms.

But last year focus began to return to China’s mainstay fuel of coal after a shortage triggered widespread power curtailments to factories, slowing economic growth.

Thank-You for Saving The Planet

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult 25 Comments

Townhall- ‘A Ticking Time Bomb’: Florida Home That Survived Hurricane Burns to the Ground From EV

The lithium batteries are not only catching fire but are proving to be a nightmare to put out, burning at extremely high temperatures and often reigniting several times. As state fire marshal, Patronis is asking for “immediate guidance” from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and help directly from the car manufacturers.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 18 Comments

For this, they despoiled miles of skyline at Pincher Creek.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation