This is interesting, after watching the collapse in the last two years of entities like the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), which ended trading with a bag of charcoal briquettes being worth more than a ton of carbon futures, we have some clear evidence that the promised “green technology revolution” is headed for the scrap heap of history.
Ironically, it might be related to Mann’s hockey stick.
More on that later. First, here’s a description from the RENIXX website of what it is:
The RENIXX® (Renewable Energy Industrial Index) World is the first global stock index, which comprises the performance of the world´s 30 largest companies of the renewable energy industry whose weighting in the index is based on the market capitalization (free float).
“Free floating”, has just become “free falling”:
Since 2008, the index has lost about 90% of its value. In the last month, the nosedive seems to be accelerating:
Starting around May 10th, it seems the index has taken a steep drop, like an inverse hockey stick. Compare that to the graph they offer in their prospectus presentation:
The 2006 index got a boost, probably from from Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, released on May 24, 2006. 2007 was a banner year, and 2008 held the high ground, but look what happened in late 2009, coinciding with Climategate. I’m not saying that Climategate was the sole cause of that crash, as correlation isn’t causation, but it is most interesting. They haven’t updated the prospectus because as Steve McIntyre points out in his latest post on Schmidt’s “Conspiracy Theory”:
In the mining exploration business, investors who trade mining stocks know that “late” results are almost never “good” results. The reason is human nature. In public stocks, you’re legally obligated to report results promptly, but there is some play in timing. If promoters have “bad” results in the first part of the program, there is a great temptation to delay the bad news in the hope that later results will bail out the program. The best and only way to deal with temptations to delay bad results is to establish an announcement schedule ahead of time and stick to it.
That probably explains why they have not updated their online prospectus brochure, hoping that later results will “bail out the program”. I think that ship has sailed.
I found it also amazing that in their prospectus, they use Michael Mann’s IPCC hockey stick as a reference graph:
It would seem to me that any organization that would use such bad science as a reference for investors is destined to fail, and here, it seems that betting on Mann’s hockey stick isn’t working out.
Maybe investors read WUWT and Climate Audit. I wonder if it is too soon to use this cartoon:
h/t to The Hockey Schtick, who points out the number of dead and dying green companies:
Filed Bankruptcy:
Solyndra
Beacon Power
Ener1
Range Fuels
Solar Trust of America
Spectrawatt
Evergreen Solar
Eastern Energy
Unisolar
Bright Automotive
Olson’s Crop Service
Energy Conversion Devices
Sovello
Siag
Solon
Q-Cells
Mountain Plaza
Teetering on the Brink:
Abound Solar
A123 Systems
Brightsource Energy
Fisker Automotive
First Solar
Nevada Geothermal
SunPower
Nordex
The Bard Group
Amonix
NRG Energy
Alterra Power
Enel Green Power
Sunpower Corp
This is what happens when political agendas collide with market realities; a green train wreck.
Markets are perfectly suited and capable of determining the type and timing of energy development and implementation.
Government subsidies, loan guarantees, tax incentives, alternative energy projects, etc., merely cause distortions and malivestments in the market and wastes and misallocates limited land, labor and capital and taxpayers foot the bill for these mistakes in: higher taxes, higher energy costs, higher national bebt and rolling brownouts….
Governments are necessary evils, as Thomas Jefferson once said.
“Tidal power gets a stormy birth off coast of Scotland”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18100191
This time, a REAL Hockey Stick…. just that it’s financial, and it’s going down instead of up.
This one IS actually driven by CO2,,,, the fear of.
Wouldn’t it have been a lot cheaper, and just as effective to sacrifice a few virgins?
This is the real reason why Stevie Zwick is desirous of taking out retribution on ‘deniers’ upto and including torching their houses. This climate economy BS is (or was) his baby.
If you want to see why this index is crashing look no further than First Solar, which is significantly weighted in this assemblage of turkeys. From a high of $317 a share in 2008 to today’s price of $13.75 you took a real bath if you stayed around thinking it would come back (and I’m sure many did – like pension funds, hedge funds and mutual funds). I’d say “Look out below” but zero really isn’t too far off from here.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j201/bobbyj0708/FirstSolar.png
Is there any bubble that’s not popping or that’ll pop at the end of the year? And no matters about who is elected.
I’m almost entirely out of everything
It’s in a death spiral! The Renewable Energy Industrial Index is screaming!
Aw, c’mon, *somebody* had to say it…
Can all the American’s stop getting so wound up by Scottish Sceptics comments.
Complaining about you guys turning up late is like calling you Septics (Yanks -> Septic Tanks), ie leg pulling good natured ‘banter’.
Britain wouldn’t have won the war without American involvement, and couldn’t have survived without Lend-Lease. You could have given us better rates though, we only managed the final payment in 2006…..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#Repayment
Nial says:
Britain wouldn’t have won the war without American involvement, and couldn’t have survived without Lend-Lease. You could have given us better rates though, we only managed the final payment in 2006…..
You are correct good sir. But look at the size of the loan. A billion dollars! To fight a World War.
Today that be be sufficient to fund two Solyndra’s.
That is NOT funny!
@Scottish Skeptic: is this going to be a bit like the US in WWII? Arrive at the battle just when the war is was almost over?
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http://dailybayonet.com/2012/01/global-warming-weekly-round-up-jan-26th-2012/
“Apparently, WWIV has already started. I’m not sure what happened in WWIII, though based on form, its a safe bet the French surrendered, Italy changed its mind and America showed up late and got all the girls.”
Link to get context of the above snark
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/big-oils-civilization-ending-pollution-push-2012-01-24?link=MW_home_latest_news
I miss the bayonet……come back soon.
I guess they can’t hide this decline.
I think I have posted this here before but it is worth a read again. Explains why “renewables” will never be cost effective, unless of course Einstein is wrong..
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2469
It would be a nice touch if Al Gore were to lose a huge chunk of that $100 million+ that he made via carbon trading schemes.
DJ says:
May 17, 2012 at 11:46 am
“Wouldn’t it have been a lot cheaper, and just as effective to sacrifice a few virgins?”
_______________________
They thought of that, but there weren’t enough virgins to go around.
Blackrock New Energy Fund is down 58% in five years.
I’m a Scot and a skeptic.
12 years before I was born, an uncle of mine went down with convoy escort HMS Curacoa
October 2 1942. 10,000 Amercan troops aboard RMS Queen Mary.
Scottish Sceptic
Great Britain’s disaster at Dunkirk in May 1940 and the immediate fall of France was followed by the fall of Singapore in February 1942 in only seven days, resulting in the the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. By then the United States was fully engaged in two wars. Just a few months after Britain’s ignominious defeat at Singapore, the United States created the turning point in the Pacific theater of operations by inflicting a massive defeat of Japan’s naval finest in the Battle of Midway. Military historian John Keegan has called it “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.”
I was stationed at RAF Bentwaters and Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, in the US Air Force 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, from 1970 to 1975. Our British neighbors and co-workers were the finest people its has been my pleasure to be among. The signs of war and US involvement were all over the Suffolk countryside. During World War II Suffolk was carpeted with bomber and fighter bases, and I found artifacts such as pieces of flak jackets and spent cartridges in the forests near the bases. None of the good people of Suffolk who experienced the war thought the United States had come on the scene when the flighting was almost over.
I visited the American Memorial Cemetery at Cambridge, with about 4,000 Yanks buried there, plus a record of an additional over 5,000 missing in action. Unfortunately, there are about 20 other very large American cemeteries in Europe.
I had heard that the once fine British education system had deteriorated significantly since I left in 1975. Apparently you are proof positive of that decline. With such ignorance of history, it’s no wonder Scots are such fools over wind power.
@ur momisugly Shevva says:
May 17, 2012 at 9:46 am
Horizontal is date, vertical is chocolate buttons? /sarc
Luckily I have invested all my money in my waist line the last few years, it’s gone up 2″ in 2 years.
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I’d suggest diversifying into guns and ammo, given the recent news out of the Middle East and other parts of the world. Including California, Vermont and some other states.
As ever the smart boys got in made a ton of cash then got out , and stuff the planet .
Sadly St Gore was probable amongst them
Skiphil says: May 17, 2012 at 9:36 am
“Is it too much to hope that Algore and a lot of his cronies kept most of their assets in these 30 “renewables” star companies???”
Looked it up for you at the SEC, via Edgar:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1375534/000117266112000509/0001172661-12-000509.txt
Generation Investment Management holdings report, per 3-31-2012:
FIRST SOLAR INC 28 mln dollars
Total fundsize is 3 billon dollars… It probably won’t hurt.
Renewable energy such as solar or wind is ineffective on any scale. It can only be done as a vanity project, which requires wealth. On a sufficient scale that wealth will disappear. AGW plus renewables is, whether intentional or not, anti-industrial. Given the lack of credible science supporting AGW then any politician backing renewables is an anti-industrialist.
The best example is Germany which has spent 100 billion Euros on solar, with annual subsidies of 7 billion Euros a year. This provides only 0.3% of Germany’s power requirements, but on short overcast Winter days it is more like 0.0%. Solar is a vanity project aimed more at the middle classes to put a few panels on their roofs and feel smug about ‘saving the planet’.
Germany’s renewable energy is mostly wind, whose variability is already threatening to destabilise the power grid. To replace the phasing out of nuclear reactors over the next 8 years Germany plans to add another 20% of national energy requirements using renewable energy, pretty much guaranteeing blackouts and damage to the infrastructure of the grid. Not an environment for industry….or business…or people. It will be interesting to see if Germany manages to destroy its’ industrial base over the next few years. It certainly looks probable at the moment.
Renewables have been most successful in Europe where it has been a major factor in the near bankruptcy of most governments. As this turns in to actual bankruptcies the main market for renewables will disappear so I am not surprised this index is tanking.
Markets elsewhere are looking poor. China has given up any pretense of expanding solar or wind and is concentrating on things that work. Canada seems to be opting out but Australia is intent on following Europe’s shining example.
The Obama administration would like to follow the European model, but frakking changes everything. For natural gas Europe pays around 16 dollars per million BTU, but in America it is down to 2 dollars.
In a single oil shale formation in the US it is estimated that the recoverable oil is equivalent to more than the proven oil reserves on the rest of the planet!
Renewables are dependent on the idea of peak oil and subsequent scarcity causing escalating prices. Frakking not only removes that support but digs a hole in the ground for renewables! Vanity projects using renewables may persist but will die out either through lack of money or plentiful, cheap natural gas and oil.
anticlimactic says:
May 17, 2012 at 3:16 pm
“It will be interesting to see if Germany manages to destroy its’ industrial base over the next few years. It certainly looks probable at the moment. ”
Watch Merkel do the U-turn after the U-turn. She stops on a dime. Röttgen’s fired. This practically begs for a Downfall parody.
Anticlimatic —“In a single oil shale formation in the US it is estimated that the recoverable oil is equivalent to more than the proven oil reserves on the rest of the planet! ”
I’m not doubting your word , but could you please elaborate on this comment or link to more information. I’d be very interested in learning more.
Matthew R Marler said @ur momisugly May 17, 2012 at 9:44 am
And I almost believed you when the quote I received for solar PV indicated a time to payback of 7 years. The vendor has still not got back to me about how come their quote was based on the panels outputting 138% of their maximum under ideal, cloudless conditions.
To those Americans who objected to the Scottish Sceptics pig ignorant comments I am with you.
I was a child in the UK and remember well what the USA did for Britain and the allies, and I also object to Scottish Sceptics offensiveness.
It might help him if he read the history cited and then visited that piece of England that is USA territory just outside Cambridge. Its a War Memorial where many brave USA lads are now buried.
We should never forget.
Adelaide
Australia
PS The same goes for the war in the Pacific. But then it goes without saying that Australians are universally very grateful.