Essay by Eric Worrall
According to CCP mouthpiece Global Times, up to 50% of China’s solar panel output this year will be purchased by Europe, in a desperate attempt to replace Russian gas imports.
Demand for China’s solar panels soars in Europe amid energy crisis, green transformation
Europe to take 50% of China’s PV exports in 2022 amid energy crisis
By GT staff reporters Published: Oct 23, 2022 09:04 PM
…
Chinese insiders said that the EU is likely to take up to 50 percent of China’s total PV exports this year.
Xu Aihua, deputy head of the Silicon Industry of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, told the Global Times on Sunday that the soaring demand for solar panels reflects geopolitical changes in Europe and the region’s green push.
Exports of PV modules have surged. From January to August, China’s exports reached $35.77 billion in terms of value, generating electricity of 100 gigawatts. Both exceeded the whole year of 2021, China Photovoltaic Industry Association data said.
…
The numbers are reflected in the performance of domestic PV companies. For example, Tongwei Group on Friday said that its revenue in the first three quarters reached 102.084 billion yuan ($14.09 billion), a year-on-year gain of 118.6 percent.
As of the end of the third quarter, Tongwei’s global market share exceeded 25 percent, making it the world’s largest polysilicon manufacturer, according to media reports.
…
Read more: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1277756.shtml
Does anyone seriously believe $35 billion spent on solar panels will make a significant difference to Europe’s energy crisis?
If solar panels were any good for solving energy shortfalls, China would have kept the panels for themselves – China is currently suffering energy insecurity. Chinese Premier Xi Jinping understands, he recently announced he has no plans to abandon fossil fuel until renewables were capable of providing energy security.
The problem with attempting to use renewables to solve an energy security crisis is obvious, except maybe to the politicians in charge of Europe.
Solar panels don’t work at night, so massive energy storage capacity would be required to maintain warmth on cold nights. Wind also tends to die down at night.
European winter daytime solar is not much better than night time – Northern Europe especially sees very little sun in winter. Southern Europe also has prolonged periods of bad weather, and sometimes even has snow in winter.
No matter how many solar panels and wind turbines are deployed, fossil fuel backup is still required – more fossil fuel capacity than Europe seems to have access to right now.
The good news is that once the solar panels are tilted to maximise winter input they snow slips off easily.
The bad news for optimising winter solar collection is that the panels need to be spaced 3 times their height. That is a lot more space than typically available.
And does nothing about overcast conditions…
Or long winter nights
Or frost
Or …
A little non-scientific investigation by me. I used to live in Hampshire. Three fields nearby were converted to a solar ‘farm’. The fields were rather ‘undulating’. One winter morn I walked past with the dogs at about 10:00 and thought I’d have a look at the field. All panels, obviously, south facing. However, at 10:00 on a winter’s day the sun was coming from the south east and with the undulating nature of the terrain and the forest to the south and east only about 10% of the panels were actually ‘in sun’. However, my scientific analysis decided that this didn’t really matter as the entire site was covered in 6 inches of snow. It was a bitterly cold day with no wind either.
solar still provides power under snow and the cooling effect makes it more efficient.
And solar is intended to deliver its max in summer, when wind resource is lower
You are scarily crazy.
“When a solar panel is covered by a thick layer of snow, it’s blocked from sunlight and can’t generate energy. “
What part of the darkness is the energy coming from?
So, is this sarcasm, or an effort to distract maybe? A blanket of snow blocks no light?
As for trying to get solar in summer mainly, and wind at other times, you are then in the financially untenable position of having to buy *three* power supplies instead of one! That is, you now have to buy not one, but *two* unreliable sources, *plus* you need either a reliable fossil fuel or nuclear supply for backup, when the first two supplies fall short for any length of time..
Cooling efficiency of zero provided power, really ???? 😀
You even don’t know mathematical mini-basics.
Multiplication including factor zero….
Same for your windmills, 100 mills, zero output, you and other Greens are always believing with 1,000 windmills the output will be higher, that’s crazy
😀
“solar still provides power under snow”
Really, griff? Be honest, the efficiency is pants.
Don’t you know all those much vaunted green jobs will be cleaning solar panels and installing insulation. All the meaningful [skilled] jobs have gone to China to get our emissions down.
Sometimes the most appropriate response to Griff is just to point and laugh.
Sometimes?
You have obviously never sat in a snow covered car.
It’s dark.
And cold.
This obviously ridiculous statement reinforces my belief that Griff is really CTM having some fun with us all.
You can’t really believe that. Is it what your handler’s told you to say?
Have you ever climbed into your car after a big snow storm- before cleaning the snow off the car? Get in when the snow is more than a few inches deep on your car windows and it’ll be very dark in the car.
But it will be warmer than being outside. Snow is a good insulator.
Only if there is an energy source inside. Most of the “warmth” is from lack of wind chill.
God love ya. You’re so funny. So you admit that there’s no point whatsoever to having solar and wind power in the winter when there’s snow and no wind and you have to rely 100% on fossil fuels. Brilliant. Keep up the good work on cheering us all up.
griff, have you any measurements performed on REAL panels of REAL solar farms to substantiate your assertion, or is it just the output of models?
This limitation of light transmission through the snowpack decreases light availability under the snow. Only 3% of light can penetrate to a depth of 20 cm (8″) of snow and Solar doesn’t produce much power at 3% available sunlight. At a depth of 40 cm (16″), less than 1% of light is transmitted from the snow surface to surface below.
Technically griff’s statement is correct, even at 3%, the panel is producing power. Of course 3% is probably not enough to power up the inverters so that the power being produced can be put onto the grids, but griffie didn’t say anything about converters, he just mentioned the panels themselves.
We have to give griff credit, his usual contributions are completely wrong. This time he managed to be technically correct, even if completely irrelevant.
You seem to feel that producing 1% of rated capacity is something to cheer about.
I see griff still thinks average wind speed means something when it comes to wind power generation.
Just how much are you paid to make a fool of yourself?
So solar panels work under six inches of snow now do they, Griff?
Still believe that Spanish scientists have worked out a way to make solar panels work at night, as you claimed once?
4″ of powder snow over a dark surface has an albedo of about .85 – .90. So the panels would produce power, just not very much. When the snow gets dirty, the transmission drops further.
griff is just using the new theoretical green energy math used to sell wind and solar energy.
Where +2 from wind +2 from solar +6 from the imagination =10 units of energy
Some of that +6 could be from the light hiding under snow or at night in a form that humans can’t see but we just need to trust the new math.
When it still doesn’t add up to 10, including the fairy tale energy physics, then the solution is to double and triple down on the number of systems and cost.
the bigger the failures, the bigger the need to invest more in the failing green energy schemes …..and blame Putin.
Russian Gas is only needed because European Gas production is verboten by proclamation.
Russian gas is needed not only for heating but also to generating reliable constant electricity 24/7…which is something solar panels are incapable of without expensive massive batteries or pumped storage hydro backing them up. Not to mention the vast amount of space needed to produce meager quantities of electricity. (But I’ll mention it anyways)
There are Dutch engineers that have proved they can access a huge quantity of gas at home – both for local use and export – but are blocked by climate nutters that inadvertently want to return their community to the stone age. These same nutters will have a rude awakening if they suddenly discover they have none of the luxuries they have become so accustomed to.
The Dutch also seem very keen on shutting down their farmers. And I used to think they were a relatively sensible nation….
Climate nutters are just more Putin Pups.
You should ve stopped at “are incapable of;” the rest of that sentence is just ‘green wet dreams.
There’s a reason why these nutters are totally against home grown natural gas, but have no problem importing it from Russia.
I always disagree with the quote commonly attributed to Einstein. To me, that’s the definition of stupidity, not learning from your (or others) mistakes. Insanity is something else entirely.
It’s actually one of the fake quotes that are repeated endlessly here.
Love how you homed in on the key issue there Nick.
Out of curiosity, how much money do you think Europe has to spend on solar panels before they can switch off all fossil fuel consumption?
They don’t need to switch off all fossil fuel consumption. I’m sure even a 20% reduction would make a huge difference.
I doubt they’ll get 1% reduction in winter. And you didn’t answer my question.
I’m not looking for a precise answer, ballpark will do.
More likely they will just create losses.
Yes the grid instability will come back to bite them them in the ruckseite
“ And you didn’t answer my question.”
It is a pointless question “how much money do you think Europe has to spend on solar panels before they can switch off all fossil fuel consumption?”
Europe doesn’t need to switch off all fossil fuel consumption. They just have to manage with what energy sources they can get. A contribution from renewables will help them manage.
Europe doesn’t need to switch off all fossil fuel consumption. They just have to manage with what energy sources they can get. A contribution from renewables will help them manage.
Europe has to survive this winter without freezing to death. Solar panels will make negligible difference to winter energy availability, especially in Northern Europe – they just don’t get enough sunlight in winter. That $35.77 billion expenditure on solar panels is a waste of money.
Money spent when? Panels installed when?
Possibly most will get installed towards the end of this winter or next spring, in time for SOME summer generation. Or course, they are unlikely to make much difference for the next winter’s crisis.
They will make a large difference in next winter’s crisis: By wasting that money on solar panels it can’t be spent on real energy projects. How much natural gas production infrastructure could be built for $36B? How many coal fired power plants?
Wind doesn’t work when there is no wind, or when the blades are frozen.
Yes, you can install heaters on the blades, but that makes them heavier and more expensive. Plus the heaters consume most of the small amount of energy the wind generators do manage to create.
A while back there was a report, based on engineering data, that the control processes for wind turbines to constantly adjust to changing wind conditions, can consume up to 40% of their production. However, like most buildings with solar panels, they are on two way connections to the grid.
The report stated that data on actual power use was all secret, not available for analysis, but the suspicions was that drawing from the grid without cost was part of the special privileges that wind generation enjoys, to maximize their profits at a cost to the rest of us. If so, blade heaters, or any other power using anti-icing system, probably enjoy the same benefits.
This could possibly make the turbine generators a net draw on the system under some weather conditions, while allowing them to claim significant production, and receive payment, while actually reducing the grid electricity available for everything else. It is impossible to tell without full data, just like so much of alarmists climate ‘science’.
“A contribution from renewables will help them manage.”
The erratic contribution from renewable is the CAUSE of the current chaos. !
What number of deaths due to lack of energy proves they were not able to “manage”? If what EU has done so far in restricting energy causes even one death isn’t that too much?
You like to throw in little snippets of nonsense but you never address the real problem. People will suffer and die with what you and griff advocate.
Since when has a 20% reduction been the goal?
Every press release pushes the notion of no green house gas emissions.
The problem with “renewables” is that they aren’t available when you need them, and they are available when you don’t.
Wind and solar don’t decrease the amount of fossil fuel energy needed, they just make it much more expensive.
Maybe Nick is a politician He has many of Brandon andBojo’s attributes
According to the Paris Agreement, eventually they must reach Zero Emissions
Eric is talking up a supposed energy crisis this winter.
Maybe read some German media
https://www.dw.com/en/gas-crisis-why-germans-fear-a-cold-winter/a-63221531
Eric is far from the only person talking about an energy crisis this winter. I take it you don’t think there will be one?
Huge difference to what ..supply or price?
South Australia, UK, Germany all proved even really high levels of renewables doesn’t reduce price. There power is no cheaper and in most cases more expensive than just using fossil fuel.
A huge difference to the climate maybe? That’s why we’re doing this to ourselves, isn’t it?
/s
Oh, I saw a news story from Aus telling us that electricity bills could rise (another) 50% next year.
Yep apparently if we went net zero yesterday the weather will be exactly perfect tomorrow and isn’t that worth the extra cost 🙂
20% fossil fuel reduction would make absolutely zero difference to the climate
All it would do is push prices of everything much higher and make life extremely difficult for a large number of people.
A huge difference to what?
Nick’s bottom line.
“They don’t need to switch off all fossil fuel consumption. “
Haven’t you heard of Net Zero?
It wasn’t in this weeks talking points memo.
Huge difference in what?
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha.
Enough to impoverish an entire continent.
The U.S.has had a 25% emissions cut since 2006 yet we’re the bad guy and China has increased emissions increased from 7.9mmt in 2006 to 12.7mmt in 2019 and has only increased since then yet they’re the climate champions?? The world is upside down. Then there’s this from Xi…
China is by far the largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions in the world. Despite China’s commitment to the Paris Climate Accord, China’s Xi Jinping recently indicated that the country’s low-carbon goals should not come at the expense of energy and food security or the “normal life” of ordinary people. China sees pledges to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as a risk to jobs and economic growth, which they have prioritized. Xi was quoted as saying, “Reducing emissions is not about reducing productivity, and it is not about not emitting at all, either.” Xi also said, “We must stick to the overall planning and ensure energy security, industrial supply chain security and food security at the same time as cutting carbon emissions.” These are words that the Biden administration needs to consider, as its anti-oil and gas policies are rapidly escalating gasoline and heating costs for millions of Americans that can least afford those increases and his anti-coal stance is eliminating a possible avenue for lowering electricity prices as coal plants retire in the United States.
If anybody knows fakes, it would be Nick.
Changing your tune? Or changing your paymasters?
Yep.
You got us all there Nick, with your citation from that oracle of literary authority –
The Daily Caller.
“Daily Caller”.
They give their sources. But here is another source
The key thing is that no-one can find mention of the quote before the 1980’s, and then with different attribution. Einstein died in 1955.
Yet another unregulated ‘fact check’.
Try Facebook, at least they admitted their fact checks were merely opinions.
Thanks Nick.
By your criteria of “it wasn’t written down when he was purported to have said it therefore it didn’t happen”, you do realize you’re also debunking all those Aboriginal “stories” that are the basis for “sacred sites” folklore etc?
There could be a nice little earner for you with this assertion supporting developers’ applications.
thoreau said it , he just didn’t write it down
Attributing a quote to the wrong person does not valid or invalidate the actual context of the statement.
But it’s very good at changing the subject.
When you look in the mirror do you see stupid or insane or both
Like your posts.. you never learn from your mistakes. !
He just never learns. I would like to say he learns from his successes but I’ve never known him to have any.
What regulatory body does that fact checking site conform to?
None? Great. That means I can set up my own fact checking site.
Lets begin with this: No, contrary to popular belief, Nick Stokes is not a human, he’s a computer bot.
It is now generally acknowledged that Einstein did say something similar at a conference but that the saying did not originate with him. In fact, although it has only appeared in english language print since about the 70’s, it has certainly been in circulation for far longer.
Ever learn how to juggle?
They are mad – insane. As Einstein pointed out.
And very, very soon Europe will learn the hard way.
Yes to the second part, as will the other countries that got sucked into this boondoggle such as the USA, Canada and others – unless they can push back they will go the same way. As to the first part, not exactly insanity, more like a big con game – a globalist investment con game. Renewables are incredibly bad for the countries installing them so why on earth would someone keep doing it? Because it’s not the countries doing it, it’s global corporations doing it to make money, quite simply. Renewables are crap at providing energy but, while the subsidies and prearranged prices are still flowing, they are a lovely little cash cow for investors. Countries have got sucked into the con by political activism and now find it difficult, if not impossible, to get out – look at Truss; as soon as the international investors and markets realised she was going to make good on her promises to cut off the renewable money stream, all hell broke loose. It does make you wonder how much political and activist manipulation has been going on in globalist circles to keep the con going.
“Solar panels don’t work at night, so massive energy storage capacity would be required to maintain warmth on cold nights.”
No, you can burn gas at night. Or whatever.
The problem that Europe may have is that inability to get enough gas to keep up generation 24/7. They can certainly get enough gas/col to keep generating through the night. Every KWh generated by renewables is a KWh reduction in the fossil fuel needed.
At what cost? Surely doubling the installed capacity of an electric generation system to serve the same load is an extremely costly way to solve an unsolvable problem: The experiment will be run no matter what the West does because the developing world will continue to increase its FF resources beyond mid-Century. How far beyond is unknowable.
Nick doesn’t want to talk about cost all he will do is show some sham calculator he found with default carbon costs (tax) that says at that level renewables are competitive.
“At what cost?”
There will be capital cost. But it avoids the very high recurrent cost of fuel. The usual trade-off, which at current fuel prices looks very good.
Wind turbines and solar panels can’t cover the emissions from their manufacture, let alone replacement of coal & gas power generation.
The only problem with your logic is the backup source has to still be sitting there waiting and that has cost usually barely indistinguishable from the renewable energy source not being there and just running the backup 🙂
Indeed the cost of the back up is increased the more unreliables are installed because the gas generator takes longer to recover its fixed and sunk capital costs and the gas supply to the generator has to be provided on demand, without the gas supplier knowing when the gas will be required. The gas generator cannot therefore obtain long term contracts for the supply.
The more intermittency (wind & solar) you introduce the more all the dispatchable generation’s costs increase.
Only one problem with his logic? That’s an improvement.
Define ‘good’. You’ve got a massive investment in renewables now you’re saying we have to sustain the same massive investment in another fuel source for the times when the renewables don’t work? If I told you to buy 2 cars – 1 for when the sun’s shining and another for when it’s overcast or at night you’d think I was insane, wouldn’t you? So tell me again why paying twice over to keep the heating and lights on is such a ‘good’ idea?
Fuel costs are only a tiny fraction of the cost of fossil fuel electric power.
The cost of installing wind and solar is only a small fraction of the total cost of wind and solar. The vast majority of that cost will be in the back up batteries
Good point.
“In 2019 and 2020, the increase in the use of renewable energy substituted around 155.6 Mtoe and 164.6 Mtoe of fossil fuels respectively. This corresponds to a saving of EUR 43.5 billion from avoided fossil fuel use for the EU in 2019, and EUR 34.6 billion in 2020”
and it will be many times that this year.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52022DC0547&from=EN
How many EUR billions were spent during those years to slather on the greenwash? Since ruinables have short lifetimes, those costs will continue every year beginning now and growing into the future. Give us some real economic analyses instead of the Leftist propaganda.
Additionally, what is the cost of destroying large chunks of European manufacturing because of the high cost of ruinable energy.
The numbers are in for the 3rd quarter for Australian state energy cost
https://www.canstarblue.com.au/electricity/electricity-costs-kwh/
South Australia is the most expensive state by a country mile … now I wonder which state has the highest percentage of renewables and a grid battery?
Is that the sort of savings your pet renewables are going to create 🙂
The real problem that Europe has is that the climate Tsars dictated that the coal and gas plants would be shut down. No idea that they would be needed in winter, they just thought that the perfect weather they had in summer would last all year round. Not just stupid; truly insane.
Europe has a lot of coal it could use if it chose to. Germany has the 6th largest resources in the world and Poland the 9th. Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Spain all come in the top 30.
Meanwhile China (4th) and India (5th) are pressing ahead with installing new coal fired plants.
Every KWh generated by renewables is a KWh reduction in the fossil fuel needed.
Sure, but a handful of killowatts from solar isn’t going to make a lot of difference. If they had focussed that money on real generation capacity they might have come pretty close to closing their demand gap.
It might not have taken that much effort if they had their priorities straight. I’m not sure how quickly you can convert gas plants to run on coal, but given a lot of coal plants these days operate a gassifier stage, it probably wouldn’t have been out of the question to do this – if they had started 9 months ago. Railway lines can also be built quickly in an emergency.
The problem is that Nick’s claim of a 1 to 1 relationship between wind and solar generation and a drop in fossil fuel generation.
Much of the time, wind and solar are producing power when it isn’t needed, and that power has to be dumped.
Eric, the sad irony is that because they subsidized ruinables, jurisdictions are now having to subsidize FF generation because their subsidized ruinables have destroyed FF economics. The Leftists get you coming and going and power costs just keep rising unreasonably and unnecessarily.
The real costs of Nut Zero are astronomical, greatly damaging nations’ economies and lowering peoples’ standards of living. Even he maximal fantasized 100-300 year-out savings will never make up for the damage ruinables have and will continue to inflict upon people and nations. Learn Mandarin.
William Nordhaus generally said it all.
You’re all misunderestimating Stokes. He’s not talking about kilowatt hours but Kelvin watt hours. This new thermodynamic unit is the holy grail of renewable energy.
I will confess to being extremely tired of people pretending to be knowledgeable here and totally stuffing up units. There is no credibility if you can’t even get such a simple thing correct.
Every KWh generated by renewables is a KWh reduction in the fossil fuel needed.
Not at all.
You have the backup system idling so for every KWH of renewables you generate, unless you are using batteries, you get rid of less than one KWh.
Only if it happens to be generated when it can be used
When the Beast from the East arrives….no the other one, there won’t be any solar to reduce the already low gas supplies.
Kamerads, time to have less home heating/hot water to keep the lights on. Plus factory furloughs
That is the point Nick is blind too and the cost of backup generation well he just ignores.
Yes! Always overlooked by the wind and solar snake oil salesmen…
“Every KWh generated by renewables is a KWh reduction in the fossil fuel needed”
Rubbish and you know it Nick.
Can you explain why you posted
‘ “Every KWh generated by renewables is a KWh reduction in the fossil fuel needed”
Rubbish and you know it Nick.’
The claim seems entirely correct
No it’s not – solar is not generated when needed and is not generated consistently at the necessary frequency, so viewing it as fossil fuel or nuclear “equivalent” is nonsense.
It only seems correct if you know nothing about electricity generation and how the grid is managed.
The output of gas and coal power plants can’t be ramped up and down rapidly.
On the other hand, wind and solar can and do change dramatically very rapidly.
As a result, much of the power being generated by wind and solar has to be discarded.
There is also the issue of needing to keep the fossil fuel power plant warm (idling), fully staffed with operations, maintenance, and admin for when the renewable plant is clouded over and the wind stops (along with every night).
“No, you can burn gas at night.”
Then you need to get the gas, at a reasonable price from somewhere.
Great to see you supporting the Russians, Nick !
Every reduction in “unreliable” electricity supply has to be made up by more than the same amount of RELIABLE supplies.
Fossil fuels are absolutely necessary as a major part of the system.. They need to be able to prove basically 100% + of demand to fill the huge gaps left when solar and wind fail to provide.
Operating them at less than their design capacity is inefficient and wasteful.
The greenie way of doing things.
“Then you need to get the gas, at a reasonable price from somewhere.”
At present, they are burning gas night and day. With more renewables, they can burn less gas overall.
Why not just use nuclear?
It doesn’t matter how many renewables you have, when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine in the winter, you get precisely Zero electricity from them.
Even if we did get plenty of electricity, most domestic and commercial heating runs on gas.
You live in an ideological fantasy land. You would be the idiot calling for the culling of sparrows to solve the lack of wheat problem.
Yep. In the summer and early autumn of 2021a long period of low wind conditions badly affected wind generation across Europe. SSE, in the UK for example, said its generation was 32% less than expected.
Nick doesn’t seem to understand that no matter how many turbines you have if the wind doesn’t blow they are not going to produce any electricity.
Nick keeps saying that. It’s almost as if he actually believes it.
Still supporting the Russians I see..
You are as idiotic and incoherent as griff. !
Every KWh generated by renewables in Europe is offset by fossil fuels burned in China and India
You have absolutely no idea how cold, wet and miserable northern Europe gets in the winter do you Nick. It’s even worse at night.
Frequent high pressure areas with no wind and no sun for the few hours of daylight we ‘enjoy’. Last winter these were frequent and long.
Our housing stock is dominated by solid masonry, Victorian buildings, they cannot go without heating. A conservative estimate is that it would take £100k to raise an average three bedroom one up to ‘NetZero’ standards. I live in one and have the quotes to prove it.
People die under these conditions and if, as forecasters predict, there is a cold winter this year over Europe, many, many more people than normal will die.
They will, of course, all be blamed on covid.
But even a gas powered central heating systems still require Electricity to operate their thermostat and tell the heating unit to fire up. Without that electricity gas heating doesn’t work.
And run the fans and pumps to deliver the heat where it is needed.
That blows it
Sometime it sucks.
According to the leading lights on your side, fossil fuels must be eliminated. Completely.
Insanity or stupidity, it doesn’t matter they are loaded with both.
No it doesn’t matter, both freeze or burn up just the same.
Oh yea! I’m sure that will help them this winter.
I make, from my phone this morn, that to be 35GW of nameplate power and thus for European conditions, thus 3.5GW average over a typical year.
That’s about 10% of UK typical demand.
It’s nothing is it, for all that money!
for Germany:
for the whole EU (~4 times the number of people), maybe 2..3 weeks of energy
that’s a start … but nothing else
and it’s only math, not the real world
That’s a lot of money – totally wasted
Its not totally wasted, apperently it cost $30 to recycle a solar panel and the recovered materials are worth about $3. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
Pretty soon the recovered materials will be worth more than the recovery cost. But then the cost of materials to make solar panels will increase by a factor of about 10. A snake eating its own tail.
It’s not wasted – think of the investors who will make small fortunes from the price fixing and the subsidies; it’s a huge opportunity for corporations and hedge fund managers. (I want to put sarc here but in all honesty it’s no longer a laughing matter).
Fascism.
Well that’s assuming the governments know what’s happening rather than being dragged blindly into it by global investment companies. I’m 50/50 on that atm.
These last years, Marine Le Pen, financed by Russian banks, so ostensibly working for Putin, defended nukes – after treating the fission tech as dangerous before.
And Macron, ostensibly opposed to Russia, insulting Russian medias (many years ago, before the recent Ukraine war), closed nukes, following François Hollande decision.
So which one is it? Which one is pro Russia?
Also, ostensibly pro Ukraine propaganda promotes the inept Russian soldiers ill from Chernobyl radiation hoax, going to more extreme radiation p*rn than not even pro Gazprom RT talking points ever went (re: Fukushima radiation and evacuations).
So why in “these last years” did Germany decide to rely almost exclusively on Russian gas?
Russian banks were involved in Nordstream I & II working for Putin.
Franco-Russian relations go a very long way back.
“If solar panels were any good for solving energy shortfalls, China would have kept the panels for themselves – China is currently suffering energy insecurity.”
A shrewd observation.
If solar had been an answer to our enery problems then our innovative ancestors would have been all over them with a rash. Same with wind. But they persisted with building powerful generators running many times more efficiently than so called free energy ever could. Why are so many contemporary western leaders and politicians apparently dead from the neck up?.
“If solar panels were any good for solving energy shortfalls, China would have kept the panels for themselves – China is currently suffering energy insecurity.”
There are financial considerations. Quite possibly the sale profit will purchase enough coal to make the sale worth while, even if the panels were good for something rational.
“Why are so many contemporary western leaders and politicians apparently dead from the neck up?”
**************
The problem here UK-Weather-Lass is that most if not all politicians and green ideologists are likely illiterate in science and technology when it comes to climate change and energy matters (among others). We have that problem here in the U.S. as well, especially with the current Brandon administration.
I don’t know if political leaders in the UK and mainland Europe have any advisors with expertise in science and technology. If their advisors indeed are the green ideologists who place their belief systems ahead of sound science and engineering, it would probably explain why the politicians are clinging to their wind and solar energy policies. Politicians never admit to nor take responsibility for their mistakes, and Europe’s current energy crisis can be placed squarely at the feet of its politicians.
What is really sad here is that the voters on both sides of the Atlantic never realize how bad their politicians are sometimes until AFTER the pain, suffering and damage from the politicians’ bad policies become clearly obvious (and sometimes not even then). Good or bad, elected politicians reflect the intelligence level of the voters and whatever beliefs are currently in vogue. Whatever is in vogue at a given time is usually a product of those with the political clout and/or those in control of mainstream media to make it popular.
And therein can lie the problem.
Solar does not work at night — or underwater. From Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/wetfarm,jpg
http://www.geoffstuff.com/wetfarm.jpg
My typos are a problem. Geoff S
Solar could work under clear water if water-proofed adequately. Some amount of sunlight penetrates to about 100 meters, or so it is generally claimed
“Solar does not work at night — or underwater.” Or in Europe.
I exaggerate, but not much. There are worse places for solar than Europe.
We have an energy crisis due to a spike in world natural gas prices, made worse by Putin’s actions in cutting gas supplies.
Not because we are going renewable.
you will note German gas storage is at 97% capacity, when it was at 72% this time last year.
These “9x%” don’t mean it’s available, it can be sold elsewhere, and is not the quantity needed for the whole wintertime, it’s only about 25% of the need.
To make it as a green activist, one must possess an extraordinary amount of self-delusion – strativarius
I have to say, griff, you score 11 every time.
If there is plenty of gas, why the threats of not enough electricity? Cost of gas is immaterial to supply. Demand, that’s a different deal. Less demand though, goes along with plenty of supply, right?
Germany refused to exploit it’s own fossil fuel reserves, instead opting for renewables and imported gas, whilst wallowing in virtue signalling green credentials with amongst the worlds highest energy costs, and ignoring Trump’s warning they were heading for trouble.
Were it not for renewables, even had it still imported 40% of it’s gas from Russia, by utilising it’s home grown fossil fuels at least the starting point for energy would have been low.
To keep energy prices low it could now nationalised its FF energy industry and deliver at least 60% of it’s energy needs at a reasonable cost to its consumers. That can’t happen with renewables because there is no way to deliver electricity (being distinct from energy) cheaply.
Try analysing your idiotic posts before submitting them.
The energy crisis goes back years, long before the current crisis started.
As has been pointed out before, even if Germany’s storage was at 100%, it would only last about a month.
Even though “going renewable” has also meant closing down a percentage of reliable FF Gen??
Actually as of October 2022 that figure is 91.79% of capacity and the storage capacity has actually decreased slightly from previous years. Germany’s gas storage capacity is rather more than a third of the total gas storage capacity across the whole of the EU, which may explain some of the LNG tankers anchored in the North Sea waiting for the price to go up again.
Cmon Griffie, tell us another joke please!!!!!
Forest, trees eh???
But the level of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t matter.
Correct, what matters is power and control.
The trees and plants want more.
Follow the money…
I still remember when Germany was going to be the premier solar cell manufacturer in the world. Unfortunately, China showed that you needed inexpensive and reliable power 24/7 to accomplish that.
They gave away the know-how to China installing a production place as a joint venture with China and were proud of
.
On a Sunday walk down a country lane, my son and I noticed a large house with nearly the whole roof covered in solar panels. My son commented that the owner evidently did not do his homework. By the end of the lifetime of the panels, which degrade each year, they will nowhere have covered their cost, certainly not in this part of Ireland. Sadly the politicians will not be held accountable in this life.
You are conflating two issues. I don’t believe that we have a climate emergency or that renewables will make a difference at the national level.
But they DO make a difference at the personal level. I installed panels on my SW facing roof in SE England 3 years ago. They cost me about £9K, but I have been saving about £900pa even before the energy pricehikes, so I will get payback in less than 10 years. Not only that but they increase the value of the house by a similar amount.
I have looked into getting a battery too but that does not make financial sense, even for the small 2kWh battery that would give me 75% of the max savings. That calculation may change if we start getting blackouts, but we’ve only had 1 of those in the last 4 years.
Your panels were made thanks to fossil fuels. In other words, the associated losses are embodied in your solar panels. Then there’s disposal, replacement and the declining performance over the coming 10 years.
As a cost saving exercise they may well prove effective however, I never saw that as the point of them. They have been sold on their environmental credentials and they are anything but environmentally friendly.
1) You paid only a fraction of the cost to buy and install those panels.
2) By law, the power company is forced to pay you way more than the power being generated is worth.
Without huge subsidies, you would be losing money.
Actually, Roger, you are losing more than 2,600 pounds in today’s money with a 7% discount rate over your 10-year period. If the system lasts 15 years you only lose about 800 pounds in today’s money. And that’s not including today’s value of the future cost of removing or replacing the system at the end of its useful life.
Who gave you your method of calculating a payback period? And depending on the condition of the system and its remaining useful life, it may decrease the value of your property. Successful salesmen are usually pretty slick.
Good point. Anyone with a reasonable understanding of the situation would demand the panels be removed and the contract terminated before buying a house fitted with them.
Being most are on a contract of some sort would find them very expensive to get out of. Your talking the best part of the entire installation cost and penalties for terminating the contract early.
‘Dangerous delusion’: High demand for oil, gas impedes green transition, expert says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLgXFWH7lg
The guest on the talk show explains how the world, especially the EU has really f*****d up with its green plan.
The social cost of the Greenhouse blight effect.
Demos-cracy shivers in darkness. h/t WaPoo in trickle-down economies (i.e. single/central/minority/monopolistic) or top-down (e.g. socialist) constructs.
Democracy and Socialim have very little to do with the renewables con game – whatever it started out as, it’s now become all about screwing as much money out of these useless boondoggles as possible.
The transition to renewables is not meant to work it is meant to force people to accept a relentless reduction in their standard of living.
The COVID measures were unnecessary & unsuccessful, the Ukraine war is unnecessary and instigated by NATO, CO2 global warming was long ago proven false; what they all have in common is that they are lies which legitimize the relentless impoverishment of the average person.
Our elites hate us.
Fossil fuel backup will not be required should they ever finish the engineering and deploy modern Gen IV or Gen V nuclear reactors. In fact they likely wouldn’t need any renewables.
Scoundrels in charge.
(Bloomberg)
Russia Ships Record Volumes of Gas and Steelmaking Coal to China
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-ships-record-volumes-gas-042902797.html
_______________________________
This is how it works:
(1) Russia produces and sells actually valuable materials to China.
(2) China converts those actually valuable materials through industry and manufacturing into actual products that are sold to Europe and the U.S.
(3) European and U.S. politicians, radical environmentalists, clueless journalists and “progressives” convince voters of the existence of perpetual motion, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, thereby making it impossible to efficiently produce or manufacture useful goods in Europe and the U.S. thus necessitating the further creation of wealth in China and Russia along with additional transfer of wealth from Europe and the U.S. to China and Russia.
(4) Repeat until all wealth is transferred to China and Russia.
Learn Mandarin and a smattering of Russian.
Da tovarisch.
it’s just sad that europe exports so much of its money to russia and china while their own economies go down the tubes . i’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories but the russians and chinese have certainly stoked their own economies and geopolitical power because of the west’s obsession with climate crisis baloney , which they themselves don’t seem to care a fig about
Of course not. The idea is to increase profit and the energy crisis in order to justify state control of energy.
Considering Chinese-made solar panels are defective, this is indeed a foolish political trap.
expensive yes, defective how?
The Greens have too many government officials and part of the public brainwashed into the belief that renewables like wind and solar can supplant fossil fuels. In fact, the only ones that can do this, and only on a partial basis, are hydro and nuclear; yet it’s amazing how much stubborn opposition exists toward them. They need to examine the recent Goldman Sachs report that points out that despite immense sums invested in renewables during the past decade, they haven’t come even close to unseating fossil fuels as the world’s chief energy suppliers.
What’s the capacity factor for solar in Germany during the three (3) months of Winter? 5% or less?
Europe no longer has an energy crisis lands to LNG
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/energy/europe-natural-gas-prices-plunge/index.html
LNG glut city…. stuff Putin’s nightmares are made. Time to build CNG cars and take down OPEC. Forget EV’s until there is a better battery (the car has no value when the batteries are done in 10 or less years).. Hydrocarbon fuel markets is driving the global politique, (The World Economic Forum‘s Reset, the side ways propaganda war, the espionage war, the global arms race and Russia’s war in Ukraine) time to grab a hold while we can. Now it’ time to stop selling LNG to Brazil, build our LNG ports in the Black Sea and take control of Gazprom’s partitioned energy market in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia while we can.
My guess is the solar market will eventually plunge in Europe now that their NG market isn’t monopolized by Gazprom. Building LNG ports will be a big boom and US LNG will flow to Europe. Brazil will see that they have been hoodwinked by Putin and will not longer be a net importer of LNG but a major net exporter of LNG as they fully exploit their massive NG reserve and begin to export LNG as they had planned in 2014.
Solar would be a very viable energy input with cheap energy storage, which does not currently exist.