Conflicting goals often leads to the worst of both outcomes. That’s what’s happening with solar panels and EVs.
SunPower Went Bankrupt Despite Huge Subsidies
The Wall Street Journal reports Another Green Energy Subsidy Bust
The 39-year-old SunPower is the latest solar rooftop business to fail this year. Others include Titan Solar Power and Sunworks. SunPower cited a “severe liquidity crisis caused by a sharp decline in demand in the solar market and SunPower’s inability to obtain new capital.” The IRA boosted solar subsidies, so why has demand fallen?
One reason is higher interest rates have made rooftop panel leasing less attractive to customers. Some states like California have scaled back programs that pay customers to send solar power they don’t use to the grid. Such subsidies raise the cost of power for people who don’t have panels. In California the grid is often overloaded with solar power.
The cost of panels has also increased amid overall inflation and President Biden’s tariffs, which were backed by domestic manufacturers and Democrats in Congress. Solar installers warned the tariffs would hurt their industry, and they have. Jobs that Mr. Biden’s subsidies giveth, his tariffs and inflation taketh.
Offshore wind projects are also getting scratched because of rising costs and interest rates that make them uneconomic even with subsidies. BP last year wrote down its U.S. offshore wind business by $1.1 billion. Wind developer Orsted last autumn announced $4 billion in write-downs after walking away from two projects off the New Jersey coast.
BP recently scaled back a planned U.S. biofuels investment. Shell this year said it would close its hydrogen refueling stations in California as few people are buying fuel-cell vehicles, and subsidies for hydrogen production have fallen. Talk about stranded assets.
Tariffs and Subsidies Backfire
Biden only wants clean energy if it every piece of it is made in the USA. That means higher costs, even with subsidies.
I commented on this in advance as it was easy to see.
The attempt to force production of solar panels in the US resulted in prices so high that few wanted them.
Three Results
- No noticeable increase in US production
- Lost jobs from installers
- No furthering of clean energy goals
Ford is Losing $100,000 on Every EV
Despite subsidies, Here’s the Staggering Amount of Money Ford Loses on Each EV It Makes
- A report says Ford is losing more than $100,000 on each EV.
- Ford is reducing spending on EV plans by $12 billion.
- Ford is estimated to lose $5.5 billion from its Model e division in 2024.
You either want a faster rollout of EVs and clean energy projects or you don’t.
Insisting companies use only made-in-USA components when the infrastructure is not in place and demand is low leads to losses like these.
Unfortunately, we are in for tariff wars no matter who wins the election.
“Some states like California have scaled back programs that pay customers to send solar power they don’t use to the grid. Such subsidies raise the cost of power for people who don’t have panels.”
In short, the question is: Who is going to pay for the solar panels? And any other energy transition measures that need to be taken?
In an ideal world, people would recognise that KWh of electricity are a form of money and solar panels ought to pay for themselves several times over. The issue is that, for that idea to actually work, you’d need to either (a) have an industrial ecosystem in the USA that isn’t hollow and therefore can manufacture solar panels from scratch, or alternatively (b) have an international trade system that isn’t heavily skewed in favor of the dollar, so that the relative prices of wages, electricity and imported stuff would give price signals that people could easily interpret.
Since those two things are absent, electricity and imported stuff seem cheap, when they should not be, given the actual state of American industry. Without high prices for electricity, the need for an energy transition is anything but clear, and subsidies are required to convince people to do the blindingly obvious, and the fact that solar panels are also cheap is not enough. People worry about what’s expensive, but doing things about what’s cheap is a matter of personal choice.
On top of everything, the energy transition has become a political issue. So everything indicates that people will have to start having some actual power cuts (or worse, lose their jobs and not even realise it’s because of hidden inflation issues) before they take some serious action. And by then, everything will be more expensive and the energy transition will be even harder to do, and they will wish they made the effort earlier when it was cheaper.
These companies go bust because no one wants this crap. End of story. No word salad about tariffs and made in America will change the demand. Why is Ford losing so much money on each vehicle? If you want an EV then buy one. Don’t mandate or otherwise force people into these glorified golf carts with leather seats.
“Biden only wants clean energy if it every piece of it is made in the USA.”
Biden, Trump Obama, Bush, Reagan, JFK….
All only wants anything at all, if it artificially rewards incompetent nothings who focuses on idiots-only acts like lobbying politicians, rather than on the hard work of competitively building and creating anything.
It’s ALL about handing loot to incompetents with no other talent in life, than sucking up to the totalitarian state. Nothing else. Competent who; if left alone; has the brainpower to compete; are sacrificed left and right, solely to enrich the halfwits in tight orbit around The Fed and Junta.
Wow ! What’s it say when a single company can lose $$$$$ Five and a Half, Billion $ – pay it’s people, reward it’s executives – and stay in business! “Dream on little entrepreneur, dream on”. Surely some “Green” will be coming your way 💲✔️🤔 – any day now!
Wasn’t SunPower investigated for swindling customers in a NPR newsstory?
Dominion Energy in Virginia hasn’t gotten the message that offshore wind investment is a Bad investment. In addition to a huge project off the Virginia capes they have bought into a North Carolina off shore wind project… and users of Dominion Energy electricity are on the hook for the cost of these projects….
Neither has China. They just keep adding more wind and solar each year than the rest of the world combined. They currently have 340 GW of wind capacity vs 140 GW in the USA.
They also have 4X the population of the U.S.
Lol! How does that change wind as a Bad investment?
China because of the type of government it has, is allowed to have investments that aren’t profitable. In other words they can invest in Wind and Solar that wouldn’t be economically viable in the US.
It’s also possible China has much better wind and solar generation potential than the US does due to geographic factors. I have no idea whether or not that’s true, just saying it could easily explain why they are investing more in that area.
One of the reasons they have better locations is because they can, and do, put wind turbines and solar panels where ever they work best. I don’t thhink we will ever see turbines on top of Mt Rainier or solar panels at Gettysburg, no mater how efficent that would be.
Both are possible answers. But neither is likely correct.
Here are 5 alternate widely accepted reasons :
Environment: China’s smog problem is both a health and productivity issue. Increasing renewables and decreasing coal is a stated goal of the Chinese govt
Economic Growth and Global Competitiveness: China has been successful in becoming the dominant player in the manufacture of renewable energy. Which contributes $1.6 trillion US to their economy
Energy Security: China does not want to remain dependant on foreign imports of coal, oil and gas. Better to be self-sufficient in energy. The best way to do that is through renewables, hydro and nuclear.
Sustainable Development: China is more focused on the long term. Short term profitability is not a concern.
Lots of businesses can be viable when your workforce is twice as productive and your managerial class 10x so; and you pay market based rent of a buck per 1000 sq feet instead of arbitrarily junta-imposed usury transfers-to-idiots of 100 times that; and can get away with a regulatory compliance/lobbying/bribing budget of $50/year instead of $500million; and don’t have to waste more than $10/year,instead of a billion, on braindead, mindless ambulance chasers nor the “insurance” “required” to ensure the deadweight, negative-value-add ambulance chasers has “deep pockets” of pure loot available in exchange for doing nothing whatsoever of value.
The Congo nor Venezuela does not have a viable solar nor wind industry neither. America has a lot more in common with them wrt industrial capabilities, than it does with China. 60 years ago the situation was inverted: “We” had the industrial and institutional might to go to the moon. While China was far behind. Now the tables have turned. “We” are now as far behind “them”, as they were behind “us” back then. Rendering it completely pointless to even try making a comparison.
It’s part of the great deception China’s economy can keep expanding, much like China’s vacant, defaulting condo and high rise apartment projects.
America auto companies put their money into stock buybacks to prop up share price instead of the future. Their demise is their making. Both sides are equally guilty of tariffs but I’m not fan of either self interested party.
Everyday the sun comes up. Everyday 1/3 of the energy is absorbed by the plants.
Everyday 1/3 is lost to space. 1/3 is in play.
Simple, and tidy, but incorrect. Thirty percent of the sun’s energy that strikes earth is reflected back into space. The remaining 70% gets through.
Of the 70% that gets through, 20% is absorbed by the atmosphere, 50% by the oceans and land.
However, when it comes to global warming, 90% of the excess heat has been stored in the oceans, while only 10% remains in the atmosphere.
Your big error is plants. Plants only absorb around 1% of the sun’s energy that gets through. And only a small portion of that 1% is used for photosynthesis; which is only 0.1% to 0.3% of the sun’s energy reaching the planet. Certainly not 1/3.
How much has Jeff Green lost on his Tesla Trade — you know … the one where he buys used Teslas because nobody else wants them… so they are cheap…
Jeff… what is your exit strategy…. how do you monetize the trade and make a profit?
Tell us your secret!!!!
The tariffs are a small part of this.
The much larger part for residential solar is utilities reducing payments to solar owners. Long story, but basically solar saturates the market. The first unit of solar can be highly compensated without harming others. Each additional unit saturates the market until the next unit is completely worthless.
On the utility scale solar side, business is still booming. 2023 was a record year, 2024 likely will set new records.
I DO NOT NEED HUGE income tax credits
it’s why I do not have govt subsidized solar
also when I looked at it – $50k for 20k rooftop
I HAD TO HOOKUP TO grid without cutoff when power is out
WHY DO I NEED SOLAR IS POWER GOES OUT AND I HAVE solar power I CANNOT USE
F. code if I do solar(and I have some) it is for supplement to my GAS GENERATORS
I’ll hotwire into panel few critical circuits(HVAC, KITCHEN, HEAT)
rest of city can stay dark while I bath in ELECTRIC – off grid
and I’ll also put in cutoff switch for solar(and WILL NOT INFORM CITY/ELECTRIC)
Ten Years ago, I was at a meeting, when a true expert said that no non-dependable source of electric power (specifically wind, solar and chemical batteries) can provide more than 10% of supply, without serious risks to grids successful operations. Since that time I have never seen or heard any data that would dispute that conclusion.
Mish, no one – – not a SINGLE WORD on “TARIFFS are a TAX ON AMERICANS!”
I have actually asked regular folks, in my circle: “WHO PAYS THESE TARIFFS?”
ANSWER: “CHINA! They get what they deserve!”
And then the American consumer pays for the increased price unless domestic manufacturers can produce a comparable product at a competitive price. Currently they cannot even with a subsidy and regulatory support. American consumers end up getting what they deserve.
if it gets me cheap solar panels(now that no one can install)
excellent – putting in my NON-city solar with cutoff -electric company can go f themselves
I also have gas generators to supplement outages
Many of these “new energy” companies are obvious losers and short candidates; however, the gov’t ability to provide irrational subsidies exceeds my ability remain solvent.
my son last month got $300 electric bill(has solar)
found out inverter went out
solar company went bankrupt(like most) and he had to pay new one(to sign up) and then pay for inverter)
so $1k later he now gets his solar back for local electric company
One more misallocation corrected
No mention of our rulers insisting on no ICE vehicles at all by 2035. Such a “No” policy cold turkey would be a great way to achieve “Net Zero”, but our rulers don’t have the political guts to do it. But I suppose we can excuse them: imposing such a decrease on the economy and society without the public consenting to it could lead to the public drawing the rulers. Maybe with quartering added as well. [drawing = medieval execution by sword, spilling the condemned person’s guts.]
Tariffs helped make the Great Depression so ‘Great’. Question: Once we were in it, were we better off because of the decreased inequality and the decreased consumerism?
First. No one has said “no ice vehicles at all by 2035”. How did you come up with that gem? A “few” political jurisdictions in the world have tried to implement “no ice vehicle SALES by 2035”. Which is very different. And as I often say. Mandates will change as they become impossible to meet.
Mish wrote earlier
8-20-2023
Clean Energy Exploitations and the Death Spiral of an Auto Industry
https://mishtalk.com/economics/clean-energy-exploitations-and-the-death-spiral-of-an-auto-industry/
“As the future is fast approaching, virtually all the automobile manufacturers, through government mandates to reduce the emissions of their fleet of vehicles, are going all-in to only manufacture EV’s in the coming years.”
Many people say mandates will change as they become impossible to meet. And there are also plenty of Trofim Lysenko-s among the zealots setting policy. There is no telling how much destruction those zealots can do to our lives, or to the Dutch agricultural sector or other parts of ours and their economies in pursuit of their aims, before they are removed.
Yep. Exactly as I said. And nothing at all like you said. Thanks for proving my point.
Government (the US) is trying to mandate that US manufacturers eventually produce only zero emission vehicles by 2035. Nothing about banning all the gas vehicles already out there. Which is what you were saying: “No ICE vehicles at all by 2035”
<<<<<<Mandates will change as they become impossible to meet.<<<<<
You make it sound like one day there is a well understood mandate seeming to work and then the next day it is removed because of the obvious flaws. That isn’t how it works in real life.
The proponents of e.v. don’t care if the mandate works They want almost everybody out of cars regardless of the propulsion system. And if that takes a lot of currently unpopular social engineering to make it happen, that’s not only acceptable but is even advantageous. That will provide the means to inject a lot of other virtuous goals into the new, properly adjusted society.
Mandates change frequently when they prove impractical or impossible. After Fukushima many countries decided to close their nuclear reactors by certain target dates; and to stop building new nuclear plants. Yet, many reactors remain running, well past the target dates as they couldn’t replace the electricity being generated in time. And some countries have reversed course and started building new reactors again. Including Japan.
When the IRA was announced I decided to follow 20 different renewable energy companies in anticipation of them getting a leg up on foreign competition. I purchased 5 or 10 shares of each one, and began to follow their results. Only one winner out of the 20; LIN. Several are out of business or on death’s door.
In comparison, my oil and gas investments are still doing great. The companies are all mostly following the same strategy; spend minimum capex to maintain or slowly grow production. Use huge excess cash flows to pay down or even pay off debt. Self finance as much as possible without expanding debt so you don’t get cut off at the knees by lenders who are becoming unwilling to lend to oil companies. Commit to returning excess free cash flow to shareholders through dividends, special dividends, and share buybacks.
The world is demanding MORE energy every year. If renewables are unable to supply enough of it, we will keep using MORE oil and gas every year for a long while yet.
Oh yeah. How is that Falling Knife portfolio doing?
“You either want faster rollout of EV’s and clean energy production or you don’t”.
I don’t.
We need ALL forms of energy. Even renewable. Oil and gas won’t last forever. Though it will last long enough for me to profit handsomely.
Papa, all of us will be long gone.
Yep. But I’m not talking about zero oil. As oil production “eventually” begins a long, slow decline, we will need “something” to replace it. After all, energy demand continues to grow every year. We will always want MORE of it. I favor ALL types.
Yes but it whatever it is needs to be more dense than renewables. Whatever it is, it won’t be windmills.
Nope. When the lights go out, no one cares about how dense the source is. As long as it gets the lights back on.
Nuclear is as dense as it gets right now, but no one is building nuclear plants because it can’t be done profitably. So much for density.
There is a whole ‘nother topic about that titled ‘Peak Oil’. One of its chief spokesmen is James Kunstler. He has a blog on the internet. The sad truth is that mostly there isn’t something, or anything, to replace oil gas and coal as they are depleted, and that energy use will have to markedly decrease.
Already in Britain they are talking about 15 minute cities, where everything that you need is within walking distance. Much of that a throwback to 140 years ago.
We should also know that when Big Industrial Agriculture fails, for lack of energy to operate it, then a large share of our population will have to migrate out of the cities and become peasants. Hopefully without the Kampuchean killing fields.
We don’t need any renewables in the U.S. None whatsoever! Our country has enough coal, oil, and gas to last hundreds of years.
We certainly have lots of coal.
Oil; not so much. We are pumping 13.3 Mbpd or 4.85 Billion barrels per year. Of course, every year we find a little more. We were down to just 20 billion barrels of reserves when fracking began. This helped boost our oil reserves to 50 bb. But the fracking revolution will be done in a decade or so. Oh: and we use 20 Mbpd.
Here are the countries with the largest proved oil reserves:
Venezuela: 300 billion barrels
Saudi:267 bb
Iran:207 bn
Canada:164 bb
Iraq: 145 bb
UAE: 113 bb
Kuwait: 102 bb
Russia:80 bb
USA: 55 bb
Libya: 48 bb
Nothing like huffing poisonous fumes that poison you, your family, your friends and neighbors every time you drive that ICE vehicle. There’s a reason people aren’t allowed to smoke in Hospitals, Airplanes, Schools, Restaurants, Offices and most other workplaces. It kills other people and makes them sick.
Same exact thing applies for ICE vehicles spewing poisonous gases, Volatile Organic Compounds and other deadly stuff around any major population centers or roadways.
People cheering for companies that slowly poison and kill them is nearly as dumb as smoking.
Leaving aside the ecological damage from wide scale mining of lithium and cobalt and shipping it around the world, EV’s are only feasible with radically expanded nuclear power. I’m fine with that. Are you – or do think we can power the world with wind and solar?
Fortunately, in the last 70 years or so, the world has reduced a lot of the pollution that comes from burning fossil fuels in all manner (not just vehicles). In 2020, new rules came into force to reduce sulphur in shipping fuel, which has drastically reduce emissions from ships at sea.
So the air is getting cleaner all over the world.
The downside to cleaner air is that this actually contributes to global warming. As we reduce particulates, we are allowing more sunlight to reach the planet, and with the ever increasing amount of GHGs in the atmosphere, this has added to our warming world. But we can breathe better!
I will bet you by your very existence emit assorted fumes and pollutants as well…
Which provides exactly zero excuse for me emitting massive amounts of nerve gas downtown Manhattan for no reason. Nor ditto any other toxin.
OK, David, RIGHT NOW, commit to us that you will no longer use:
THERE ARE HUNDREDS of items in your home around you RIGHT NOW that contain plastics.
Plastics are sourced from???? YEP: OIL.
I find Green Groopies(like Dave) to be lacking when it comes to logic
Could it be a genetic defect…
Dave – did your parents share your views? what about your grand parents?
Surely you are aware that fossil fuels – mainly coal and gas… is the source of the power for an EV battery.
Perhaps you might want to revise your comment?
Dave’s EV is powered by a treadmill-walking unicorn that Dave feeds with organic millet that he grows in his condo windowsill.
“Same exact thing applies for ICE vehicles spewing poisonous gases,”
Gasoline cars are VERY clean by now. Even after a decade of wear and decay. (Even if still less so than they could be, were it not for the #dumbage fear of sodabubbles as some form of evil hobgoblin driving regressions such as direct injection.) On top of that cleanness of the combustion itself; hybrids take total cleanliness up yet another significant notch per city/suburb driven mile.
Such that, by now, particulates arising from the road/tire interface, is a bigger problem in dense areas than combustion residue. For modern GAS cars. This CAN be improved by electric vehicles; IF they are built, as they can be for many uses; to be lighter than competing ICE vehicles.
Electric rental kickscooters being the absolute homerun example (which; par for the course for the #Dumbage of course, is too diffimecult to comprehend how to pilot for the undifferentiated mass of subliterate garbage comprising the made-money-from-my-home classes, and is hence getting banned in the genuine idiotopias comprised solely of genuine idiots world over.)
But even for retards too inteoectually limited to balance on 2 feet and/or wheels: City cars can be made lighter and cheaper if efficiently made with BEV drivelines, than with a clean burning, modern ICE driveline. Lighter car, along with lower speeds and lower acceleration, does reduce wear on roads and tires. Hence reduces what is the most problematic source of pollution in the exact environments where pollution matters.
But yes: That does require garage space to keep the city car, AND the long distance car required for a few trips per month or year. Something which the made-money-from-my-home pure retardocrats has been told to mindlessly regurgitate is “baaaad for my poppeti vaijues!!!! And, being retarded and nothing else; they will off course keep regurgitating just that. Heck,even believing in it, assuming such feeble minds can be assumed to engage in such sophisticated intellectual expressions as “belief.” And, now that The Fed has ensured that exactly such subliterates have been handed control of all wealth; and hence power and influence; in America: The Juntas jackboot regime will, of course, do as told and prevent people from building anything as rational as that. Hence ensuring America will continue to remain a worse country to be born in than Venezuale, for yet more decades of our never ending #Dumbage.
Watch as they ask what the source of electricity is for the EVs… hilarious stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE