Meanwhile: African Nations To Build More Than 100 New Coal Power Plants
Germany’s SolarWorld, once Europe’s biggest solar power equipment group, said on Wednesday it would file for insolvency, overwhelmed by Chinese rivals who had long been a thorn in the side of founder and CEO Frank Asbeck, once known as “the Sun King”. A renewed wave of cheap Chinese exports, caused by reduced ambitions in China to expand solar power generation, was too much to bear for the group, which made its last net profit in 2014. —Reuters, 11 May 2017
The company once hailed as Europe’s largest solar panel producer filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, blaming cheap Chinese panels for flooding the market. SolarWorld is only the latest bankrupt solar company to blame the Chinese. U.S.-based Suniva Inc. filed for bankruptcy in April, also citing stiff competition from Chinese solar panel makers. The solar industry’s biggest problem is likely the very mechanism that led to its rise: lucrative subsidies. European subsidies, mostly in Germany, led to a massive expansion of the companies green energy industry, but eventually subsidies became their undoing as cheaper solar panels from China began to win out. –Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, 11 May 2017
More than 100 coal power plants are in various stages of planning or development in 11 African countries outside of South Africa — more than eight times the region’s existing coal capacity. Africa’s embrace of coal is in part the result of its acute shortage of power. –Jonathan W. Rosen, National Geographic, 10 May 2017
h/t to The GWPF
Thank God for coal.
Thank CO2 and plants for coal. Coal seems were laid down ~250mya.
ahh, you maybe mean seams?
Where do you think the plants came from?
“MarkW May 12, 2017 at 6:23 am”
B&Q (UK), Bunnings (Aus), CostCo (US)?
Algae.
Coal, oil, and gas are mostly from seabed algae deposition.
vboring,
You are not correct about coal.
Coal formed millions of years ago when the earth was covered with huge swampy forests where plants – giant ferns, reeds and mosses – grew. As the plants grew, some died and fell into the swamp waters. New plants grew up to take their places and when these died still more grew. In time, there was thick layer of dead plants rotting in the swamp. The surface of the earth changed and water and dirt washed in, stopping to decaying process. More plants grew up, but they too died and fell, forming separate layers. After millions of years many layers had formed, one on top of the other. The weight of the top layers and the water and dirt packed down the lower layers of plant matter. Heat and pressure produced chemical and physical changes in the plant layers which forced out oxygen and left rich carbon deposits. In time, material that had been plants became coal.
http://www.coaleducation.org/q&a/how_coal_formed.htm
Indeed, Paris ‘Treaty’ money to Africa goes to build coal power plants.
Pure gold.
The Globe Has Not Been Warming . . . So Why Is It Called ‘Global’ Warming?
http://principia-scientific.org/globe-not-warming-called-global-warming/
Perry,
“As the plants grew, some died and fell into the swamp waters. More plants grew up, but they too died and fell, forming separate layers. After millions of years many layers had formed, one on top of the other.”
As can be seen today in reality-land, where?
The lakes around the Mount St. Helens blast zone (some of which were made by the eruption) already have a forming layer of peat on their bottoms, from all the trees and other organic matter that was thrown into them, then sedimented over by the settling ash clouds. Peat is a precursor to coal.
Of course, the rapidity of the process (by the standards of orthodox geologic timelines) lends itself to the possibility that coal doesn’t always needs eons to form.
The best analog to the coal forming areas of the Devonian period are probably the mangrove swamps of southern Florida and the Amazon basin. The Earth was a vastly different place, much warmer, much wetter. Very unlikely that there was any ice on the planet at all, not even at the poles, especially since they appear to have both been in open ocean at the time.
Actually, there was very little rotting of the dead biomass that had fallen into the water because of the toxicity of, …. or lack of oxygen, ….. in the water, …… which prevented most all microbial decaying processes.
There are present day “loggers” who search river bottoms for “virgin timber” that sank to the bottom more than 100 years ago …… when those cut timbers were “floated” down river to the sawmills.
A dangerous job …..
If we had paid attention before, we should have helped African countries, like Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, etc develop and build natural gas fuelled power stations rather than coal fired. But, the West have never taken the African continent serious with regards to industrial development. Instead, the Africans are migrating to Europe in order to experience modern development.
Samuel C Cogar,
Nice photo.
My Mother’s father and grandfather herded logs in Western Pennsylvania, to Pittsburgh. They sold the logs there, then walked home — about 80 miles.
“As can be seen today in reality-land, where?”
Indonesian peat swamps.
http://www.uky.edu/PR/News/Archives/2004/Feb2004/040219_haney_lecture.htm
@ur momisugly John F. Hultquist,
Small world it tis, ….. so did my grandfather, only he helped “herd” both logs down river and farm animals alongside the Little Kanawha River from Burnsville WV to Parkersburg WV (appx 70 mi’s).
“we should have helped African countries, like Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, etc develop and build natural gas fuelled power stations rather than coal fired. ”
Why?
JohnKnight, see also the Champaign IL coal beds:
“Illinois geologists have discovered the remains of one of the world’s oldest tropical rainforests, preserved in the ceiling of a coal mine 250 feet below the surface.”
http://www.showme.net/~fkeller/quake/lib/rainforestdanville.htm
Samuel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Log_Driver%27s_Waltz
My Friends who support Green Energy become most upset when I inform them that fossil fuels including coal are really a form of Solar Energy. The coal, gas and crude oil are plants and animal life that existed millions of years ago storing the Sun’s energy for use today and for the next 500 years.
True. Thank God for that.
Thank God for the Chinese.
I wouldn’t mind a little coal furnace myself in additional to gas. In BC Canada… the actual ‘natural gas’ costs ~$40 bi-monthly, plus taxes, delivery fee, fee for this, fee for that, plus other various charges it comes out to $230 bi-monthly. Coal would be cleaner than my wood stove. lol and cheaper. Thank God for Coal!
Jeff;
Unless you pay the premium for high quality anthracite, I do not believe that coal would be cleaner burning in your wood stove than wood. Coal did not completely replace charcoal, because it did not burn cleanly. Before you can cleanly burn the coal, it must be roasted in a coking oven to bake out all of the hydrocarbons and leave nothing but carbon and ash precursors.
If you do decide to burn coal in your wood stove, remember to investigate whether it matters that burning coal and burning wood have different heat transfer mechanisms. Coal radiates its heat while wood fires transfer heat with convection (burning the wood releases the volatiles and the volatiles transfer heat by condensing on what is to be heated). This difference is important when trying to heat a roman hypocaust (only a wood fire will do).
Useless, but interesting, historical aside:
It was once thought that the Romans had seriously deforested the Italian Peninsula, because there were attempts to force cargo ships offloading goods at Ostia to pay part of the berthing fees in firewood. The truth was that demand for charcoal was high enough that for equal values of firewood and charcoal, loggers made more money selling wood scraps to the charcoal burners, than hauling it to Rome to sell as firewood.
Might be better off Jeff with electricity? When the carbon tax in BC goes to $50 a ton, and if NG prices go any higher then you are basically writing a blank cheque to heat your house. This mornings announcement about another USA LNG deal will make domestic NG even more expensive. If Canada’s stupidity persists opposite to policies in the USA, then all fossil fuels are going up big time especially when base prices go up from these historical lows.
Burning wood keeps you warm 5 different ways. Cutting, loading, chopping, stacking and loading the damn stove. And then it gets you divorced with all the mess you track in.
I have heated with a coal furnace myself. They work very well. There are Amish made ones, that work without electricity. Will go for 72 hours on a fill, when turned down low, so you can go away for a few days in winter without a problem. Burn good Antracite coal. No creosote in your chimney to worry about with coal.
Jeff, Richard and all:
It is possible to burn coal extremely cleanly, as evidenced by the 65% improvement in the city air of Ulaanbaatar in only 4 years (2011-2015) thanks to the replacement of only the stoves used to heat yurts (gers). Work now begins on exchanging the small water heating boilers which have very poor combustors.
This winter there was a pilot stove program in Kyrgyzstan that demonstrated the performance of natural draft coal stoves was very good with high acceptance by rural users. They have a 99% reduction in PM2.5 emissions. (<2 mg/MJ delivered, often <0.4mg, info for techies.) The stoves piloted were made by local artisans using only an arc welder and angle grinder so it is not something complicated to make.
These highly improved stoves use a coal coking principle that makes them continuous pyrolysers which can operate indefinitely, meaning it is not necessary to use anthracite or semi-coked coal/briquettes. All that gunk in the chimneys of coal stoves is unburned hydrocarbon fuel. Burn it properly nd there isn't any.
How these stoves work will be the subject of a presentation at the upcoming heating stove conference in Poland at the end of this month, largely concentrating on the reduction of black carbon emissions in Eastern Europe. The only thing that prevented these stoves being developed earlier was a lack of research into the matter. They have been produced in 5 countries so far, all in Cold Asia.
‘heat and pressure’. If heat is the primary (singular?) casual element needed for formation then long ages are not needed. Iif you have just a little pressure and a lot of heat will that produce coal? And how quickly?
Don’t worry, I’m not anticipating any discussion. Cue ad hominem pressure and heat to begin post haste!
With practice you can usually find the sweet spot; but contributing or peripheral variables that you can’t influence (or even understand) make it impossible to provide an answer that is consistently correct.
charcoal
In certain areas of the third world, they take biomass like river reeds, tall invasive weeds or even agriculture waste, and similar to making charcoal, they make a Biochar. It can be pelletized and shipped fairly economically. Has maybe half the heating value of coal and can be burnt in a coal fired plant.
Ron – point well made. The energy in char is typically 29 MJ/kg, well above many coal deposits, possibly even ‘most’. Brazil uses a lot of biomass-based charcoal in steel production, and India has a coal-substituting project which buys char from people cooking on waste wood using top-lit updraft pyrolysers (TLUD stoves).
Free trade sucks
Not really! Subsidies do!!!
For an example of how an industry evolves with government guided industrial policy instead of free trade, just look at the history of atomic power in the US. An attractive alternative? We’re now doing an updated version of the same thing with “renewables”.
paul r,
Rather than attacking free trade, we should be looking at why our local industries can’t compete with the Chinese and fix those things. When the government, either theirs our ours, gets involved, they distort the market. That’s the problem. I don’t mind if they lose fair and square, but it infuriates me when our industry is hobbled and the other side cheats.
Keep in mind that the Chinese subsidize their solar power manufacturers to meet demands for solar power arising not from the free market but from subsidies like Germany’s feeder tariff system, the U.S. Solar Investment Tax Credit, and 29 state renewable portfolio standard programs.
Paul R… you wrote:
“we should be looking at why our local industries can’t compete with the Chinese and fix those things.”
Is what you’re saying that we should get the Germans to wear face masks like the locals do in Beijing and many other Chinese cities?
I think you are right to look at fixing those things. I would say, at the end of the day, there is one underlying thing that tilts things in China’s favor. That is the standard of living is lower, by a lot. It’s hard to compete with a factory that pays $5/hr.
Mario, that’s a temporary problem that solves itself as the exporting country modernizes. The same things were once said of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc.
Cheats?
Look the chinese government decides that it wants to make strategic long term decisions to own manufacturing. That is their free right. They decide to focus on long term returns rather than quarter to quarter profits. That’s the competition. Like it or Lump it. Fair? There is no fair in business. There is only winning.
The situation is no different than Walmart or some other big box store moving into your neighborhood. Using mass purchasing and head office to branch subsides, the new Walmart store can sell everything well below the local small retailers wholesale cost. This will quickly drive all small retailers out of business, leaving the big box store with a monopoly. At which point they can jack up the prices, reap huge profits, and plow these profits into opening another big box in some other neighborhood.
The situation is no different than Walmart or some other big box store moving into your neighborhood. Using mass purchasing and head office to branch subsides, the new Walmart store can sell everything well below the local small retailers wholesale cost. This will quickly drive all small retailers out of business, leaving the big box store with a monopoly. At which point they can jack up the prices, reap huge profits, and plow these profits into opening another big box in some other neighborhood.
So the troll believes government subsidies are just “long term investing”.
ferd, that’s the left wing theory. Fortunately the rest of us, it never works.
It isn’t subsidies that drive out smaller businesses, it’s better price and better selection.
Being able to get everything you need in one stop is very valuable to most people.
As to jacking up prices, that can’t happen unless government prevents competitors from cropping up to under cut the would be monopolist.
China is also Communist in ideology and political practice and pays the people’s workers next to nothing for their labors. So their cost is significantly lower than non communist nations
Yes, “cheats,” SM. China is effectively using slave labor (in some cases, literally — prisoners doing work for nothing).
While MarkW’s point is correct in a free market scenario, Mario is right vis a vis China. They are, no matter what SM wants to style them, communists. That means: no — free — market. In a free market, price is a data-driven effect which promotes FAIR trade. In China, price is an artificial construct.
If we do not want to end up living like they do, we must manage our response to them (as they, HOPEFULLY, steadily do transition to a free market economy… someday… i.e., “somewhere, over the rainbow, skies {will one day, hopefully be} blue.” 🙂 ). Simply letting laissez faire operate will (with a thriving communist organism (USSR is a dying organism)), like the bloodsucking tumor that it is, end up, if not killing you, making you anemic and weak.
Further, even if China became a free market, limited liberty, country tomorrow, the standard of living would take a very long time to make a dent in that $5/hour. Effectively, China has, within its native population, the equivalent of millions of impoverished aliens flooding not over, but, up, from within its own borders. Before communism grasped China by the throat, the citizens were at the mercy of warlords (essentially, gangs of thugs) who used them just as the communists use them now.
Only a miracle will change China (as a whole).
So, pray for one! 🙂
In other words, the Chinese subsidize the exploitation of foreign subsidies.
The Chinese are complaining about their high labor costs, so they are automating production in many industries. That is where we can compete – we can automate our own production, plus save on shipping costs.
“That is where we can compete” We can also stop giving them our processes and inventions in the name of ‘globalization’. Many examples of this but the most profound is the electronics assembly industry. We handed them the technology, showed them how to manage it, all in the name of globalization. We were told …. and believed it …. that cheaper products would revolutionize our society but they failed to explain at what expense. And they were well aware of it.
Lee l i didnt say what you said i said i just said free trade sucks . Being more in depth the west will never be able to compete with countries with lower currencie values
Janice
“China is effectively using slave labor (in some cases, literally — prisoners doing work for nothing).”
Have you seen the movie “The 13th” about the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery? It documents the use of prison labour in the US for manufacturing products for big box stores. These same companies also use Haiti as a sort of labour camp where $0.50 an hour jobs are accepted.
I also agree with those who say the solar panels are subsidised outright. The companies affected were trying to get an anti-dumping case going at the WTO. I suppose that will fall away if there is no local company left.
The reason China is able to make stuff cheap is because there coal is still king so they have cheap energy.
Of course when it comes to boondoggles like solar panels the Chinese are probably quite happy to sell at a loss if they need to. After all getting their competitors to commit to ludicrously expensive unreliable forms of energy pushes up their production costs, shrinks their industries and guess what? They then have to buy more stuff from China. Clever, the Chinese.
Global warming? Forget the science. It’s all about economic warfare! (And those who are winning this war like to call it ‘free trade’.)
I am actually impressed by China. Imagine how the US would fare with billions of poeple. Absolute anarchy springs to mind. Truly thinking about vast numbers of people and human nature when crammed together is a really daunting excercise. Yet they blend modern technology with ancient cultures. Ultimately their strategy is to keep work manual for themselves ( everyone needs a job) and supply clever innovations and technology to the rest of the world’s greedy/ lazy wants. I bet their classrooms are filled with eager students, not disruptive brats like Australia’s.
The Chinese average wage has gone up to around $3.50-$5.00 an hour and they are looking to offshore a lot of their manufacturing. Where do you think they are going? Mexico, where the average wage is less than $3.00 and, yes, transportation to the US is far less than from mainland China. Mexico is in active negotiation with China at this point. All because Mexico is covering their butts in case NAFTA really goes bad on them.
Not really! Government Grant seekers do.
Seriously, this is too funny! I actually CAN’T laugh, even wearing a girdle, and I am serial!
It’s hard being green
It’s not easy being green.
There is a joke about Kermit, green (Fingers), and the smell of pork (Barreling).
And take a look at this article on Germany’s wind situation:
https://stopthesethings.com/2017/05/12/germanys-wind-power-debacle-worsens-too-much-power-one-day-none-the-next/
Practically speaking, the cost of installing your own solar stuff as part of your home’s utility needs is somewhere between $16,500 and $35,000. That’s if you are building a home in a suitable place for it, have access to the roof to clear snow off the panels (because they won’t clear themselves) or a yard with a suitable venue and a fence. But unless you plan to live in that house for a full generational period (minimum 40 years), I don’t think it’s remotely worth it to go to that expense.
The notion that it was all a big freebie to have solar this & wind power that never EVER addressed the real costs: construction, maintenance, weather damages, suitability. It was just ‘let’s all jump on the train of S&W’.
Does it work? Of course it does. I can open the living room blinds and in the winter and save some money on my gas bill because the bay windows let in enough solar HEAT to keep the entire house at 72F all day. But at night, even with double-paned windows, I still have to run the furnace. That is the reality of this twaddle.
It isn’t free, it has more disadvantages than advantages, and no matter how clever we think we are, we can’t outwit or outdo Mother Nature or someone else’s clever ideas.
You are right Sara, especially about passive solar heating, or even solar hot water heating. But PV solar is iffy, and I only use it significantly for my off grid locations, or the RV. It’s fantastic when you have nothing else. Nothing like being way out in the mountains at the cottage/lake or parked hundred of miles from nowhere and enjoying all the modern conveniences of civilization. With Sat TV/Internet of course, if you like that stuff.
What I don’t understand, especially in rural area’s is why people want to put them on the damn roof. Odds are you will break your neck cleaning them in winter or have to redo the roof shingles before the panels need replacing. Almost never get full efficiency out of the solar PV panel that way anyway. If the panel can’t track Sol, then the inherent inefficiency is not worth the bother and should not be subsidized.
+ many
Chinese have a long history as merchants and traders.
Change direction for domestic power production away from solar (if that really ever was the direction)? Dump existing product on Euro and US, and use the proceeds to build coal and nuclear.
Heads they win, tails we lose, at least with the current Euro and US leadership.
And it ain’t “free trade”. There’s no such thing outside economists’ ivory towers.
China’s priority is to protect their domestic markets. They’re bringing a gun to a knife fight and the US (especially) and Euros are unarmed.
By that logic, there is no such thing as the free market, because all governments meddle in the market, therefore we should just go ahead and all adopt communism.
You got the first half right. Not sure how you made the leap to Communism.
For the last decade or so, the Chinese have been better capitalists than the Euros and US.
Most countries protect their local markets. I don’t think they’re all Communists.
The logic is straight forward. You believe that since the governments of many countries interfere in free trade, we should abandon free trade.
By that same logic since the governments of many countries interfere with the free market, we should also abandon the free market.
If the Chinese government wants to tax their people in order to subsidize my purchase of something, the proper response is to thank the Chinese government and people for their sacrifices for my well being.
Just to be clear, I’m not arguing in favor of subsidies for green energy. It’s a huge waste of resources, misallocation of resources, and we will pay the price in lost opportunity cost and wasted time; let internal markets work. The Chinese just seem to have played the game much more effectively, using “free trade” as a weapon against us while protecting their own interests.
Your response to thank the govt. of China is the correct one. Well said. All our govt. functionaries should take note.
China and Soviet Union,were never a true Communist state, China survives because they opened up to allow limited Capitalism in,Soviet Union never did,which is a major factor why they collapsed.
It’s ironic, even as China is adopting capitalism, the US is adopting socialism.
What I hear from my greenie friends is that China is leading the way in renewables. On the other hand, China does seem to be backing off. link
Free trade rules, ridiculously high tariffs (taxes) and government subsidies of favored (chosen winners) industries suck! If half the money spent on “renewable” energy was spent on Molten Salt/Thorium Nuclear Power for the last ten years we would probably be building cleaner, safer power plants and well on our way to eliminating the use of coal, oil and gas for electrical generation, saving it for more important uses.
Rubbish. Free trade means you accept paying someone in another country wages you are unwilling to accept in yours. Why not pay the difference to them so local product costs about the same. Ridiculous how the same produce, eg oranges can be sent half way around the world yet be cheaper than local shop with orchards a few kilometres away. Now thats a waste of energy.
Oh great, just find the highest paid worker in any industry and pay everyone else the same rate regardless of their productivity or needs. Hey why restrict this policy to just one industry when we could all enjoy the highest pay? Now where have I heard that before?
As for a waste of energy no it’s not. Somebody is growing oranges where they shouldn’t be and keeping local land from more productive pursuits which may save all that energy and more.
Economies are dynamic not static and there are constant tradeoffs going on all the time.
Germany and Holland are sitting on a huge unconventional Carboniferous gas field that extends from the southern North Sea into Germany. If only they would stop listening to the ‘Russian sponsored’ anti-frac zealots, They could be rich with low carbon CH4 energy. France and the UK have similar opportunities.
Yep – Putin must be laughing into his sleeve, once again.
The idiots in Europe fell for the propaganda and now they are totally dependent on Russian gas. A complete bargain for Putin in terms of return on investment in the promotion of disinformation.
Well, at least you’ve figured this out.
So that’s two of us who have unplugged the bananas from our ears.
Are those ‘carbon bananas?’
Quote (courtesy SNL): “William Hogan, research director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group, suggested that the agency support the creation of a “carbon banana,” avoiding the use of the word “tax” because of the political ramifications. “
Carbon Banana? That is priceless! Can you imagine all the jokes about carbon bananas that would create! LOL! That has got to be the best post of the day!
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/228/499/ad0.jpg
This is great news for the leaders in solar with strong balance sheets. They have had to operate alongside these distractions for years. (If you don’t know which ones have the strong balance sheets, then admit your own shortcomings in knowledge.)
No solar companies have strong balance sheets.
The ones that get most of their money from government grants and subsidies do.
Blinders on
You’re absolutely, positively, 100% correct…but only intermittently.
The quote from the Reuters link says, “A renewed wave of cheap Chinese exports, caused by reduced ambitions in China to expand solar power generation…” seem to imply the price is due to Chinese ‘dumping’ excess capacity on the world market. But that would lead one to question why the excess capacity was first developed, and what was it that drove those ambitions to be reduced. Bloomberg reported in Nov, “China, the world’s biggest clean-energy investor, lowered its solar and wind power targets for 2020, a reflection of how record installations of renewables have overwhelmed the ability of the nation’s grid to absorb the new electricity. And further, “While China has poured billions of dollars into clean energy in recent years, the ability to deliver the newly-generated electricity from where it’s produced to where it’s needed has lagged. ” It would seem the experience of actually trying to implement the scheme hasn’t gone so well. Nothing reduces the likelihood of a second snipe hunt so much as the experience of the first.
[bloomberg link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-08/china-scales-back-solar-wind-ambitions-as-renewables-boom-cools
Here’s some irony: Wouldn’t more coal plants enable more energy to produce more solar panels?
Which should also allow more solar to be connected to the grid in Africa because they have a reliable base load that can be plugged into.
Why would they want to use expensive power who’s only benefit is to make cheap coal power more expensive?
Just saying it will be technically possible, not advocating for such…
Here is even more irony: Hasn’t anyone noticed that the production of silicon solar panels entails the emission of a very large amount of CO2? The IPCC refused to quantify these emissions, but it is possible that the production of a polycrystalline silicon solar panel emits more CO2 than the panel can offset during its service lifetime. A lifetime, by the way, which is much shorter in actual practice than the IPCC will admit.
George , The IPCC may have ducked the question you have raised but there is an establishment answer on the following link, which I found when looking for the environmental cost of green energy :
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/environmental-impacts-solar-power.html:
For life cycle global warming emission question they say ::
“While there are no global warming emissions associated with generating electricity from solar energy, there are emissions associated with other stages of the solar life-cycle, including manufacturing, materials transportation, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning and dismantlement. Most estimates of life-cycle emissions for photovoltaic systems are between 0.07 and 0.18 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour.”
and:
“this is far less than the lifecycle emission rates for natural gas (0.6-2 lbs of CO2E/kWh) and coal (1.4-3.6 lbs of CO2E/kWh) “:
What may be relevant , given the gradual disappearance of western manufacturers , or finishers , of some types of solar panels is the paragraph concerning the toxic materials at end of life:
“Thin-film PV cells contain a number of more toxic materials than those used in traditional silicon photovoltaic cells, including gallium arsenide, copper-indium-gallium-diselenide, and cadmium-telluride[5]. If not handled and disposed of properly, these materials could pose serious environmental or public health threats. However, manufacturers have a strong financial incentive to ensure that these highly valuable and often rare materials are recycled rather than thrown away.”
If US and EU manufacturers give up , who is responsible, who has the incentive , for recycling?
” but it is possible that the production of a polycrystalline silicon solar panel emits more CO2 than the panel can offset during its service lifetime. ”
err no.
actually yes. Especially when you add in all the stuff that also has to be constructed before you can actually use that poly-crystalline cell.
So how much did Obama give them?
The State of Oregon gave them boat loads.
Where are all these solar panels going? I never see any in Michigan, must be in sunnier states.
The local Veterans Administration hospital had it’s parking lot roofed with 1MW worth of solar panels and supporting structure, to the tune of several million dollars. That roof is just one of many VA solar installations around the nation, including several at VA national cemeteries.
There isn’t any accurate data at how much faster those cemeteries were filled by trading health care for solar power, but thanks anyway, Green Federal largess and former Pres. Obama.
Here’s a link, which displays the tip of the iceberg of the VA’s Green attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, (one veteran at a time): http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/233833/va-sacrificed-vets-solar-panels-daniel-greenfield
Just go to any government installation anywhere, you will find panels. Thanks to Obama’s stimulus boondoggle
And pigeons crapping over them.
http://www.solarservicesscotland.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/bird-proofing-solar-panels.jpg
In most areas, if it hasn’t rained in a week or so, they are also covered in dust.
@ur momisugly urederra May 12, 2017 at 10:02 am
Squeegee guys cleaning solar panels!
Moar Jobs!
funniest thing is that I found that pic on a solar panel company in SCOTLAND!
http://www.solarservicesscotland.co.uk/news/
I think it is distasteful when this blog seemingly “cheers” when solar companies fail. I understand it is because climate activists make hyperbolic claims about the ability of renewable power to replace fossil fuels, and the impact of these claims on climate issues. When a solar company goes bankrupt it seems like proof of the bankruptcy of the whole climate alarmist agenda … but it isn’t really.
I’d like to see solar power reach whatever potential it really has. I just think the current approaches to it, and the crazy subsidies it receives, are holding it back.
I for one have never ‘Cheered’ the bankruptcy of a Solar or other renewable company.
…point and laugh, sure. But never cheer. It’s just undignified.
<¿<
It would have happened eventually anyway, once the great “green” energy skamapalooza collapsed.
This is an engineering reason the market for wind and solar is shrinking in the Germany, the EU, and the other developed countries.
Germany Energiewend Leading To Suicide By Cannibalism. Huge Oversupply Risks Destabilization
Wind and solar power cannot be used if there is no demand for the electric power at the specific time the wind and solar power is generated.
i.e. Installing more wind and solar system beyond the hard engineering limitation of roughly 10% of electricity grid total will just result in more surplus energy that is not used and will hence not reduce total ‘fossil’ energy required.
The Storage Problem/Green Scam Hard Engineering Limitations
Ignoring the cost issue (the cost of electricity in Germany is now twice that of the US), energy storage is required to reduce CO2 emissions by more than about 10% of the electrical grid total load if solar and wind systems only the schemes used.
Energy storage more than doubles the cost. There is no energy storage system that is scalable. Roughly 30% of the energy generated is lost in energy storage systems in conversion losses and battery loses. The battery systems efficiency degrades with time. The batteries have a lifetime of 7 to 10 years.
Germany has reach the hard engineering limit of wind and solar. Germany has installed wind and solar that is 100% of base German power load for the peak nameplate rating of the wind and solar installations.
The problem is German wind and solar installation runs at less than 20% average efficiency.
German wind and solar total power output therefore varies from 100% of grid output to close to zero.
Germany has 100% natural gas/coal back-up to supply the 80% of power when the wind does not blow and the sun is not shining.
Germany needs nuclear power to reduce CO2 emissions further.
German CO2 ‘savings’ do not include the energy input required to build, install, maintain, and replace wind and solar systems and does not include the energy loss to use single cycle natural gas turbines that can be turned on/off/on/off/on/off as compared to the 20% more efficient combined cycle (produce steam from the waste heat from the first pass turbines) natural gas power plants that take 10 hours to start and hence cannot be turned on/off/on/off/on/off multiple times per day in respond to changes in wind speed.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/08/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-167/
http://notrickszone.com/2015/02/04/germanys-energiewende-leading-to-suicide-by-cannibalism-huge-oversupply-risks-destabilization/#sthash.8tE9YRDj.PSllYaQF.dpbs
Comments:
1)The EU is also cutting down forests to burn in power plants which results in also no net reduction in CO2 emissions. This is how EU get their phoney quoted ‘renewable’ energy above 10%.
2)The Germans are receiving 25% of their electrical power from green scams, the actual carbon reduction is only 15% to 25% due to requirement to turn on/off/on/off single cycle natural gas power plants rather than to run combine cycle more efficient power plants that take 10 hours to start and that are hence left on for weeks.
3) Power output of a wind turbine is at the cube of wind speed. Wind farm power output can and does change 30% in 20 minutes which requires the starting or shutting down of all the ‘back-up’ power systems.
How much taxpayer’s money went into this?
Solarworld has followed the same corporate history as all solar energy companies. Politically-connected leftists form a solar company; obtain government grants and subsidies; use the grants and subsidies to hire some workers, buy some inventory, and pay exhorbitant salaries and dividends to the founders; then file for bankruptcy. Any free market investor understands the scam, and would not participate.
Here in Maryland (the FREE State), the Public Service Commission has approved “ratepayer subsidies” for two windfarms, which “could dot the Ocean City horizon with wind turbines as soon as 2020 – and add $1 to monthly residential bills once the windmills start spinning.”
This is supposed to establish a “21st Century economy to combat climate change and (create) jobs in droves at the same time.”
Unmentioned is that the legislature passed a law requiring electricity providers to use at least 25 percent renewable sources, which is expected to increase rates much more than the $1 tax (subsidy) for the wind farms.
Apparently “21st century” is a synonym for non-existent and/or crappy.
U.S. taxpayers lavished over $100 million in government aid on the now insolvent SolarWorld
Even inflated and ill-gotten tax credits did not prove enough to keep SolarWind aloft. By 2012, the company’s revenue and share price had dropped dramatically, as the efficiency and cost of the panels it manufactured was continually undercut by Chinese competition, according to an investigation by The Oregonian.
Rather than cut costs and improve the quality of its products, a company that had by then gotten $100 million in tax breaks at the state and local level alone—went to the US Department of Commerce and demanded import tariffs on Chinese solar panels it claimed were unfairly subsidized.
The Obama administration—eager itself to promote the U.S. solar industry—complied, slapping tariffs as high as 250 percent on the Chinese competition. The government added tariffs again in 2014, the same year the Department of Energy gave SolarWorld a $4 million grant.
http://reason.com/blog/2017/05/12/another-solar-boondoggle-goes-belly-up
Inexpensive, reliable, and widely available electricity from efficient, clean coal fired power plants will do more to alleviate the economic, health, and social ills of African countries than any other single factor.
Africa definitely needs more reliable power – but can its various ‘Strong Men’ keep from using power plants as targets of gun fire or, even worse, keep from putting their incompetent friends in charge ala Venezuela?
One of the biggest problems will be stopping locals pulling down the transmission lines to sell for scrap.
No, I ma not joking. It is a large problem in a lot of places, along with illegal taps off the lines.
I don’t have much hope for the long-term survival of those power plants. The US built a hospital in western Africa, Sierra Leone, I believe. It was destroyed in a civil war (a hospital, ffs). They could have used it during the 2014 ebola outbreak!
Can somebody twitter this stuff to Trump? I’m pleased to see this for the best of reasons. I first went to Africa in the mid 1960s, hired by the Nigerian High Commission in London, England’s as a geologist to the Geological Survey. I sailed from Liverpool on an Elder Dempster ship that serviced African Ports along the West African coast and around to Durban, S Africa, going ashore several times. I worked on groundwater projects, mapped the geology over broad regions, saw the abundance of resources and observed poverty across the country. I worked in Tanzania in the 1980s and returned to West Africa in the 1990s (oh, and temperatures were the same as 30yrs before!) and found much the same poverty in rural areas as before.
In the 1960s, I predicted Africa would be a resource commodities powerhouse before now. I see some of the same Ngos in play as before and know that they have been anti real development, certainly in the resource sector and nowadays in access to cheap power to raise these long put upon people out of poverty and into prosperity.
Shame, shame on all the big patriarchal NGOs and the UN for the retardation of development and for treating Africa as one big Safari and lifelong source of employment and adventure.
Kudos to the Chinese for breaking this
European US deadlock . They are doing it out of self interest of a different kind than the devious ‘caring’ industrial complex, a kind of self interest that Africans understand and can trust. I only regret that we couldn’t have started it 50yrs in our own similar self interest. We wasted 50trillion since African independence on the Safari style approach. China is going to be the beneficiary of the new African economic (and political) powerhouse that will tip the scales in an unhappy way for the west. It’s a shame on several counts.
Gary,
Thanks for the ‘boots on the ground’ perspective!
nuclear (from Russia) coming to Nigeria, as well – if they don’t screw it up:
https://www.naij.com/1078902-nigeria-set-build-nuclear-power-plants.html
Russia has contracted nuclear power projects in Turkey, Iran, India Vietnam and China, among others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Russia
Russia is streets ahead of USA in nuclear power technology AND safeguards.
Chernobyl? Kursk? TMI wasn’t even a burp in comparison.
Africa may be entering a time of rational enlightened self interest even as the so-called 1st world leaves rational society behind. Not kowtowing to the CO2 obsessed version of imperialism that “progressives” are pushing is very wise.