It’s the physics, stupid – BP quits solar power industry
Update! Sometimes they quits the industry, and sometimes the industry quits them.
Hey, Who’s Up For Another $2.1 Billion In Stimulus Money Lost on Yet Another Bankrupt Solar Company?
And it’s a German company.
It’s actually the economics. Nobody would reject solar power if it were cheaper than that generated via other means.
Failure of economics is just the consequence of the physics.
A couple of positive items in the article. Solar companies are folding, because of competition and falling panel prices. That’s a good thing. If panel prices drop sufficiently, lots of rural people can benefit from cheaper energy prices. We should be encouraged that the market is actually controlling solar energy, to some extent. My only complaint, I’m going to be climbing more electric fences.
So whats with Trans Canada Pipelines?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/transcanada-buys-solar-energy-projects-for-470-million/article2277442/
Ron- TransCanada has been diversifying for many years. They’re involved in all types of power generation and sales contracts. My friend’s son is part of their negotiation team, and has been involved in deals all over, including Mexico.
“So whats with Trans Canada Pipelines?”
Hard to ever know if they believe in what they are doing as a business venture in itself, just engaging in the feel good PR crap that most corps feel is necessary, or whether the CEO got an overdose of the enviro-wacko Koolaid.
Maybe the other eletronic products we all want to buy will be cheaper if so much of the rare earth resources wasted in solar panels becomes available for products people actually want.
Unknown at this time is the effect this will have on Dalton McGuinty’s 20,000 “Green” jobs.
Those Potemkin workers videoed in Oct may have to wait 4 years to be employed once more.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/2469/Understanding-E-=-mc2
This is an article that I have forwarded to numerous people and I find sums up renewable energy’s short comings, especially where it comes to supplying a base load.
So China is manufacturing solar panels so cheaply it’s foreign competitors, who developed the technology, can’t compete on price and are going bankrupt?
Where have we heard of this scenario before?
Where connecting to existing grids is really expensive, photo-voltaic will become practical. Efficient storage is solvable. When that happens rural people will become as independent as our pioneers once dreamed of.
Thank you Derek, I’ve been hunting for that link for weeks!
From the article:
“Global investment in renewable energy was $195 billion in 2010 and is expected to more than double to $395 billion in 2020, according to BNEF. ”
That is a pretty risky prediction for a market that is wholly dependent on government support. If Kyoto II had been signed then maybe but, considering its collapse and the doomish economic outlook for the US, EU and China, the renewable resource market is not resting on a solid foundation. At some point even the dimmest of politicians will come to realize that cheap energy is the key to reducing inflation, high unemployment and energy poverty.
Martin- Here’s an example.
In our county, the largest solar farm in North America was erected and opened last spring.
They employed 104 people while constructing it.
The day they had their grand opening ( Dalton’s rep. was there), the company laid-off 102 of the workers. My next door neighbor, an electrician was one of the victims of this debacle.
Green energy is a Myth. One we have been forced to believe in while its agitprop watermelon fanatics have raked in billions on a dream, not reality.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice-releases-deadly-greenhouse-gas-6276134.html
what are the odds this has been happening all along or is it the runaway snowball effect described? hmmm?
The most telling item from these silly green force fed government financed debacles is that these white elephants
can even be brand new state of the art facilities in bankruptcy, now with all debt erased, but still with zero prospects.
Yes they are still worthless as going concerns. Scrap value only.
Man. How stupid can people get!
Not one of these clowns knew enough to call Dildo McDinky for a bit of advice?
coach @ 1:37 touches on applications where solar panels have an actual useful use.
BP isn’t the only oil company with solar investments, from June 2011:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/total-closes-sunpower-deal-big-oil-goes-solar/17059
“Oil and gas giant Total said Wednesday that it has completed its cash-tender offer to own 60 percent of solar power system player SunPower.
Total paid $23.25 a share, or $1.3 billion, for its stake. AS noted previously, Total’s plan revolves around taking oil money and funding solar projects via SunPower. ”
The real kicker is the current price for Sunpower (ticker SPWR) is $5.64, so Total’s investment is down 75% from less than 6 months ago.
If you are an oil company and you really really want to lose money…just invest in Solar.
Coach is right, solar has some use for off-grid applications where the alternative is diesel fuel. Problem is most of these applications are at extreme latitudes where solar output is minimal.
One of the points missed in the links is the cut in FIT programs. Germany and Spain both cut their feed-in tariffs for renewables nearly two years ago. In Germany’s case, it was a cut of 15%. This is a major reason why the market is tanking, and producers are cutting back even in China.
Larry: “Efficient storage is solvable.”
No it’s not. There’s only two solutions, pumped storage and batteries. Both are technical and engineering dead ends.
Ron: “So whats with Trans Canada Pipelines?”
Follow the numbers. If it’s a few millions, then it’s feel-good promotion and less than the cost of even just a modest regional advertising campaign. If it’s a few hundred million, then it’s time to change company management.
I should: “what are the odds this has been happening all along or is it the runaway snowball effect described? hmmm?”
Since there’s no base line, the study doesn’t mean anything. But 8 million tonnes a year is a trivial addition to total natural global methane emissions. The river delta in Bangladesh probably puts out that amount every day, and the world’s termite population probably emits that amount on an hourly basis.
So no, it’s not a runaway snowball effect, it’s just your runaway panic effect.
I saw one solar setup that made sense. The power hookup was $35,000 for a few miles of line and the solar setup was $10,000. The fridge, stove, dryer, and water heater were propane.
Kate sez: ‘And it’s a German company‘.
Which caused me to recall this this link from last July.
(Yeah, the HTML ‘a’ tag works this time!)
.
solar has some use for off-grid applications where the alternative is diesel fuel. Problem is most of these applications are at extreme latitudes where solar output is minimal.
Did you know that’s only in the winter? In the summer solar output is significant. Did you think they don’t use electricity in the summer?
PV solar is as dirty or perhaps even dirtier than the oil sands. It’s not economically feasible to produce PV solar in North America. The labor costs in North America are prohibitively expensive and North American environmental regulations which keep our air, water and land from being heavily polluted don’t exist in Asia, so nearly all of the PV production is over there where they can pollute and keep their production costs low. The electricity to run their PV solar factories comes from dirty coal and the factories dump pollution into the environment. The same goes for their wind turbines.
larry said: “Where connecting to existing grids is really expensive, photo-voltaic will become practical. Efficient storage is solvable. When that happens rural people will become as independent as our pioneers once dreamed of.”
Our pioneers around here lived in log cabins with dirt floors, and if you’re proposing we go back to that level of existence, then yes, solar would be awesome.
I defy you to show me an installed solar system that costs less than a house that will let me run the washing machine and watch TV at the same time. At night.
Its the physics, they don’t cooperate.
Trans Can. bought this Ontario Canada project because McGuinty (Ont.Premier) in his infinite economic knowledge equal to Kim Il Un of N. Korea has a 20 year guaranteed price of over 0.80 cents per kwh. for the power. You pay almost $1/2 billion for such a guaranteed return foisted on Ont. electric rate payers!
North of 60, very high earth latitude means low production even if it’s available 16+ hours a day. By the time you’re north of 60 or so, the 0.5 kW/sq m deposited on the earth’s surface becomes less than 0.2 kW/sq m because of surface curvature of the planet.
very high earth latitude means low production even if it’s available 16+ hours a day.
Only if you place the PV panels flat on the ground. They’re tilted to point towards the sun. DOH
You need to do a bit more research before spouting off on subjects where you obviously have no knowledge or experience. Don’t believe everything you think.
I defy you to show me an installed solar system that costs less than a house that will let me run the washing machine and watch TV at the same time. At night.
There are thousands across Canada that do it. You really need to get out more or maybe do some research that challenges your preconceived ideas. The information is freely available for those who know how to look. Hint: search “off grid solar”. There are U-Tube examples if you have difficulty reading technical stuff.
Only if you place the PV panels flat on the ground. They’re tilted to point towards the sun. DOH
ALL solar panels ANYWHERE work better when they are arrayed perpendicular to the sun.
But when the amount of energy striking a square meter of earth is reduced by 40% because of the angle of incidence between the sun and Earth, you get at least 40% less energy from the panel.
We get this thing called WINTER because the same amount of solar energy is spread across a larger portion of the Earth. Put another way, any fixed area of the Earth’s surface gets less solar energy!
The effect is compounded because the solar radiation has to travel through more of the Earth’s atmosphere, dissipating more energy.
The higher latitude also affects the quantity of TIME the panels receive solar radiation. We call this quantity of time “DAY.” This reduces the collection capacity of solar cells even more.
Since the excess of energy from the Summer months can’t be saved for the Winter months, there can’t possibly be equivalent energy resources from solar sources year round. You would need four to eight times the collection surface.
DOH! You need to learn 7th grade math and science before spouting off on subjects when you are obviously stupid.
Please commence thinking.
North of 60 said: “You really need to get out more or maybe do some research that challenges your preconceived ideas.”
Dude, don’t forget who you’re talking to here. This is SDA.
The landscape around Haldimand county is littered with large solar systems, all part of McGuinty’s Great Green Leap Forward. There’s five or six within five miles of here. Usually a large galvanized steel framework with solar panels on a pylon, with hefty motors that rotate the panels with the sun.
The concrete foundation alone I estimate at $20k for digging the hole, rebar and concrete. For comparison, my barn foundation is 30’x40′ and cost ~$10k complete. Wind forces are large, the foundation for that single pylon is a big frickin’ hundred-plus cubic yard chunk.
These systems were sold as a “green investment” that would pay off after about eight years of selling power to the grid at 80 cents a kilowatt hour. Lots of people have them. Sometimes they cost more than the house they are next to, like the one on Highway 6 east of Caledonia. Little old house, BIG solar panel.
Lots of those people are in deep doodoo, since
A) the province dropped the solar power payout to 50 cents/kwh which moved the break-even point out beyond ten years, and
B)these systems cost about $200k and do -not- include any energy storage so they will not run your washer at night, and
C) Ontario Hydro has become very very very very slow to hook these systems up to the grid, so the owners can’t sell the power.
So the owners are pretty much f-ed, and those machines are mostly vertical and turned off. Or else some poor b@st@rd had to sink a fortune into lead acid batteries, build a building to house them in, wire it, and blah blah blah so he can actually -use- his f-ing incredibly expensive electricity when its actually sunny out. Which it hasn’t been, of late. Its this winter thing we have in Ontario…
Yes, it is -possible- to run a house off solar and batteries. No, it is -not- possible to install such a system for an amortized system lifetime cost of 10 cents/kwh. Darn physics.
But if power goes to over 80 cents/kwh, yeah baby those guys will be GOLDEN!
But you know, it would probably be cheaper to make a steam generator. Wood is cheap. Coal is cheaper. Say, that’s a really good idea, burning cheap coal. Isn’t there a whole buttload of that out in Sask that nobody’s even dug up yet?