Category: Alternative Subsidy

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors

Alternative Subsidy Khmer Noir 10 Comments

So cheap and efficient only the rich can afford it: South Africa’s Solar Boom Is Worsening Inequality

If you want something done, sometimes you just have to do it yourself. That’s the attitude taken by many South African households and companies as they invest in alternative-energy sources to avoid blackouts and soaring electricity tariffs. This movement has clear winners and losers.

Fed up with weathering the worst power crisis on record as state-owned utility Eskom struggles with debts and aging coal-fired power plants, businesses are finding ways to generate their own electricity. Most recently, Africa’s biggest mobile phone group, MTN, announced that it’ll spend 1.9 billion rand ($101 million) by the middle of the year on generators, batteries and renewable energy.

Being free of the creaky grid, which shuts down periodically in what’s known locally as load shedding, could help South Africa’s economy get back on track after being derailed by rolling blackouts. Consumers are saving money on their steeply rising energy bills and regaining a sense of control over their power access. It’s also reduced the severity and frequency of load shedding, as demand for Eskom-generated power drops.

But the full picture is more complicated.

“You didn’t receive any grants? That’s weird.”

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult 14 Comments

It’s ArriveScam for EV’s.

B.C.’s three opposition parties united this week to demand the auditor general probe a so-called “kickback scheme” involving one of the companies responsible for administering millions of dollars of government grants to clean technology projects.

BC United, BC Green and BC Conservative MLAs voted for an independent probe of accounting firm MNP, which the government has hired to administer at least two grant programs, but which is also facing allegations it demanded so-called “success fees” of as high as 20 per cent of the grant amount to help firms win money.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 25 Comments

EV startup Canoo

… paid $1.7 million for CEO Tony Aquila’s private jet bills, twice its total revenue last year. According to its earnings report released this week, Canoo lost $302 million in 2023 – but it’s apparently been champagne and caviar for its top executive.

Canoo, which hasn’t turned a profit as a public company, brought in $886,000 last year in revenue, according to its full-year earnings report filed Monday. But, as TechCrunch first cited, Aquila’s hefty travel bill included “air travel expenses for either, at our option, first-class airfare or the business use of his private jet,” the company said in the filing.”

Related: HAHAHAHAHA

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 17 Comments

Start spreading the news…

The cost to consumers of two offshore wind projects expected to support New York’s self-imposed climate goals has more than doubled from their original estimates, which were high to begin with. Developers had threatened to cancel their offshore wind projects without higher prices, citing inflation, supply chain challenges and rising costs driven by the pandemic, Bidenomics and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The agreements, which still need to be finalized, are expected to keep 1,700 megawatts of offshore wind on schedule for 2026. New York wants to reach 70 percent renewable energy by 2030, but to reach that goal—the highest renewable goal in the nation for 2030, the state will need to dump huge costs on its utility customers.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords

AI Alternative Subsidy Drill, Baby, Drill 22 Comments

“Recalculating”…

It takes massive amounts of energy to power the data center brains of popular artificial intelligence models. That demand is only growing. In 2024, many of Silicon Valley’s largest tech giants and hoards of budding, well-funded startups have (very publically) aligned themselves with climate action–awash with PR about their sustainability goals, their carbon neutral pledges, and their promises to prioritize recycled materials. But as AI’s intensive energy demands become more apparent, it seems like many of those supposed green priorities could be jeopardized.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy CreepyJoeBiden Cronies 48 Comments

Electric cars will decide the outcome of the American election

If Joe Biden loses to Donald Trump this November, he can apportion blame towards his administration’s many unforced errors, from the botched Afghanistan bug-out to the mess at the southern border. But the biggest blunder of all has yet to fully reveal itself: the ill-conceived drive to push electric vehicles into making up over three-fifths of all car purchases by the 2030s.

Just last week the administration issued a draconian mileage requirement, one of many ‘nudge’ policies attempting to usher in an all-electric future. Replacing a massive $3 trillion industry with a singular technology represents a severe economic threat under any circumstances, but ramming through changes just as EV sales are slowing is nothing less than madness.

Related.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors

Alternative Subsidy 6 Comments

As go the subsidies, so go the subsidized.

Massive layoffs, production cuts, project delays and cancellations. As China’s world-leading solar manufacturers grapple with excess capacity and a fierce price war, the industry looks poised to enter a period of brutal consolidation.

There have been no reports of major bankruptcies yet. But Longi Green Energy Technology Co.’s warning in May that more than half the nation’s solar companies could go under no longer seems far-fetched.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 28 Comments

They ran out of stupid rich people faster than forecast.

A new study is claiming that automakers lose an average of $6,000 for every $50,000 electric vehicle they sell. Boston Consulting Group, an American-based global management consulting firm that issued the report, said the figure accounts for customer tax credits — painting a rather bleak picture for the future of EVs.

However, this was attributed largely to the fact that automakers had spent so much upfront developing electrification. Assuming production continues and the public ends up buying them in meaningful numbers, EV profitability should improve over time. Of course, we’ve been hearing that for well over a decade at this point.

While segment growth has improved, it’s not happening at the pace industry leaders expected. Five years ago, automakers assumed electric vehicles would reach parity with combustion vehicles by roughly 2025. But none of the major markets are on pace to hit those targets.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 37 Comments

Vancouver’s all-electric vehicle was unveiled Dec. 4, with VFRS Chief Karen Fry referring to it as a “reinvention of the fire truck.”

The department said the truck is smaller and more maneuverable than a traditional truck, and can go 100 kilometres on a single charge.

At a cost of $1.8 million, it’s $300,000 to $500,000 more than a new diesel engine, but Fry said there are huge environmental and health benefits to an electric truck, as diesel fumes are a known carcinogen.

Trudeau did not say when the truck will return to service.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 13 Comments

Hertz swaps out its CEO as it looks to revitalize business after failed EV push.

Hertz’s stock has struggled recently, falling 27% to start the year and 53% over a 12-month basis. The rental-car company recently made a pivot, saying it would downside its electric-vehicle fleet by about a third as customer demand didn’t live up to expectations and the vehicles were proving too costly to repair. Hertz emerged from bankruptcy in 2021.

Shares were down about 3% in Friday’s late trading.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords

AI Alternative Subsidy Tech 17 Comments

Amid the EV’s, AI and Bitcoins, Puff The Magical Thinking Dragon comes home to roost: America Is Running Out Of Power

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.

In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction. Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma.

This may be behind the WaPo paywall, so I’ve dropped more in the extended entry.

Related: Canada’s declining electricity abundance
Continue reading →

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 11 Comments

Fisker may not make it through 2024;

Fisker said that there is “substantial doubt” that it will have enough money to make it through the year, the company said in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. As such, it’s embarked on a cost-cutting spree, laying off 15 percent of employees, while casting around for more investment. Fisker said it’s “in discussions with an existing noteholder about potentially making an additional investment in the company.”

“We are aware that the industry has entered a turbulent, and unpredictable period,” Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker said in a statement. “With that understanding and taking the lessons learned from 2023, we have put a plan in place to streamline the company as we prepare for another difficult year.”

Y2Kyoto: State Of Anorexia Envirosa

Alternative Subsidy Drill, Baby, Drill San Andreas Y2Kyoto 14 Comments

Bloomberg;

Using crops to make diesel involves an inherent trade-off between the fuel’s climate-friendly benefits and preserving enough supplies to keep food prices in check.

Finding the balance can be tricky. That’s the challenge facing California as it debates a potential revamp of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

The frenzy to cash in on credits for lower emissions has triggered a surge in renewable diesel, with state supplies reaching records every quarter since 2020.

The escalation has led environmentalists to call for a limit on crop-based fuels, arguing it’s necessary to ensure the program doesn’t worsen hunger. The biofuel is often made from soybean oil, a staple for cooking.

“California is diverting soybean oil from food markets into its fuel market, and that’s surprising and troubling,” said Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists who studies the impacts of fuel policy.

And there’s a weird domino effect of using soy oil to make renewable diesel, which some critics say blunts the climate benefits.

As more soy oil goes into diesel, demand climbs for palm oil, a controversial commodity. The European Union wants to phase out its use in fuel production to curb deforestation.

California’s regulatory board recently postponed a March 21 hearing on the fuel standard.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 21 Comments

WSMB4;

When a Tesla crashed and burst into flames in Scottsdale, it reignited on the tow truck. On a California highway, it took firefighters three hours and 6,000 gallons of water to stop an Electric Vehicle (EV) from burning. “Electric vehicle fires have become really a pain for us,” said Dave Folio of the Scottsdale Fire Department.

EV fires are dangerous, costly, and full of unknowns. “We’re still figuring out ways to deal with them; Everything from putting them in a dumpster and loading sand on top of them and possibly even burying them in some cases,” Folio said. “Right now, we’re all scrambling to come up with a better way.”

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