Solar power bankruptcies loom as prices collapse

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Eighty Deuce, Nov 30, 2011.

  1. Eighty Deuce

    Eighty Deuce New Member Past Donor

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    Note the one solar investment fund being down 60%. I have to hope that only liberal Al Gore worshippers invested in that boon-doggle. Meanwhile, Obama has made sure plenty of our kids are taking losses on this crap regardless.

     
    texmaster and (deleted member) like this.
  2. webrockk

    webrockk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Capitalism?

    Domestic "Green" was banking on enviro-weenie manufactured AGW hype and hysteria, and Big Fed's free market manipulating efforts to "solve it" with mountains of subsidies and even more onerous regulations on conventional energy exploration/production.

    Leftists call this "Environmental Justice" and "Looking to the future"..... free market be damed....and ObamaCo's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu has admitted to such with this: "Somehow we [Big Fed] have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe"

    I call it "CRA/Fannie/Freddie, Part Deux" and "Unconstitutional Central Planning Run Amok"...and by slightly altering Mr. Chu's missive and attaching it the housing/lending industry: "Somehow we [Big Fed] have to figure out how to open up credit and mortgage availability to deliver the dream of home ownership to low income demographics"...

    reveals my reasoning.
     
  3. krunkskimo

    krunkskimo New Member

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    supply side trickle down economics failed again?
     
  4. robertm

    robertm New Member

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    Don't tell me they didn't see it going that way.
     
  5. Rapunzel

    Rapunzel New Member Past Donor

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    It's called supply and demand. There is no demand.
     
  6. webrockk

    webrockk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ....despite eco-weenie and leftie government elite's efforts to invent it from whole cloth.
     
  7. The Mello Guy

    The Mello Guy Well-Known Member

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    The motor vehicle industry began with hundreds of manufacturers, but by the end of the 1920s it became dominated by three large companies - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automo...es#Automobile_production_in_the_United_States
     
  8. Eighty Deuce

    Eighty Deuce New Member Past Donor

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    This is not unlike Government Motors, aka GM. Down 42% on the year, and still about 38% from its IPO 13 months ago. Government hype, backed by an infusion of taxpayer money, gave it the early boost.

    That and a smear job on Toyota. Remember the sticky accelerators ? That have now all self-repaired ?

    As taxpayers, we are out about $30B on the GM stock purchase, btw.

    Imagine your portfolio now if you started the year with GM and all the solar stocks. :roll:
     
  9. The Mello Guy

    The Mello Guy Well-Known Member

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    energy isnt in demand?
     
  10. Eighty Deuce

    Eighty Deuce New Member Past Donor

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    What do you not understand about solar companies going out of business ? Evidently much, but I want to hear you explain it. Thanks in advance. ;)
     
  11. The Mello Guy

    The Mello Guy Well-Known Member

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    how many car makers went out of business in the first 30 years?

    I assume you dont believe cars are in demand?
     
  12. Eighty Deuce

    Eighty Deuce New Member Past Donor

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    How many of those companies did we subsidize back then ? Was there a glut of cars on the market then, or did certain companies emerge as making better cars, and thusly garner the market ?

    Why are you ignoring the role of government in this, and making what is a pathetically uninformed liberal argument .......... oh wait :roll:
     
  13. BestViewedWithCable

    BestViewedWithCable Well-Known Member

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    I thought the "GREEN" economy was gonna save us and create jobs???
     
  14. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

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    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/b...wins-financing-for-military-housing-plan.html

    November 30, 2011
    Private Dollars Revive a Solar Panel Plan for Military Housing
    By DIANE CARDWELL

    An ambitious project by a California company to install solar panels for more than 100,000 military housing units has been revived with private financing after it failed to receive a loan guarantee from the federal government.

    The company, SolarCity, plans to announce Wednesday that Bank of America Merrill Lynch will lend it up to $350 million to put solar electric panels on roofs and other areas to power as many as 120,000 homes for military personnel over the next five years.

    Under the program, which would roughly double the number of homes with solar power if fully carried out, SolarCity will install, operate and own the solar systems, said Lyndon Rive, the company’s chief executive. Customers will pay the company for the electricity they use, with any unused power feeding back to the military bases.

    The San Mateo, Calif., company had originally hoped to serve up to 160,000 homes with the help of a loan guarantee from the Obama administration. In early September the energy secretary, Steven Chu, announced preliminary approval of a guarantee that would have covered $275 million of a $344 million loan from Bank of America Merrill Lynch for the program, called SolarStrong.

    But the public uproar over the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar module maker that had received a $535 million loan guarantee from the same program, cast a pall over other companies’ applications even as the Energy Department was racing to evaluate them before the guarantee program expired on Sept. 30.

    Near the end of September, the Energy Department told SolarCity it would not be able to approve the guarantee after all, having run out of time to finish the paperwork before the program’s deadline. At the time, Mr. Rive said that the scrutiny the program was under influenced the department’s decision.

    However, the financial profile of the rooftop solar program was still attractive to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The bank is lending up to $350 million for the scaled-back program without the guarantee. Its backing comes as other banks and companies including Google have been financing distributed solar programs at SolarCity and competitors like SunRun and Sungevity that make rooftop solar systems affordable to homeowners.

    “It’s a huge leap forward for the distributed solar market because what we’ve done is create a financing model that can make distributed solar affordable on a huge scale without a guarantee from the federal government,” said Jonathan Plowe, a managing director at the bank.

    A year ago, he said, debt financing was available only for large-scale, utility-based projects that did not face the challenges of distributed solar programs, which are by nature fragmented and have to negotiate differing local regulations and procedures.

    But after Bank of America Merrill Lynch backed a distributed solar project by NRG and Prologis Inc. that did win a federal loan guarantee, it decided it had a process in place to handle the risks of proceeding without government backing, according to Mr. Plowe.

    He said the bank decided the SolarCity project was a solid investment for several reasons: photovoltaic technology is proven, the diversity of installation sites reduces the risk of a failure everywhere at one time, the electricity is relatively easy to transmit, construction time is short and there are few negative environmental consequences.

    Solar developers can also take advantage of a 30 percent investment tax credit.

    SolarCity executives declined to say how much of a return their investors could expect or to predict how many developers of military housing would sign up to buy the solar power.
     
  15. BestViewedWithCable

    BestViewedWithCable Well-Known Member

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    Obama threw 1/2 a billion in the trash on solindra, but only gave the Military finger?
     
  16. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

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    LOLOLOL.. this is NOT the military.. This is a private California company.
     
  17. BestViewedWithCable

    BestViewedWithCable Well-Known Member

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    sure but its for Military housing.

    Why didnt Obama want to make the military cheaper?

    Would he rather give government money to his campaign donors or what?
     
  18. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I shudder to think of how much money the Democrats put the American Taxpayers on the hook for. We need to make across the board cuts in Government to pay for that boondoggle.
     
  19. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

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    The breakthru here is a financial structuring model... privately financed.
     
  20. hiimjered

    hiimjered Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Perhaps I didn't catch it, but where does the article indicate that this power would be cheaper than the current sources?
     
  21. texmaster

    texmaster Banned

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    Exactly right.

    Thanks for wasting BILLIONS Obama!
     
  22. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

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  23. sec

    sec Well-Known Member

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    actually it worked as it's supposed to

    I believe the failing is that this was based on the false hope that govts would drive up fossil fuel prices to the heavens and cap and charade would be mandated

    without demand, this is what happens. There is no market and the govt couldn't even try to create the market through bogus mandates
     
  24. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  25. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How many of them had Taxpayer guaranteed loans?
     

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