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The global solar power industry is in crisis. The industry blames widespread national subsidy cuts and over productivity; China, in particular, being widely vilified on the second count. However, the real cause of the solar industry’s malaise runs deeper, rooted, as it is, in the inescapable fact that, in terms of current technology, commercial scale solar energy remains a non-viable proposition. Wherever you look the solar power industry is mired in financial problems, all of which lead back to the (life support) of public subsidy, the impact of market-skewing regulations (creating the appearance of commercial viability) and, ultimately, protectionist trade...

The Obama administration has identified 285,000 acres of western public lands on which to create solar zones and develop the alternative energy source, but the plan faces opposition from environmentalists who say it will harm the planet. The blueprint for the solar energy zones calls for 17 large-scale projects that it predicts would create 5,900 megawatts of energy to provide electricity to nearly two million homes. “Developing America’s solar energy resource is an important part of President (Barack) Obama’s commitment to expanding American-made energy, increasing energy security and creating jobs,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement announcing...

China and the EU are facing a trade war after a group of European solar panel producers this week lodged an anti-dumping complaint, sparking immediate threats of retaliation. The complaint comes from Germany’s SolarWorld and a newly formed coalition of some 25 companies, according to spokesperson Milan Nitzschke, most of whom choose to remain anonymous “for fear of repression.” The companies accuse China of giving out “immense subsidies”, Nitzschke said, helping its own industry to gain market share in Europe by selling its products at artificially low prices—a practice known as dumping and illegal under international trade law. …

An improvement in the makeup of solar cells generates electricity while maintaining a 70% transparency, making it adaptable to homes and businesses to reduce energy costs. The polymer solar cell is light, flexible and cheap to produce. If this goes into mass production, it could spell the end of unsightly bulky roof mounted solar panels. "These results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications" Comments

Green Energy: Another day and another set of layoffs at a Department of Energy-backed solar company and an electric-car maker funded with stimulus dollars. Yet the President wants to double down on green energy. First Solar, a solar energy company that received a $1.46 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, announced Monday it will lay off 2,000 workers worldwide. In December, First Solar laid off 100 employees at a Santa Clara , Calif., plant. The DOE has committed the loan to a project in Riverside County, Calif., expected to create a whopping 15 permanent jobs and 550 construction...

This is the year that the fake energy provided by our fake president finally collide and go boom. So, get ready for a new round of green bankruptcies, as Europe trims back subsidies for solar companies and taxpayers lose their appetite for subsidizing green power. “The mini-bubble resulting from the rush to cash in on solar subsidies in European and U.S. markets is ending, as feed-in tariffs drop in Europe while loan guarantee and tax credit programs tighten up in the U.S.,” says a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch according to CNBC.com.Germany is dialing back subsidies for...

Securities law firms are lining up to get a piece of the action after a class action lawsuit was filed against federally subsidized First Solar, Inc., allegedly because the company failed to disclose the massive costs it was incurring due to defects in its solar panels, leading investors to believe the company’s stock was worth more than its actual value. The complaint, filed by the New York-based Pomerantz, Haudek, Grossman, & Gross law firm, claims that First Solar executives – including founder Michael Ahearn and former CEO Robert Gillette – “made false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed...

The solar shakeout continues as Abound Solar, a Colorado startup that aimed to take on industry leader First Solar with a $400 million federal loan guarantee to build photovoltaic panel factories, halts production and lays off 180 workers. In addition to the $400 million loan guarantee, Abound, which was founded in 2007, has raised $260 million in venture funding from investors that include Invus Group, Bohemian Companies, DCM, GLG Partners, Technology Partners, BP Alternative Energy and West Hill Investors. Whether Abound can compete in an increasingly tough solar market remains in question.

Hundreds of thousands of Germans are likely going without power simply because they can’t afford the bills, according to a North Rhine-Westphalian consumer organisation studying the problem.According to the NRW Consumer Centre, more than 300,000 people in the state were threatened with a power shut-off and 62,000 financially struggling families actually had their electricity shut off in 2010 alone, the last year for which firm statistics are available. Of the 58 companies the organisation surveyed, three-quarters reported that customers were having problems paying their bills, according to the organisation. “Price increases of around 15 percent for electricity and gas in...

6 hours ago 1 related article(s) Leave a CommentChancellor Angela Merkel, encouraging renewable energy to replace nuclear power stations that close by 2022, wants to chop in half annual solar installations after incentives for the industry pushed capacity past government targets. BusinessWeek via Google News

In the final days of Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s tenure, the state Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth trumpeted the success of green jobs created in the solar industry. “Total job creation projected of 21,592” the April 12, 2010, DELEG presentation claimed. Almost two years later, the large majority of those jobs never saw the light of day. Even if they had come to fruition, they would just be a small part of the entire Michigan economy, says James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. For example, the state of Michigan created 218,137...

We all love the idea of solar energy and there are plans for 26 solar projects in the deserts of California. One is underway, but there's a big problem -- the desert tortoise is in the way. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that over a thousand tortoises could be harmed by the construction. Advocates say the projects will bring much needed clean energy and jobs to the region and that there's a way to protect the tortoises.

In a year where Solyndra became the face of the solar industry’s chronic failures, even the holiday season could not prevent one last flurry of layoffs in 2011. The Mountain Enterprise (based in Frazier Park, Calif.) reported over the weekend that First Solar, Inc. – which the media sometimes identifies as the largest solar company in the world – laid off half its employees on Friday at its Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One project. The facility has been the subject of controversy in the local community over the effects it will have on land use, wildlife, and water usage....

Researchers have reduced the preparation time of quantum dot solar cells to less than an hour by changing the form to a one-coat quantum dot solar paint. How? Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles are coated with cadmium sulfide (CdS) or cadmium selenide (CdSe.) The composite nanoparticles, when mixed with a solvent, form a paste that can be applied as one-step paint to a transparent conducting material, which creates electricity when exposed to light. Although the paint form is currently about five times less efficient than the highest recorded efficiency for the multifilm form, the researchers predict that its efficiency can be...

Green activists, take note – for Australia fully to embrace solar power, Canberra would have to spend $100 billion, with photovoltaic cells to generate the electricity covering an area twice the size of Sydney in order to replace Australia’s indigenous inexpensive coal-fired power plants with renewable energy sources. This is not an insignificant figure, as Australian coal currently generates 80 percent of Australia's electrical energy output. The grim statistic was contained in the recent report, “Keeping the Home Fires Burning,” issued by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. So, who is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute? Tree-hugging, wallaby and kangaroo friendly...

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

A solar power station in space measuring several kilometres in length may sound like something from a science fiction film, but the reality is that this idea could well be operational and supplying much of the worlds energy requirements within less than 20 years. Space based solar power stations are not a new idea, in fact they have been researched since the 1970’s. Back in 2009 the Californian state regulators granted approval to the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Solaren Corp. to start creating a solar based power plant in space. Solaren, founded by veterans of Hughes Aircraft, Boeing...

Paul Krugman may be a Nobel Prize–winning economist, but his most recent column in the New York Times, which condemns hydraulic fracturing and praises solar energy, displays an astounding disinterest in numbers and woeful ignorance of the facts. Without providing any sources, Krugman writes, “We know that [fracturing] produces toxic (and radioactive) wastewater that contaminates drinking water; there is reason to suspect, despite industry denials, that it also contaminates groundwater.” Huh? Over the past 60 years, the process of hydraulic fracturing has been used more than 1 million times on oil and gas wells here in the U.S. If fracturing...

Egypt currently has a total electricity capacity of about 23,500 megawatts, which the government hopes to increase to 58,000 megawatts by 2027. A prime potential element in increasing this electrical output? Renewables. One might think, given Egypt’s climate, solar? Wrong again – wind power, which currently contributes less than 1 percent to Egypt’s energy mix. In 2003 Egypt had its wind potential assessed and published a wind atlas, which found that with wind speeds of 7-10 meters per second, almost the entire nation was ideal for wind power installations, with the country’s best areas being along the Gulf of Suez...

BEIJING — The Chinese authorities have suspended production at a solar panel factory after protests by residents who blame the plant for fouling the air and water... Village residents have complained about what they called toxic smokestack emissions and about factory wastewater that they say has killed a large number of fish...