Posted on 03/20/2016 5:20:30 PM PDT by upchuck
If you still own shares in solar energy it’s probably a sign that you’ve been in the sun too long: the sector is tanking – and deservedly so – as reality dawns that this is a Potemkin industry, an Enron of a con-trick, whose survival depends not on the energy it generates but on the subsidies it squeezes from the taxpayer.
Consider Exhibit A: the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the California desert. This $2.2 billion project, heavily backed with federal grants by the Obama administration, is absolutely brilliant at killing birds. According to some estimates it accounts for 28,000 a year (the workers at the plant nickname them “streamers” because they fall from the sky like burning comets), though the company denies this. What it’s not so good at is the job it was designed for: generating electricity.
It has failed to produce sufficient quantities of its exorbitantly expensive power (it charges between $135 and $200 per megawatt hour; the market rate for conventional electricity is $35 per megawatt hour) as required by its contract with PG&E Corp and may have to shut down unless bailed out by the California state authorities.
Exhibit B is the solar energy firm Abengoa, now on the verge of the biggest corporate collapse in Spanish history, after the Spanish government decided to turn off the subsidy tap essential to its survival.
Announcing government support for clean-energy projects, President Obama hailed a Spanish company, saying its new solar technology would supply tens of thousands of American homes with renewable power, while spurring local employment.
“It’s good news,” Mr. Obama said in 2010, “that we’ve attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
absolutely.
I don’t understand atomic or nuclear power well at all, but it seems that should have taken over long ago.
Seems like so much, well...energy there.
Thank God for fracking.
Without them, we’d be paying outlandish prices for gas, oil, and electricity.
Now there's an oxymoron. "Industry" is a synonym for hard, useful work. We should probably call it The Solar Scam or Solar Socialist Security.
Enviro weenies don’t like it, because it involves engineers rather than FEEEEELings.
They don’t like anything that works, even if it meets their stated objectives. Their true objectives must be other than they’ve stated.
I wonder what the energy content of the average enviro-weenie is.......
Practicality is defined various ways, just get the gummint out of the picture and let the free market decide.
This is something Obama didn't count on, he was hoping this solar fiasco would do this country in faster.
Well as I read in USA Today:
Republicans talked a lot about “drill baby drill” but it was Obama that made it happen.”
The sad part is a lot of LIVs will believe that...
Ivanpah SEGS was built with capital secured by a federal loan guarantee. Of the $2.2 billion total cost, about 70% is from the guaranteed loan. If the company goes under, the taxpayer is on the hook.
Is it worth it to have solar panels put on your house? I get solicited all the time to put panels on my roof. Some companies out there offer to install them with no upfront cost - you just make a monthly payment that is offset by the reduction in your electrical bill and they would also purchase any unused energy, lowering your bill further. That's their pitch anyhow. Solar City is the pushiest and I see their trucks all over Connecticut.
Sounds kind of iffy to me. Does anybody out there have experience with this? Only reason I'd consider it is because I always wanted to some redundancy so that I'm not dependent on the grid.
BUMP! Trump is planning to do just that. Free markets rule. Cash is king.
Bump. Atomic power is way under used, IMHO. Lots of advantages, little risk.
Do a lot of research on Solar City before going with them. Their business model is such that all benefits like tax subsidies go to them. You are just a place to put their panels. Solar may make sense for you, but I’d do a lot of research on what needs to be bought and the costs involved. I would especially find someone who has bought the same equipment and has real world data.
Amen. Perhaps fracking was God showing us a different way?
i don't think it was ever really alive, more like Frankenstein's monster it was artificially created and kept alive by backroom deals and taxpayer dollars, now it's time for the torches and pitchforks
Want efficient solar power? Plant a garden.
Energy is always tied to the ratio of the amount you get out to the amount you have to put in to generate it. If that ratio is sitting on 1 which is what most renewable energy achieves with the best estimates, then you are wasting time and resources to do it. Somehow, the delusional environmental types ignore this and double down on renewable energy by gutting traditional energy before they even find out if the renewable energy can work. Politics, as usual, trump logic and reason until you run out of other peoples money.
Solar panels are a scam. Don’t do it!!!
You have to sign a personal note to pay for the panels. No lender will roll that note into a mortgage. House is real property, panels are personal property like a car. You house now has solar cancer.
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