It’s always darkest before the lights go completely out…
With at least seven solar-panel manufacturers filing for bankruptcy or insolvency in the last several months and six of the 10 largest publicly traded companies making solar components reporting losses in the third quarter, public-market investors are punishing the solar sector, sending shares down nearly 57% this year.
Although winners are expected to emerge eventually…
The winners, as usual will be the Warren Buffets et al, who are in the process of buying perceived future opportunities as they inflate the present low valued equities while the sheeple still want warmist Policys, and then unload them as the prices climb up.
The downloading of the these same equities will then quietly commence. Cheers;
from the comments
“Solar makes electricity. One percent of the electricity in the US is from oil. Solar and Wind make up more than 3% of the US production. Solar at best competes with coal and natural gas. The thing is that for every kw of wind and solar the power companies build one kw of gas fired peaking plants to handle cloudy days and still days.
Oil is mostly used for transportation. You can not “practically” power ships, aircraft, and large long haul trucks with electricity. Electric cars are still very rare and even if they become popular it will take many years for them to grow to a large percentage of the market. Trains also use oil in the US but in theory at least some could be electrified but again that would be a multi year project and cost many billions of dollars.
The whole solar and wind can free us from oil is a marketing lie.”
Yep and due to the simple fact is North American reserves of petroleum are good for 250 years….not just peak oil is a lie…then add the known reserves of NG…
No need for bio-fuels..in a hungry world.
The Chinese have already won the solar manufacturing market.
The Chinese will be the next to take a huge hit on the solar manufacturing business.As subsidies dry up,the demand for solar will dry up,leaving China with a manufacturing base that no one wants.
Shortselling solar stocks is like printing your own money.
sasquatch: One percent of the electricity in the US is from oil????
The winners are the taxpayers who will no longer be subsidising this green pipedream. At the tractor dealership the other day a farmer was mentioning that he was having 20kw of panels installed, paid for by Dalton McGuinty ie the present and future taxpayers of Ontario. He mentioned that there is an efficiency loss of 2% per year, so in 50 years the panel is dead. Let’s do some math here, assuming no Ontario subsidies.
At the bargain price of $1/watt the panels cost $20,000. In the first year you produce at the full capacity of 20kw for 4hrs a day every day. I’m taking the four hour figure from an Ontario solar website because I can’t find any chart showing the average hours of sunshine or cloudiness per day or the average watts per square meter of solar radiation. So we get 365 x 4hr x 20kWs = 29200kWhrs at a rate of 5.5 cents per kWhr for $1608 worth of electricity. Next year that figure drops by 2% to $1574 and the next year $1541 and so on. So in theory you can save $39,350 on electricity over 50 years if all the following conditions are met.
A) You have to buy the panels at the firesale price of $1/watt, delivered.
B) You have to be under ideal conditions of 4hrs of strong sunlight every day for 50 years.
C) You have the special mounts that orient the panels at the optimum angle to the sun.
D) You do not have to pay for the labour costs of installation, the concrete footings, the mountings that keep the panels at the optimum angle, the storage batteries and the inverters to turn DC into AC voltage.
D) You do not pay sales tax on the panels, increased property taxes due to the increased value of your property or income tax on any energy earnings.
E) You do not have to pay for maintenance and nothing needs repair or replacement.
F) You have to live for 50 years.
G) You have to be able to live with less energy every year, in 25 years the peak output will only be 10kW.
H) You have to have $20,000 to spend or be able to get an interest free loan. If you put $20,000 in the bank for 50 years at 2% interest compounded annually you (or your heirs) will get $53,831.76 at the end.
Without the Ontario government subsidies, photo-voltaic is a moneypit for those who own the panels. With the subsidies photo-voltaic is a money pit for everybody else in Ontario.
By comparision a nuclear reactor generates electricity for 2.5 cents/kWhr and the Ontario government buys solar electricity for 60 cents/kWhr and sells it at 5.5 cents/kWhr.
To quote Kate ‘what could possibly go wrong?’
a@c, yes.
In the U.S., 58 Twhr out of a total of 4359 in 2888 was oil. That’s 1.3%.
In Canada, it was 9.8 out of 651, or 1.5%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation#List_of_countries_with_Source_of_Electricity_2008
Crap, 2888 should be 2008!
The big winner so for is Obama’s re-election coffers.
I always have to laugh…I listen to KGMI, out of Bellingham, WA…there is a solar-panel company always advertising installation specials. I have to wonder, between laughs, how feasible solar power is in rainy Washington State, especially in the winter…HAHAHAHA….as I sit here in the lower mainland B.C., we haven’t had a ray of sun in days…
on a side note, the City of Bellingham is also one of those entities/companies boycotting oilsands oil (along with Chiquita Banana). Glad I’m not one of those Canucks frequently heading south to shop and spend my money there…
Hugh Pickens has missed one further point in the crushing of the solar industry. Most of what’s being delivered now is from contracts signed during 2007-9. However, Germany, Spain, Denmark and a number of other large purchasers of renewable generation have all cut their feed-in-tariffs. This means that the growth prospects for solar in future years are essentially zero.
Even Ontario is indirectly contributing to the collapse of the solar manufacturing business. The Ontario government is not signing any new private power contracts.
Al, a few considerations to add to your numbers. Total available insolation at the surface in Ontario is a maximum of abotu 300 W/sq/m. Maximum output from the Sun is about 1300 W/sq/m, given our planet’s distance from the Sun. Of this amount, only 13% is converted to electricity (most photons have insufficient energy to free an electron in the substrate).
Cloudiness reduces insolation by about 80%. 80% of solar power comes from direct light, 20% from reflected light. You lose all the direct light if the sun is obscured by cloud. After the first year, scratching of the photocell surface will reduce energy production by about 50%, getting steadily worse over time, from blown dust and other environmental hazards.
Now as to overcast, it is reasonable to assume that of a 365 day year, about 100 days will have overcast. You’ve assumed 4 hours per day, and that’s not bad given the variation in output as the sun is not directly overhead for most of the day. The more atmosphere light travels through, and the lower the sun is in the sky (why latitude is important), the less energy you get.
Given the surface scratching problem and other material problems, it’s reasonable to expect that you can have a maximum lifetime of 20-25 years life expectancy from the installation. Other environmental conditions such as exposure to salt air (road salting in winter), high levels of blown dust, etc., will further reduce this life expectancy.
You should note that there are and cannot be any technological solutions to most of the problems I’ve noted here. We cannot affect our planet’s distance from the Sun, our planet’s curvature, the energy contained in solar photons, our planet’s cloudiness or ambient atmospheric dust content.
Solar panels might be worth it when they are sold at half price in the clearance sale.
Where is North of 60 to tell these companies that all they have to do to become profitable is point the panels at the sun?
Or maybe we can run lights off of diesel generators at night to keep the spice flowing.
Some still haven’t figured out how tracking solar arrays work, the ignorance is amusing. Solar when the sun shines and diesel when it doesn’t, still saves a significant amount of diesel fuel that has to be flown into some communities. Don’t let facts get in the way of your ignorance.
Denigrating solar because it can’t supply 100% of the load is like saying we should abandon all hydroelectric facilities because they can’t meet 100% of the load.
We can lead people to knowledge but it won’t make them think.
Personal insults are the last refuge of the ignorant.
cgh:
We cannot affect our.. ambient atmospheric dust content.
Why, shure we can! Shurely you’ve heard of the EP(in the)A’s plan to prevent farmers from raising dust whilst tilling their fields? Ya, it’s going to make food a mite more expensive, but it’s going to make life easier for asthmatic children or something.
Think of the children! Won’t you please think of the children?!
Haha. Thanks for branding yourself so, North, but it was unnecessary. Despite our supposed ignorance, everyone here already knew.
N of 60: “Some still haven’t figured out how tracking solar arrays work…”
Does nothing for planet curvature and atmospheric depth.
“…still saves a significant amount of diesel fuel…”
Perhaps. But since solar panels represent a net energy loss, given the cost of manufacture, it hardly matters. And the further north they are, the more useless they are, again given planetary curvature. And did you remember to add in the cost of moving them to remote off-grid locations? I thought not.
“Personal insults are the last refuge of the ignorant.”
Try reading your own posts again. Then come back and tell us how that’s working out for you.
KevinB, heh, yah the EPA’s no-dust tilling. Of course I’m only talking about the natural particle suspension, let alone the additional amount that agriculture or other things produce.
And yes, don’t we all get just a bit tired of the do-gooders endless sniveling about children? Of course the little brats are just a bit tougher than the snivelers would have us believe. After all, some of them even managed to live through the 13th century Black Death.
“Personal insults are the last refuge of the ignorant.”
Try reading your own posts again. Then come back and tell us how that’s working out for you.
I don’t make any personal references in my messages.
Unlike those who choose to identify themselves as ignorant by personal insults.
I refer to idiots in general, it’s never personal.
Try to grasp what personal means, use a dictionary if necessary.
North of 60
“”””Personal insults are the last refuge of the ignorant.””””
once you’v raised the STUPID flag………
For those not hobbled by preconceived ignorance, a Google search for off-grid solar in Canada / Alaska will be informative and enlightening. There are thousands of installations all across Canada and Alaska that have already paid off the initial investment, and no government subsidies were required or used.
Note the key words: “off-grid”. Solar panels make eminent sense when a small quantity of electric power is needed a long way from the grid. That’s why oil and gas producers routinely use them to run telemetry at wellhead installations. But if you have grid power available close by, you use that; it’s much cheaper.
But putting solar panels up on grid-powered homes makes no sense at all, and would never be done were it not for government-introduced market distortions.
note the key
gordinkneehill, thank you, finally some clarity. Solar is perfect in many applications, as one of my sons-in-law and a nephew would affirm, where sourcing the grid is not feasible.
Now some of the rest of you guys can quit throwing stones, picking fly sh*t out of pepper and going na,na,na,na,na.
a@c
Yeah I copied that from comments….if it’s a good enough practice for the IPCC, it’ll do nicely for you….
Sounds about right….Hydro, coal and nuclear are the base load sources….with NG turbines providing stand-by for demand and when the wind don’t blow and the sun sets.
Solar and wind are alleged to amount to 2% intermitantly.
cgh, thanks for the info. Since the realistic life expectancy is half what I thought, that would mean you never recoup the initial panel cost, let alone the other associated costs. No wonder solar-voltaic generation to the grid only exists if it is heavily subsidized by the taxpayer. If it does not work in Spain with its sunny climate and lower latitudes without subsidies how can it work in Canada?
climate change is blamed. not sure how to take this tragedy.Hold the DDT? hire more scientists?
http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/12/27/disappearing-mosquitoes-mystify-scientis?videoId=227514452
Excerpts of some of the salient info about PV, the amount of energy it
takes to manufacture, and the ecological impacts of disposal.
From: Dr. Lisa Dignard lisa.dignard@nrcan.gc.ca
Most PV modules are made from scrap silicon that the computer industry has
rejected. From that starting point a module pays back, in only 1.5 years,
the energy used to make it. If you were to start from quartz it would be
a lot longer because it takes so much energy to separate the oxygen from
the quartz.
From: Sander van Egmond Sander.van.Egmond@ams.nli.gl3
The energy impacts are often used as the main argument against solar
panels. It cost indeed energy to make solar panels. A way of
describing this is the energy payback time: the time it takes for the
panel to get it own energy back. The current panels (like those of
Shell and BP) have a energy paybacktime around 3 years. (in our
region, in more sunny countries it is less). Comparing this with a
lifetime of more then 20 years makes it a good balance. Mass
production will drop the energy payback time even more.
geez north of 60 , I have you at barely 8hrs sunlight right now , how is your tracker working ?
I see north of 60 more than 50% cloud covered and I know from solar panel charts, most of which stop at the US border that your solar efficiency near the december solstice is about 10%.
apparently ignorance is bliss, but one should not try to infect others with it.
Al, there was a study done by NRCan back in the 1970s on energy payback periods. Essentially how long does a faciilty take to pay back the energy cost of its construction, including all its materials. It was done in two parts, conventional generation first, renewables second.
I read through the first part years ago, and I kept a copy for many years. The engineering methodology was quite thorough; these were the days when NRCan (Energy Mines and Resources back then) did thorough and valuable research. The numbers went about like this: gas turbine, 8 months; coal fired station, 18 months; nuclear plant, 30 months. Hydro was all over the map of course, everywhere from 2-10 years, given variations in site quality, but given that a hydro station will last about a century it’s not terribly relevant.
They never published the renewables section. The results according to my informant were too embarrassing even back then. However, I was told that the results came out at wind, about 20 years, and the payback for solar was negative.
N60’s scrap silicon argument doesn’t matter really. Recycled only works on a relatively small scale. If solar is a large part of our generation system, then we’ll have many times more of it than available from scrap. It takes a LOT of energy to make solar panels, far more than just the silicon. This is a very high heat process.
His 1.5 years is fictional.
So since solar is negative and wind little better than its own life expectancy, neither of them make the slightest physics sense where grid is available. Basically, a solar panel means burning more coal somewhere else, and wind produces such a small net surplus as to be irrelevant.
Southern Railroad did an experiment in the 1980s. They put solar panels on top of cabooses to power the train rear lights. Store it by day, discharge from battery at night. Turned out the energy saved was less than the additional energy required for the extra weight of the panels.
I always like these actual technology demonstrations. No more BS. Real technology in real applications and then real, measureable results. None of this theoretical garbage the think tanks and ENGOs spout off about all the time.
I’m not sure what the great debate is here. Wouldn’t it make sense that those who want solar panels should go get solar panels and those that don’t want solar panels not get solar panels? Of course those who don’t want solar panels shouldn’t buy panels for those who want them anymore than those that want solar panels should pay those who don’t want solar panels not to have solar panels.
Joe, that sums it up in a nutshell. Simply end all the subsidies to the solar PV industry, and let it stand or fall on its own merits. And those who actually want solar panels might get them for fair market price instead of being outbid by greentards in Ontariariario who are buying them based on ludricous feed-in bonuses.
I’ve posted this here before…I’ll do so again:
Gov’t subsidies have done way more to HURT the development of solar technology than they ever have to help it. Many of these “solar” companies that are now dying were more like “subsidy-acquiring” companies. They spent much/all of their energies chasing taxpayers’ dollars instead of chasing improved effectiveness and reduced resistance on rare earth metals (kindly provided by China and Russia, of course).
In the long run, the solar companies that survive will produce useful, efficient products that have their place in the range of energy options that humans can choose from for various applications.
I’m betting on thin-film, and I have a few shekels on the line with that bet. But there are several horses in the race…it will be interesting to see which wins.
Simply end all the subsidies to the solar PV industry, and let it stand or fall on its own merits.
Sure, and at the same time end all subsidies for the fossil fuel industry as well. They certainly don’t need taxpayer funded subsidies with the windfall profits they’re getting by price gouging at the pumps.
fossil fuel and nuclear industries have received even more support over the years, and they continue to take from the public purse.
“All new energy industries – timber, coal, oil and gas, nuclear – have received substantial government support at a pivotal time in their early growth, creating millions of jobs and significant economic growth,” according to Nancy Pound, a managing partner with San Francisco-based venture capital firm DBL Investors.
DBL analyzed U.S. public subsidies of energy sources going back nearly 100 years. It found that the average annual federal subsidy for the highly profitable oil and gas sector was nearly $5 billion (U.S.) between 1918 and 2009. For nuclear, between 1947 and 1999, it was $3.5 billion.
The much more recent availability of renewable power subsidies has averaged $370 million annually since 1994 – a drop in the bucket by comparison. Even so, the fossil fuel and nuclear industries are screaming foul, conveniently ignoring the public handouts they have enjoyed for decades.
Tax deferrals and depreciation allowances are not subsidies.
North of 60
“subsidies for the fossil fuel industry as well”
BS – the supposed list of government subsidies in all cases involves writing off expenses for tax purposes, as do all businesses, and the reduction of royalties to encourage exploration during slumps. Another subsidy is the giving of research grants to universities for research. Compared to the hundreds of billions of taxes provided by the industry this has to be a joke. You forgot to add the value of their employees driving down public roads except around here they build their own roads – thousands of miles of them which everyone else uses.
Cherry picking winter performance of PV solar to support some misguided contention is exactly the sort of cherry picking of data the AGW aficionados use to push their propaganda. I don’t accept their skewed methodologies either, for all the same reasons.
When one looks at solar PV output for the whole year at northern installations, then the savings in diesel fuel [and $$$] over the year are obvious and substantial.
That’s called objective reporting it’s the basis of scientific research. It’s looking at the whole picture instead of just picking the pieces that support your preconceived misconceptions like the AGW crowd does.
Meanwhile there 60 you will be able to watch your hero, Force of Nature Suzookie, on a CBC show that has been advertised on every network for weeks at a huge cost to the Canadian taxpayer. This is a CBC special where little maggot Dave actually stands on a high hilltop in southern AB, and to show his disdain for us Albertans he actually puts out his hand in a stop fashion and STOPS THE WIND! He is that powerful and we all should be in awe of such a being in our midst. Everyone but the trolls here know Dave is a parasitic leftie, but the CBC stops at nothing when spending OPM.
Brad Pitt
“regarding solar-diesel tradeoff, No60 gets the personal insult treatment.”
Do you mean that he is entitled to some sort of immunity when he invents stories of subsidization of the oil business? Who the hell does he think he is? Michael Mann?
My accounting teacher taught me many years ago that tax deferral for a seven or eight year period was equivalent to not having to pay the tax at all.
Not an industry that I have seen that doesn’t see dozens of startups which get shaken down to two or three major players at maturity.
Something about the “creative destruction of capitalism” as I recall.
Will see what ends up with the solar industry. Some variant of Moore’s Law seems to be at at work. Used to hear the same bleating about the high cost/usefulness of PC’s 30 years ago and digital cameras 15 years ago. Certainly, the Chinese are going full blast with thin film solar.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-12/30/content_14354081.htm
Bob123 “My accounting teacher taught me many years ago that tax deferral for a seven or eight year period was equivalent to not having to pay the tax at all.”
Sorry you had an idiot as an accounting teacher. If the tax law permits everyone a particular deduction, are oil companies supposed to not take it? For general information – although financial statements use the misleading term “deferred taxes” it is an accounting fiction that reflects only a future tax liability in the mind of the accountant. It is usually calculated by applying the tax rate to the difference between amortization (depreciation) for accounting purposes and capital cost allowance (depreciation) for income tax purposes. If the accountant could choose amortization rate for tax purposes their would be no deferred taxes. Governments tend to think that they should set the rate. Business tend to amortize more slowly than government in an attempt to keep income higher as there are no tax consequences.