In a recent revelation, the green energy sector shows signs of distress, as illustrated by the plummeting shares of Siemens Energy. An article on ZeroHedge meticulously unfolds the tale of challenges and uncertainties clouding the renewable energy sector, with Siemens Energy at its epicenter.
“Siemens Energy shares in Germany crashed on Thursday after the company warned its wind turbine business is grappling with quality issues and offshore ramp-up challenges.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/siemens-energy-shares-crash-37-renewable-bust-sparks-green-panic
The company is in the throes of quality and operational challenges, which have significantly impacted its market performance, leading to a staggering 37% crash in its shares in Germany.
Siemens Energy candidly expressed its ongoing struggles, stating that it is
“working through the quality issues and is addressing the offshore ramp-up challenges as announced in the third quarter communication for fiscal year 2023.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/siemens-energy-shares-crash-37-renewable-bust-sparks-green-panic
The company also revealed a rather cautious approach moving forward, refraining from concluding new contracts for certain onshore platforms and exercising strict selectivity in the offshore business.
The article further unveils the broader landscape of challenges faced by the renewable energy sector. It’s not just Siemens Energy feeling the heat; the entire offshore wind power industry seems to be in the midst of a financial crisis.
“Soaring inflation costs have undercut the sector’s growth and left major projects dead in the water just when their output is most needed.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/siemens-energy-shares-crash-37-renewable-bust-sparks-green-panic
The narrative of Siemens Energy is not an isolated incident but seems to be a reflection of a broader trend in the renewable sector. Other giants in the industry, such as Orsted A/S, the world’s largest offshore wind farm developer, have also faced market adversities. Orsted A/S shares crashed due to warnings related to severe situations in US offshore wind projects, attributed to inflation, high interest rates, and supply chain woes.
In a rather grim portrayal of the sector’s health, the term ‘green panic’ has been coined, encapsulating the essence of the challenges faced by the renewable energy industry in the current macroeconomic environment. The article subtly underscores the gap between the ambitious green dreams and the harsh realities marked by financial and operational challenges.
In conclusion, the tale of Siemens Energy, as narrated by the article, serves as a mirror reflecting the turbulent waters navigated by the renewable energy sector. It brings to light the grim realities faced by the green energy companies as they collide with reality. The journey of Siemens Energy, marked by crashing shares and quality challenges, is emblematic of the broader struggles of the renewable industry in a world marked by economic uncertainties and operational challenges.
First Solar PV and now Turbines, the Chinese must be laughing their heads off as they lay waste to Western companies making Unicorn fart technology. They will instead supply these Turbines made using coal generated energy so Western Pols can virtue signal and become service only economies reliant on the CCP to supply manufactured goods.
News tip:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Profit-At-Chinas-Top-Wind-Firm-Slumps-98-As-Headwinds-Abound.amp.html
I don’t think China is laughing too hard, they’re getting blown away themselves.
They’re just playing chess with Wind Pawns. Pawns are always sacrificed for the greater win
But… but… I thought renewable energy would be much cheaper than fossil fuels! Because the wind and sunlight are free! /sarc
I believe Siemens was also heavily invested in Russia- but it pulled out of Russia quickly after the war started. That probably hurt them too.
Sunshine and wind are free but everything else costs money. So said the sailors of olde.
I can’t imagine depending on the wind to get a sailboat around the planet or anywhere else- though it’s doable. I also can’t imagine depending on the wind to heat my home, cook my food, move my car, and keep my computer and TV operating. Seems crazy because it is crazy.
That was a relative small amount written off $600 mill, and was a few years back now
The Green Leap Forward meeting its inevitable fate.
They forgot the old adage
“Look before you leap”
The real green panic will hit when lending and borrowing freezes up.
And when bad winter blackouts seize western nations, causing death and mayhem
Cry me a river if you hitch your star to Gummint and you go down the gurgler like the EV carmakers are experiencing too.
Obvious answer to the current green renewables financial problems: more government subsidies!
And don’t you dare reference that quote about insanity being defined as doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results . . . we’ve just underestimated the amount of subsidies needed to make green renewable energy “feasible”.
/sarc
The quote is about doing the same thing, that’s not what we want at all – we want to keep doing more and more and more until we make it work. And by ‘doing’ of course I mean spending.
I think you mean shafting the taxpayer
There are other competing priorities for Gummint expenditure of course-
Australia’s tight rental market forces tenants to make tough choices (msn.com)
While the brains trust poured half a million new immigrants into Oz in the last year the construction industry was going broke everywhere. Ostensibly because said brains printed helicopter money to salve Covid ass-sitting and also tossed $25k subsidies for new home building on the table. Naturally the home building sector signed up lots of aspirationals on fixed price contracts and couldn’t complete as the helicopter money did its job ramping up inflation to which The Reserve Bank naturally acted with interest rate hikes.
Trust them they’re from the Gummint and they’re here to help and hold that thought homeless folks couch surfing and camping in cars or under bridges while they save the planet on your behalf. Not to worry they’re going to make the weather more amenable for you.
Offshore Wind is an Economic and Environmental Catastrophe
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/offshore-wind-is-an-economic-and-environmental-catastrophe
EXCERPT
Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,
The S&P Global Clean Energy Index, comprised of major solar and wind power companies and other renewables-related businesses, is down some 32% in 2023, most of that in the last three months, i.e., in free-fall. The peak occurred before the start of the Ukraine events. The smart money sold and others sold as well.
The industry overpromised, submitted bids at prices, $/MWh, that were too low, while costs were increasing much greater than estimated, due to interest rates, inflation, energy/component/labor, a lack of specialized ships, plus supply chain constraints, plus greater than expected O&M/MWh, due to major design/engineering/quality control deficiencies, such as with Siemens onshore and offshore turbines.
As a result, the industry lost $billions each year, as reflected by the S&P index
https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12257574252?profile=RESIZE_710x
When it comes to “renewables” wreaking havoc on the environment, wind turbines have some major helpers.
For example, over 500,000 square miles of biofuel plantations have already replaced farms and forests to replace a mere 4 percent of transportation fuel.
The US has about 350 million acres of cropland
About 35 million of about 95 million planted in corn is for producing ethanol, most of which is blended with gasoline to produce gasohol.
If the US were to replace all gasoline with pure ethanol, E100, about 450 million acres would need to in corn.
If the US were to replace all diesel with pure biodiesel, B100, about 670 million acres would need to be in soybeans.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/politically-inspired-marginally-effective-corn-to-ethanol-program
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/replacing-gasoline-and-diesel-fuel-with-biofuels
To source raw materials to build “sustainable” batteries, mining operations are scaling up, with no end in sight, in nations with appalling labor conditions and nonexistent environmental regulations. But the worst offender is the wind industry.
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
Imagine this:
“I’m a senior manager in the financial accounting department of a multi-billion $ energy services corporation, and I tell you that neither I nor any of our hundred-plus other financial analysts thought for one moment that future inflation might affect our product line.”
Yeah, right!
Everything runs great until it doesn’t. Hard to believe that inflation is not included in their models as is suggested.
The hoax does not include any reality
It’s kind of like the Inflation Reduction Act involving massive amounts of printing and spending.
I have difficulty believing Siemens or other businesses failed to notice the Biden Administration has been printing immense numbers of dollars.
It is also my understanding that Germany has also been printing money to pay bills like heating costs last winter for tfn’s ‘mild’ winter.
Governments printing money so they can pay bill always herald massive inflation.
Teams of accountants and budget specialists would be carrying presentations to their bosses highlighting inflation impacts to contracts, construction, buildings, transportation, air flights, employees, etc. etc.
That includes the impacts to ongoing projects.
These kinds of impacts are addressed every fiscal quarter, and discussed every accounting period (28 days).
Though the first warning signs regarding these companies was when they started moaning about their costs rising over a year ago.
whine whine whine.
Any CFO/CEO that dismissed such worries should have their departments audited, sued once malfeasance is identified and cashiered immediately by the companies involved.
There really is no accounting for taste in some of these managements. There are several UK wind farms on CFDs which offer inflation linked prices which sold inflation derivatives, thus leaving themselves exposed to inflation. Crazy. Here’s Moray East, which has been savvy enough not to commence its CFD so far, taking much more lucrative market prices instead.
Google can’t find this quote.
I assumed it was somewhere on Zerohedge but I couldn’t find it either.
Key word: imagine.
It’s not kind to make things up and put them in quotation marks.
Try using an honest search engine.
Try using an honest search engine.
Is there one?
If they and other financial analysts seriously believed that and never accounted for inflation or supply issues then each and every one needs to be fired from their jobs for incompetence with immediate effect.
Why? If your business model’s contingency is getting bigger government subsidies, what’s the problem?
Well that’s a point. But they can’t have just assumed that the subsidies would never stop or run out, shirley? That wouldn’t be any sort of financial analysis, just wishful thinking.
NPV baby!
That’s why the wind bandits are demanding a 70% increase in strike price subsidy in the UK
Their tech is engineeringly incompetent for national grids, they are robbing taxpayers blind
And what’s the betting, our gov’t succumbs to it?
Some numbers. Correctly calculated (unlike EIA) the LCOE of CCGT is about $58/MWh compared to onshore wind at about $146/MWh. The biased EIA says offshore wind is 3x onshore, so about 7.5x CCGT. (US natgas costs).
Green reality setting in.
Isn’t there enough data to directly calculate LCOE for offshore wind?
The real LCOE of wind is a variable that depends on how much of its output must be curtailed at zero value or sold at negative prices. As wind penetration increases, those costs will push up the real cost of wind substantially – they act to reduce its capacity factor. Of course, LCOE take no account of all the other costs imposed by rising levels of wind capacity, including extra grid capacity, extra grid stabilisation equipment and the cost of maintaining backup for when the wind doesn’t blow. These costs rise very rapidly once renewables provide in the region of 60% of energy, but are already appreciable at that level. LCOE is a very misleading statistic.
“The case for wind power was built upon a myth”. See:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/29/the-case-for-wind-power-was-built-upon-a-falsehood/
Since Western governments globally have committed to Green power goals, and since these governments seem to be firmly in power given the lack of intelligence of the voting public, or by corruption of the voting process, whatever, I do not doubt that the necessary governmental interventions will occur, at least in the short term. Long term, as these same governments go bankrupt, well… I cannot see that far into the future.
So, for investors, what to do? Go long or go short companies with exposure to offshore wind? That is the question we should be asking ourselves.
The U.N. needs to get back to peacekeeping and leave climate prediction to the geologists.
Geologists do not predict climate. They simply report what it has been in the past according to what they find below the surface from many factors.
Was the UN ever any good at peacekeeping either?
About as good as Oxfam were at disaster relief in Haiti.
I am very interested in whether the issue at Siemens — bearing and gear failures — is endmeic among all wind turbine manufacturers. Please don’t respond with the usual empty polemics that dominate so many comment sections, but knowledgable engineering information, with links.
Do Vesta and GE have the same mechanical problem related to chaotic behavior of wind fields and their impact on bearings that has killed Siemens’s turbines, or have other manfacturers figured out how to use different materials or designs, making this issue unique to Siemens? Again, please provide evidence, not just yammering. Thanks in advance.
I was going to respond but I doubt that yammering about mechanical maintenance issues 300 feet above ground is anything you’d want to hear about. Lets just agree that it creates jobs and leave it at that.
Please sell my reply to “Operator” below if you want to more fully understand how I am approaching this.
Oops. “Please see …”
I work for a G&T. We buy Siemens voltage regulators. We had so many fail shortly after installation that it be came policy to de-tank them and rebuild them when they arrived at our service center. Regulator failure is quite “exciting.” You don’t want to be inside the station fence when one fails.
I am jumping down the rabbit hole on this issue, and am willing to slog through engineering papers, one of which I have found and read. My major question, to repeat, is whether the bearing issue (which has been a big problem ever since wind turbine production and installation began ramping up a decade ago) is universal or limited to Siemens.
My guess is that its universal, but that’s only my guess, and I seek objective and detailed information that’s understandable to an intelligent, reasonably diligent non-specialist. Siemens Gamesa makes all of the wind turbines installed not far from where I live, and I believe the large majority of turbines installed throughout the United States.
My guess is that the bearings issue, which I believe to be quite serious, has been obscured from general view because installations have outpaced failures, so for the time being the share of electricity generated by wind has risen to 10%. I am a retired financial analyst, and it reminds me of retailing corporations, and the difference between total revenue growth and sale-store revenue growth.
Retail analysts have long learned to look at the total AND at same-store numbers to ascertain the health of these enterprises. Same goes for companies selling products through retailers; there, you look at total sales but also at “sell through” (ongoing sales) and the number of retail “doors” where the products are sold.
This is a long comment, and I hope you have been patient. I am wondering whether the mechanical issue with bearings and chaotic wind fields is a Siemens problem or endemic to all wind turbines, and wanted to illustrate how I — a non-specialist — am thinking about it in terms I can readily understand.
Again, I’m sufficiently interested to be willing to dive into fairly specialized discussions, but they need to be well-documented, hence my original disdain for mere “yammering.”
Right. It’s a universal problem with every single manufacturer, bar none. Most wind turbines have been scaled up from smaller designs which are pushing the bearings, in particular, way beyond their design loads. Siemens have been working on this problem for some years after it became obvious in an offshore array that had multiple in-warranty failures. Google this and you will find a long stream of articles discussing bearing failure in general terms, but not one piece of data from any manufacturers to show many of the details or scale of the problem. No manufacturer will want to encourage a loss of confidence in their product, especially when they are trying to work on a solution to the problem. It’s also obvious that none of the manufacturers has been able to solve the problem, despite years of effort, or the news would be everywhere, including a rush from their competitors to buy the money-saving component!
As I understood it the problem is universal and already solved.
If the bearings lie still, they warp under the weight. Then when they turn again they heat up, lose efficiency and sometimes, burn out.
Solution: Turn the blades every so often regardless of the weather. Just pull electricity from the grid and keep the bearings turned.
My ignorant guesswork is that Siemens offshore windfarms cannot do this because… the windfarms are not yet connected to the grid.
There are still lots of discussion over who is going to pay for the extra connections for these new windfarms.
Do you have a source that talks about this? It’s a cause that I’ve never seen discussed other than in your comment.
I did more than one search and found a technical paper that pretty strongly implies that this is a universal issue. I am looking for more than one source, as solid as the one appeared, and am asking here because amidst the knee-jerk stuff in the comments (speaking of endemic, that’s endemic on even the best internet sites) there is a pretty high level of knowledge among some commenters.
The problems apply to the larger turbines that have been coming to the market in more recent years. You may find these articles a useful background (and there are also some well informed comments):
https://watt-logic.com/2023/06/14/wind-farm-costs/
https://watt-logic.com/2023/10/10/off-shore-wind-targets-at-risk/
If you really want to start getting your head around the engineering issues, I would recommend getting a good basic understanding from working through this tutorial:
http://drømstørre.dk/wp-content/wind/miller/windpower%20web/en/tour/wres/index.htm
It introduces many of the engineering issues in an easily understood way, and ties them in with economics and gives a good background on the wind itself.
Large turbine diameters mean there can be a big difference in wind speed at the top and bottom of the travel of each blade, with the lower point when passing the tower made worse by the shadowing effect of the tower itself preventing the air from exiting the turbine as efficiently. The result is rotating stresses on the turbine, and varying bending stresses on the blades that are therefore constantly being flexed. These problems are actually much worse for tidal stream turbines because water is much denser than air: attempts to increase tidal turbine diameters to try to harvest more energy were largely abandoned because they were rapidly wrecked by the stresses. However, because tidal stream is still rather more experimental than commercial, it tends to be easier to access papers on them. This one gives some interesting insights on where stresses occur, and introduces some finite element analysis and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics!)
:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364287326_Fluid-Structure_Interaction_Modeling_of_Structural_Loads_and_Fatigue_Life_Analysis_of_Tidal_Stream_Turbine
This one introduces some other design aspects:
https://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~robpoole/PAPERS/POOLE_44.pdf
This review gives some insight into a number of other factors:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340460070_A_Review_of_Tidal_Current_Turbine_Technology_Present_and_Future
This paper looks at offshore wind turbine towers
https://www.academia.edu/89507145/Considerations_for_the_structural_analysis_and_design_of_wind_turbine_towers_A_review
This provides a review of wind turbine blade design, although now probably a little out of date for the largest machines:
https://learninglink.oup.com/protected/files/content/file/1586420428961-Research_Paper_3.pdf
This paper suggests that we are probably at economic limits for making turbines bigger:
https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3Abd7a977e-3b9a-4a5c-84f7-1635089ae906
Happy reading!
Thank you VERY much. This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I have a lot of reading to do.
Your comprehensive reply, with links, makes this site worth all the time I’ve put into it. Again, I cannot possibly thank you enough. Wow! Thank you. See, there are few things I hate more than not knowing WTF I am talking about, or seeing others just spout off without evidence. Maybe the worst is when someone tells me what I want to hear, but without any evidence.
It’s going to take a bunch of time to plow through all of this, but hey, I asked for it. Sorry to be repetitive, but thank you so much.
I would extend my lunch for a G&T I but wouldn’t work for one.
It’s an intrinsic design fault in all wind turbines = they have a shaft that is not supported at both its ends
A perfect example is the coolant pump (water) pump on VW diesel engines, driven off the cambelt as it is.
The cam belt is carrying a lot of load but the thing driving it (crankshaft) has a bearing at each end and one between each cylinder.
The thing being driven (camshaft) is supported at both its ends and at its centre.
The water pump is supported by only one bearing which also has to double up as the water seal
VW water pumps fail like clockwork between 80 and 90,000 miles if you go past the specified cambelt service/replacement at 75,000 miles – it is a well known weakness.
New cambelts always come in kits with a new water pump.
The bearing on a windmill is in the exact same situation – they need a support-bearing in front of the blades as well as behind.
As they are, all windmills are designed to destroy themselves and it is not a matter of quality control or materials used to make the bearings.
It’s probably also that because the blades aren’t properly supported (the single bearing allows them to move/flex too much) is why (onshore) windmills are retired at 15 years due to cracking/flaking/peeling of the fibreglass that the’re made of.
The single bearing allows them to flex too much and they crumble
Offshore mills will have an even harder life and will be lucky to get past 12 years
You don’t need links to support that, it is just Simple Basic Engineering Mechanics that even teenage boys learn from riding pushbikes
Now I await signs that news of this unavoidable disease will reach the more remote areas, such as the Green party here in New Zealand, so that we can be seen to waste fewer resources than larger and wealthier countries in Europe and the Americas. But I suspect that here, our Greenies will consider themselves to be “smarter than those others”, and will be unwilling to take note of the warnings from overseas. Even more of our precious resources will be wasted before they are compelled to accept the inevitable!
One of the few places wind energy makes *some* sense
Already at 80-90% renewable so no need to ‘throw good sense to the wind’ to worship the carbon god
More good news. Live by the lie, die by the lie. These people have been lying to us from the beginning. I’m not talking about Siemens as much as political leaders and the CAGW crowd. Our openings are becoming bigger we need to go after these monsters now. It is not okay to lie to people.
“It’s not okay to lie to people”. Politicians do it all the time, especially around election time, People don’t seem to care. They seem to expect it so it has become acceptable. Thus the mess the world is.
Time to double down baybee….build them windmills higher up where the wind blows harder…and…and build them floatin’ windmills….and how ’bouts them toroidal blades…yeah that’s the way to do it! Blow me down!
I’m waiting for the first muppet to suggest trying to put one in the jet stream!
No need to wait, Richard: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12355-flying-windmills-could-harness-the-jet-stream/ – 2007
Arrgh! Sometimes I look at all of these ideas and wonder If I’ve gone insane and I’m just imagining nutty idea after nutty idea in an endless stream of insanity. Then I realise that, no, the world appears to have gone mad around you.
Held aloft by hydrogen-filled balloons.
What could possibly go wrong. !
Kitegen is still struggling for take-off:
http://www.kitegen.com/en/
The fact that offshore wind electricity costs are 5-10 times that of CCGT is proof that it takes more energy to produce, install, and operate these systems than they can ever generate. The whole reason they are to be built is to save CO2 emissions vs. fossil fuels. If they consume more energy than they can produce, then their whole reason to exist is a falsehood.
Prove me wrong, show me a single wind, solar, battery and transmission energy production system which uses its own power output to replicate itself. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
The article at the link says otherwise.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513003856
Here’s the summary from your linked article. I’ve highlighted in bold the particularly relevant points that I tend to agree with.
“Thus society seems to be caught in a dilemma unlike anything experienced in the last few centuries. During that time most problems (such as needs for more agricultural output, worker pay, transport, pensions, schools and social services) were solved by throwing more technology investments and energy at the problem. In many senses this approach worked, for many of these problems were resolved or at least ameliorated, although at each step populations grew so that more potential issues had to be served.
In a general sense all of this was possible only because there was an abundance of cheap (i.e. high EROI) high quality energy, mostly oil, gas or electricity. We believe that the future is likely to be very different, for while there remains considerable energy in the ground it is unlikely to be exploitable cheaply, or eventually at all, because of its decreasing EROI.
Alternatives such as photovoltaics and wind turbines are unlikely to be nearly as cheap energetically or economically as past oil and gas when backup costs are considered.
In addition there are increasing costs everywhere pertaining to potential climate changes and other pollutants. Any transition to solar energies would require massive investments of fossil fuels. Despite many claims to the contrary—from oil and gas advocates on the one hand and solar advocates on the other—we see no easy solution to these issues when EROI is considered.
If any resolution to these problems is possible it is probable that it would have to come at least as much from an adjustment of society’s aspirations for increased material affluence and an increase in willingness to share as from technology.
Unfortunately recent political events do not leave us with great optimism that such changes in societal values will be forthcoming.”
In other words, with reference to the final sentence in the quote, we are stuck in our ways of satisfying our greed, ego and vanity. (Well, most of us are. A few of us have the intelligence, pragmatism and self-control, to understand what is necessary and what isn’t.) (wink)
I’m not somehow an advocate of wind turbines; other way around, in fact. If nothing else, I consider them a plague on the landscapes of my beloved wide open West. That said, however, they appear to have a high EROEI. The 18 number is repeated in other articles. My question would revolve (pardon the pun) around the energy expenditure in replacing their endemically defective hubs.
Oh, and it’s not “my” link. It’s something I found.
I just very quickly skimmed this article. In fact, it is an analysis of EROI. The discussion of wind and solar EROI was especially vague – throwing out some high values but with caveats that maybe, maybe, things aren’t so rosy as the references state. I did not see where it discusses wind or solar in the context of John’s comment. There is no mention of any system that “uses its own power output to replicate itself”.
I’ve pondered for some time – just how much of a headstart would be necessary to create a self-sustaining industrial complex that can regenerate itself using just solar and wind for it’s energy, and just materials made without the use of FF. Clearly, such a complex could not bootstrap itself into existent. So, the headstart would be a full blown FF produced complex of buildings, streets, wells, foundries, and so. With, say, a hundred square miles of arrays and wind turbines. Could it make it? My gut says no. In twenty years it will be an abandoned ghost town. Even getting supplies with FF content wouldn’t make much of a difference.
I think there are major downsides to wind and solar, but the fact is that they both have positive EROEI. I posted one link, but anyone who does a search will see that the EROEI is positive for both of them. Opinions not based on facts are worthless.
I see no examples of solar PV or wind power systems being used to produce more of these systems in your link. Try again.
Irrelevant.
We’ll plant the offsetting trees somewhere else-
La Trobe University’s plan to cut carbon emissions using solar farm sparks environmental concerns | Watch (msn.com)
Howsabout a floating forest offshore?
Green panic? When was there not a “green panic”?
Their problem is that they have already abused so many of the adjectives, adverbs and superlatives in the English language that people are becoming inured to it all.
The day may come when they find the cupboard bare.
If the Gummint could just give us a wee guarantee we’ve got plenty of orders up our sleeve-
Explainer-Why is Siemens Energy seeking $16 billion state guarantees? (msn.com)