Europe’s lunatics don’t want cheap green energy

\ 9 Comments \ by
Shanghai solar panels

Solar panels in Shanghai installed on a river or canal—plenty of those across Shanghai. Click to enlarge.

Bureaucrats slap tariffs on Chinese solar cells – incredible

Those non-elected, impossible-to-sack bureaucrats who “manage” Europe have lost their wits. While the rest of the world tries to hammer out a global agreement to reduce our emissions and thus “fight” climate change, these thickwits have slapped a 70% anti-dumping tariff on cheap Chinese solar panels. How mad can they get? Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: , , ,

More solar panel subsidies die

\ 17 Comments \ by
solar panels

Waste of money in Spain, USA, Britain and Germany and now Australia

Aussie solar panels suck money from the poor and hand it to the rich

• Adapted from The Australian (behind paywall) – H/T John McLean

The cost of climate-change-inspired subsidies to boost the installation of rooftop solar systems has forced consumers who don’t have solar panels (the poor people) to pay $14bn to the rich people who do, but the Aussies are coming to their senses.

With 1.4m households having solar panels, Australia has the highest proportion in the world of households with solar panels, but the ill-advised subsidies that allowed them, plus presumably their marketing, outweigh any good they do by $9 billion. Unbelievable. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: ,

Dazzling solar generator fails promise

\ 24 Comments \ by

Wants half-billion public bailout

From The Hockey Schtick (h/t Richard Cumming) we learn that the Ivanpah solar thermal plant (the world’s largest), on the edge of the Mojave desert in California, has failed to keep its promise of renewable, reliable, cheap, climate-changing electric power. Which is a shame, but at least it’s their own money they’re playing with. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: ,

Solar energy storage — a gift from Gaia

\ 13 Comments \ by

I love the way Viv thinks! Once again he highlights a stunning new aspect of the man-made global warming absurdity. Everyone should hear this: but especially our government, the Greens, the Maori Party, vegetarians, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gareth Morgan. – Richard Treadgold

There is a massive problem with photo-voltaic solar power. Modern cities and industries require power 24/7 but solar panels can only deliver significant energy from 9am to 3pm on a clear day — a maximum of 25% of the time. Even within this time, energy production peaks at midday and falls off steeply on either side.

Science has yet to develop a solar storage battery suitable for grid power. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: , , ,

Billions burned in German solar debacle

\ 25 Comments \ by
Just last year the German solar power industry was predicting good times.

A year ago, as this impressive growth forecast out to 2029 shows, the German solar thermal power industry was predicting good times. Today, it’s nearly dead. The German solar industry association Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft (BSW Solar) officially presented its Roadmap for Solar Heat at Intersolar Europe in June 2012. The roadmap describes scenarios for developing solar thermal power in Germany and shows the policies needed to implement them. While the roadmap’s outlook was criticised for sounding too optimistic, one of the authors, Matthias Reitzenstein, emphasised that the paper was not meant to be a prediction of what would happen but rather a guide about what needed to be done.
Not only wasn’t it a prediction, wasn’t it a short-lived prediction!

Large German companies such as Siemens and Bosch are abandoning the solar industry. Their strategies resulted in debacles – their investments in solar power companies cost them billions. Compared to what investors have lost as a result of their investments in solar stocks, however, these sums are almost negligible amounts. The former stars at the stock exchange, SolarWorld and Q-Cells, have destroyed tens of billions of capital. –Thiemo Heeg, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 June 2013

via latest newsletter from the Global Warming Policy Foundation – h/t Benny Peiser at the GWPF.

The following is adapted from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Large German companies such as Siemens and Bosch are abandoning the solar industry. Their strategies resulted in debacles – their investments in solar power companies cost them billions. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: , ,

Sun sets on solar subsidies

\ 4 Comments \ by
Tesla with solar power umbrella

Lotus Tesla with amazing new solar power umbrella! You’ll all want one of these! Click for larger version.

— by Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition

In the days of Queen Victoria they could say truthfully: “the sun never sets on the British Empire.”

But it does set on Australia, every single day. Even the green power engineers in Parliament must have noticed that the sun also sets on all those solar panels that their mandates and subsidies have plastered onto Australian roofs.

Solar energy is most intense on the equator but weakens towards the poles. It disappears when the sun sets or cloud obscures the sun. For just six hours or so per day during summer, in a clear tropical desert area, solar energy is reasonably reliable and collectible, although always very dilute. But at times of peak demand, about 6.30pm in winter, solar panels contribute nothing to electricity supply. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: , , ,

King Coal and Mighty Nuclear

\ 1 Comment \ by

We all know that the becalmed wind turbines produced a derisory trickle of power during this wicked northern winter.

But who is climbing up to clean the snow off the solar panels so they can collect another derisory trickle of energy, around midday only, from the pale winter sun?

Meanwhile, quietly, efficiently and unseen by the green dreamers, King Coal and Mighty Nuclear are keeping the lights on and the heaters glowing.

Viv Forbes

Posted in: General \ Tagged: , , , , ,