China Solar Makers Face ‘Suicidal’ Prices on Excess Output - New England Patriots Forums

***patsfan13*** · 11-26-2011, 11:08 AM

China Solar Makers Face ‘Suicidal’ Prices on Excess Output - Businessweek

Quote:

Losses for China’s largest solar manufacturers, including Suntech Power Holdings Co. and JA Solar Holdings Co. may continue through next year as declining shipments prompt them to slash prices and liquidate inventory.

Shipments at Suntech will fall about 20 percent in the fourth quarter from the third, the world’s largest panel maker said today in its third-quarter earnings report. JA Solar, the country’s biggest cell producer, also said shipments will fall sequentially, and it wrote off inventory in response to falling prices, driving down gross margins.

Cell prices have fallen 59 percent since Dec. 27, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Seven Chinese companies reported lower gross margins since yesterday and three said margins have moved into negative territory, an unsustainable level, said Hari Chandra Polavarapu, an analyst at Auriga USA in New York.

Commentary on the State of the Chinese Solar Industry which was being touted here in the US as the Green Economy of the future. Some here have consistently said that this is not a viable source of large scale industries government subsidies notwithstanding.

New England Patriots Forums - PatsFans.com Patriots Fan Messageboard

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The alternative energy market is still an artificial market; except for a handful of novelty customers rich enough to afford inefficient green tech, firms and households only choose green tech when subsidies bring the price within range or regulations force people to choose expensive green products.
Two years ago, when delusional greens thought they were on the way to a global carbon treaty, green tech looked hot. But as that project collapsed under its own weight, the prospects for the green market withered. The recession strengthened public opposition to expensive new green regulations, and the European financial crisis means that countries like Spain (which had a big alternative energy program) and Greece have no more budgetary room for frills.

***patsfan13*** · 11-26-2011, 03:09 PM

So continuing on the theme of 'renewable' energy and why it doesn't work in the real world....

From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist:

The myth of renewable energy | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Quote:

Renewable energy sounds so much more natural and believable than a perpetual-motion machine, but there's one big problem: Unless you're planning to live without electricity and motorized transportation, you need more than just wind, water, sunlight, and plants for energy. You need raw materials, real estate, and other things that will run out one day. You need stuff that has to be mined, drilled, transported, and bulldozed -- not simply harvested or farmed. You need non-renewable resources:

***patsfan13*** · 11-26-2011, 03:12 PM

And this about tens of thousands abandoned wind turbines littering America:

Quote:

Literal beacons of the "green" energy movement, giant wind turbines have been one of the renewable energy sources of choice for the US government, which has spent billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing their construction and use across the country. But high maintenance costs, high rates of failure, and fluctuating weather conditions that affect energy production render wind turbines expensive and inefficient, which is why more than 14,000 of them have since been abandoned.

Before government subsidies for the giant metals were cut or eliminated in many areas, wind farms were an energy boom business. But in the post-tax subsidy era, the costs of maintaining and operating wind turbines far outweighs the minimal power they generate in many areas, which has left a patchwork of wind turbine graveyards in many of the most popular wind farming areas of the US.

Learn more: 'Green' debacle: Tens of thousands of abandoned wind turbines now litter American landscape

Ilikehappyppl · 11-26-2011, 05:17 PM

So when the oil runs out then what?

If you can answer this, you could be a very rich man....

Way I look at it, we better find another source of energy or we are all ****ed! The oil and the coal is gonna be gone someday, then what?

I keep hearing solar is not efficient enough but just a few days ago a 13 year old kid figured out how to get more efficiency for solar panels just through design. We have to keep working at it, someday maybe we can get 80-90% efficiency through better design and better panels.

As for wind, same thing we need better design and better efficiency but that costs money and R&D, we have to keep going forward!

So unless you can tell me how to make oil or coal out of sand or dirt or water ( our most abundant resources) then you need to start thinking about tomorrow instead of today, because sometime maybe not next year maybe not in 10 years but someday the oil and the coal is gonna run out and we can't afford to sit around and do nothing about it!

Plus we can kill two birds with one stone here, we get rid of or at least lower our consumption of oil and coal we can help our environment too, now does it really matter if burning oil or coal makes global warming? I don't like smog and I like clean air, do you like clean air? do you like breathing in dirty air?

So what's your plan when the oil are coal runs out?

scout · 11-26-2011, 05:27 PM

Yet, small businesses keep installing these wind turbines as they think it saves them money. We need to stop thinking of options to to fossil fuels. Pffffffft, next thing you know we'll be saying we'll send a man to the moon within the next decade.

Titus Pullo · 11-26-2011, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ilikehappyppl

So what's your plan when the oil are coal runs out?

He has none.

Leave it to 13 to create false dichotomies and then squawk, "see? told ya!"

No one said renewables would provide what fossil fuels currently provide. That's not really the point. The point is that it's essential we fill the ever-widening gap. Hydrocarbons ARE currently failing to meet demand, and a day will come - very soon - that we rue not building renewable infrastructure when we had the capital to do so.

Growth is over. People had better start reprogramming that things can or will ever go back to the way they were.

Again, you can tell me that you've found a trillion barrels of conventional crude behind the moon, but that doesn't make it economically viable to get to it. If it costs more to extract, refine and distribute it than it provides, you're not sustaining growth.

***DarrylS*** · 11-26-2011, 07:41 PM

Same old, same old.. someone should tell the author of this thread how improper it is to pimp your own thread..

The reality is that the US is lagging behind countries like Spain, Germany and Japan in solar panel installation.. and no matter how many times it has been explained to this author of this thread, it takes time to offset the intial purchase and installation costs before a profit is turned.. it takes time to offset the costs, whether it be Nuclear, Coal, Oil or Solar..

Now there is a trend to rent the panels instead of buying them, like we do for cable tv...

http://go.solarcity.com/campaigns/20...d-0000646deced

The underlying belief that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth is never more evident than it is here..

***patsfan13*** · 11-26-2011, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarrylS

The underlying belief that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth is never more evident than it is here..

You wouldn't know the truth or lie when it relates to a technical subject due to your abysmal ignorance of all things technical.

You just mindlessly parrot things from left wing blogs you don't understand.

Now perhaps in the wake of Fukishima the Japanese will attempt to impoverish themselves instead of shutting down their Gen 1 &2 Nuclear plants and moving to Gen 3 Plants which don't need active cooling system to be safe.
but the cost will be ~10 times the cost of electricily from Coal or Nuclear:

Quote:

Nuclear: 5.3 yen
Coal: 5.7 yen
LNG: 6.2 yen
Oil: 10.7 yen
Hydro: 11.9 yen

The current cost of solar energy ranges between 43 and 49 yen an hour. The “hidden costs” of nuclear energy – which include the reprocessing of spent fuel and the decommissioning of reactors – are said to be factored into the 5.3 yen cost assessment. In effect, at present rates, solar energy is nearly 10 times as expensive as nuclear, but it seems certain that the costs of the cleanup and decommissioning of many reactors following the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown and growing public suspicion of other nuclear sites are not included.

A Solar Future? Prospects, Problems, and Japan?s Solar Energy Plans???????????????????????????????? :: JapanFocus

Then in Germany taxes to subsidize an ineffective energy source:

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The real net cost of the solar PV installed in Germany between 2000 and 2008 was €35bn. The paper estimates a further real cost of €18bn in 2009 and 2010: a total of €53bn in ten years. These investments make wonderful sense for the lucky householders who could afford to install the panels, as lucrative returns are guaranteed by taxing the rest of Germany's electricity users. But what has this astonishing spending achieved? By 2008 solar PV was producing a grand total of 0.6% of Germany's electricity. 0.6% for €35bn. Hands up all those who think this is a good investment.

more on the failure in Germany here:
Solar PV has failed in Germany and it will fail in the UK | George Monbiot | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Of course the Spanish are on edge of default and their 'solar economy' is collapsing because they can no longer finance the lavish subsidies for expensive solar power:

Quote:

Zapatero introduced the subsidies three years ago as part of an effort to cut his country’s dependence on fossil fuels. At the time, he promised that the investment in renewable energy would create manufacturing jobs and that Spain could sell its panels to nations seeking to reduce carbon emissions.
Yet by failing to control the program’s cost, Zapatero saddled Spain with at least 126 billion euros of obligations to renewable-energy investors. The spending didn’t achieve the government’s aim of creating green jobs, because Spanish investors imported most of their panels from overseas when domestic manufacturers couldn’t meet short-term demand.

Spain's Solar Deals on Edge of Bankruptcy as Subsidies Founder - Bloomberg

***patsfan13*** · 11-26-2011, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scout

Yet, small businesses keep installing these wind turbines as they think it saves them money. We need to stop thinking of options to to fossil fuels. Pffffffft, next thing you know we'll be saying we'll send a man to the moon within the next decade.

What is 'saving' them money are taxpayers subsidies. The true cost is hidden by the government subsidies...

Ilikehappyppl · 11-26-2011, 11:08 PM

Pats13

So what's your plan when the oil are coal runs out?

You talk about cost but what happens when we don't have anymore oil and coal? Its gonna cost us then, so why just not do it now?

What's your end game? Yes we all know coal and oil are cheaper but what happens when they run out? We are gonna have to eat the cost someday anyways....