O’Leary continued, “It’s not a golden example of success in wind turbines, that’s for sure.”
The federal government ordered Vineyard Wind’s project south of Nantucket last month to halt construction and electricity generation following the blade malfunction.
The company managing the project determined the turbine blade failure was due to a “manufacturing deviation,” adding that before energy can be produced, all blades across the project will be inspected with ultrasound technology and drones, reported local media CapeCod.
Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Møller stated, “We believe we have the right plan in place to recover the rest of the blade, secure any debris offshore and onshore, and safely and responsibly resume the installation program so we can put this project back on track to deliver needed clean power to the New England region.”
Nantucket is merely a casualty of the Biden-Harris administration’s push to ‘greenify’ the US economy with unreliable wind and solar. The admin has pledged to develop 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.
Now community leaders on the small island, home to some of Biden’s wealthy Democrat donors, plan to renegotiate the island’s “good neighbor” agreement with Vineyard Wind, according to Bloomberg.
Gabriel Frasca, chef and part owner of Straight Wharf Restaurant on the island, said the offshore wind power project sounds like a great idea in a vacuum, but this “well-intentioned idea” has “calamitous, unintended consequences.”
NET ZERO – climate zealots are very quiet over a wind turbine, the size of the Eiffel Tower collapsing in Nantucket
Also silent about the 300ft blade crashing to the ocean floor & sending shards of toxic fibre glass onto beaches & shorelines.
Shh… they’re saving the planet
pic.twitter.com/xHS00iL9ci
— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) July 20, 2024
The Biden-Harris administration pitched the American people that green energy was desperately needed to defeat ‘climate change’ and that these green projects would yield beneficial returns. We’re all glad Harris wasn’t the ‘Green Czar’… However, Democrats didn’t explain any consequences of broken blades and entirely left out that this type of power generation is unreliable if the wind doesn’t blow. Also, for solar, if the sun doesn’t shine, where does the power come from?
For Nantucket residents, the consequence of greenifying the power grid was at the expense of fiberglass shards.
Pat McEvoy, managing director at Canaccord Genuity and Nantucket resident, said the green energy push offshore “was jammed down our throats by the federal government.” He added, “We were not represented in this process.”
Even after the blade failure, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey told Bloomberg on Monday, “We need to do everything we can to transition away from fossil fuels and we’ve got a huge asset resource just sitting out there in the ocean.”
Again, the view Democrats have in building out green projects is irrational because they are blinded by their ‘climate alarmist’ beliefs. Closing down coal and NatGas power generators for unreliable renewable energy is disastrous for power grids, especially when AI data centers, electric vehicles, and reshoring trends increase load demand.
Nantucket residents are furious.
Vineyard Wind environmental disaster one month continues. Shut it down now and dismantle. #mapoli #Ack4whales #Nantucket #rightwhales pic.twitter.com/ROD5wC06Bt
— Mary Chalke (@ChalkeMary40147) August 13, 2024
Will some white liberal women finally change their minds on ‘green’ energy?
]]>Rivian announced its Q4, 2023, and full-year results on Feb. 21, revealing that the company will be reducing its salaried workforce by roughly 10 percent. In an email to staff, CEO RJ Scaringe said that layoffs would be implemented on Thursday. “Our business is facing a challenging macroeconomic environment—including historically high interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty—and we need to make purposeful changes now to ensure our promising future,” he wrote, according to Business Insider.
The company told the outlet it employed 16,700 workers in total, which includes both salaried and hourly workers. In 2023, Rivian cut its workforce by 6 percent, which followed another 6 percent staff reduction implemented in the prior year.
Along with the layoffs, Rivian also announced that it expects to produce only 57,000 vehicles in 2024, far lower than the 81,700 units estimated by analysts polled by investment research firm Visible Alpha.
Following the announcement of workforce reductions and lower-than-expected 2024 production numbers, Rivian shares declined. At the end of Wednesday, the firm’s shares were at $15.39. By the end of Friday, shares fell to $10.07, a decline of almost 35 percent in just two days.
Year-to-date, shares have fallen by over 52 percent. Rivian’s $10.07 stock price is more than 90 percent less than the nearly $130 it was priced at back in November 2021.
The Amazon-backed EV maker’s share price collapse comes as many electric vehicle makers are readjusting expectations in the face of softer demand.
A Jan. 4 survey report from KPMG that polled 1,000 auto executives from 30 nations found that confidence in electric vehicles among automakers in the United States and other countries has dipped as many are concerned that their large bets on EVs may take longer to pay off.
“Just a year ago, executives were excited about the prospects for transforming the industry with new kinds of cars. Now, they remain optimistic, but they are more sober about how difficult it will be to manage the transition and preserve or increase profits,” it said.
While several news EV models are flooding the market, demand for the vehicles has “weakened,” KPMG stated while noting that some players may end up under “extreme pressure” as competition heats up.
In Rivian’s earnings release, CEO Scaringe admitted that the company will be facing “challenging macro-economic conditions” in the short term. As such, the firm is “aggressively focused on driving cost efficiency throughout the business.”
Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, told the Los Angeles Times that Rivian’s vehicle projections for this year cast a “dark cloud around the story.”
“Cutting costs and headcount to reflect a softer environment and production issues … Rivian went from a Cinderella story to a horror show.”
Business Downgrade
Rivian was also hit with a downgrade on Friday, with UBS cutting its rating on the stock from “Buy” to “Sell.”
“We had been optimistic on [Rivian’s] product and brand ultimately winning out,” UBS analysts said in a note, according to Dow Jones Wire. However, “more tepid” demand for EVs now threatens the company, they wrote. The analysts cut their price target from $24 to $8.
Rivian’s current EV offerings, a full-size SUV and a pickup truck, start at around $70,000. UBS analysts noted that Rivian EVs were “high priced” and that there were risks to the company’s pricing and volume.
The EV maker plans to unveil its cheaper, next-generation EV R2 in March, which is expected to cost $45,000. However, UBS is not convinced it will have an immediate positive effect on the stock.
“Further out, [Rivian] growth is reliant on R2 … but we don’t believe production starts until late 2026, so meaningful financial impact isn’t until 2027—a long time to wait for a product the stock hinges on,” the note said.
A survey by Gallup last year showed that most Americans aren’t “completely sold” on EVs. Among poll respondents, only 12 percent said they were “seriously considering” buying an EV.
While 43 percent said they “might consider” such a purchase in the future, 41 percent stated they “would not buy” an EV.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds, said that “mass-market buyers have less income and a lot more questions.”
“We’ve been living in this wave of ‘Oh, EVs are great, they’re going to continue the accelerated growth and only going to get better,’ and now it seems like they’re (EV makers) hitting this reality point.”
Even though EV sales have seen growth over the past years, mass-market customers are not too taken with them due to issues like battery life, access to reliable charging stations, and vehicle range, she pointed out.
“It’s not always easy to set up a charger where you live … At the end of the day, for EVs to take off and become mass market, there needs to be major growth in infrastructure.”
]]>The reason, of course, is because they are desperate to push their so-called “green” agenda to fight so-called “climate change” so they intentionally manipulated fuel efficiency data so consumers wouldn’t realize how awful electric vehicles really are.
As WSJ noted, this isn’t a minor adjustment. The federal government allows EV companies to multiply their reported efficient by nearly 700% [Emphasis Added]:
It’s hard to think of a worse environmental scandal in recent years than Volkswagen’s 2015 diesel-emissions cheating. The German automaker was rightly pursued by regulators, enforcement agencies and class-action lawyers.
The scandal ended up costing Volkswagen an estimated $33 billion in fines and financial settlements—and revealed that diesel-emissions cheating was endemic. In 2020 Daimler AG made a $1.5 billion settlement over emissions cheating in Mercedes-Benz diesel vehicles. (One of us helped secure that settlement.) Last year engine maker Cummins agreed to pay $1.7 billion to settle claims that it skirted diesel-emissions standards.
In all of these cases, regulators punished carmakers that had cut corners and misled the public. But when it comes to electric cars, the government has a cheating scandal of its own. That scandal, grabbing far fewer headlines, is buried deep in the Federal Register—on page 36,987 of volume 65.
When carmakers test gasoline-powered vehicles for compliance with the Transportation Department’s fuel-efficiency rules, they must use real values measured in a laboratory. By contrast, under an Energy Department rule, carmakers can arbitrarily multiply the efficiency of electric cars by 6.67. This means that although a 2022 Tesla Model Y tests at the equivalent of about 65 miles per gallon in a laboratory (roughly the same as a hybrid), it is counted as having an absurdly high compliance value of 430 mpg. That number has no basis in reality or law.
For exaggerating electric-car efficiency, the government rewards carmakers with compliance credits they can trade for cash. Economists estimate these credits could be worth billions: a vast cross-subsidy invented by bureaucrats and paid for by every person who buys a new gasoline-powered car.
Until recently, this subsidy was a Washington secret. Carmakers and regulators liked it that way. Regulators could announce what sounded like stringent targets, and carmakers would nod along, knowing they could comply by making electric cars with arbitrarily boosted compliance values. Consumers would unknowingly foot the bill.
The secret is out. After environmental groups pointed out the illegality of this charade, the Energy Department proposed eliminating the 6.67 multiplier for electric cars, recognizing that the number “lacks legal support” and has “no basis.”
Carmakers have panicked and asked the Biden administration to delay any return to legal or engineering reality. That is understandable. Without the multiplier, the Transportation Department’s proposed rules are completely unattainable. But workable rules don’t require government-created cheat codes. Carmakers should confront that problem head on.
This is a bombshell story and WSJ is among the few in corporate media covering it. The rest that did take note made sure to bury the story as far back as possible. Between government, corporate media, activists, and the Globalist Elite Cabal, they will do anything they can to make people believe electric vehicles aren’t nearly as disastrous as they currently are.
Leave your thoughts about this article on The Liberty Daily Substack.
]]>The notion of an electric vehicle (EV) has been around longer than the gasoline automobile, but is yet to be adopted with wide acceptance.
(Article cross-posted from Natural News)
It has been an area of debate in the auto industry for as long as anyone can remember, says Travis Okulski, an editor at Road & Track. On paper, electric motors are fantastic, but in the real world – and especially during these trying times – there are a number of factors that combine to exemplify the weaknesses of EVs.
Pollution
There are two factors that come into play that may not be considered by the EV buyer:
What power is used to charge the car?
Unless you have your own solar generator, the likelihood is that the electric car is actually being charged by coal or gas power, which are the most prevalent power-generating stations in the world. They are also the most heavily polluting. The addition of hundreds of thousands or millions of EVs will put a strain on these plants, increasing pollution on their end.
How are the batteries made and what happens when they are disposed of?
The nickel-hydride batteries that are in electric cars are created in a number of heavily polluting processes, like nickel mining. The nickel-hydride batteries also contain possible carcinogens. To complete the battery construction process, they are shipped all over the world, which adds additional pollutants.
Disposal of the batteries is also an issue. With toxic materials inside, incorrect disposal by a junkyard or manufacturer could destroy the ecosystem of an area for generations.
The strain on the power grid
Over half of all new cars sold in the United States by 2030 are expected to be EVs and that could put a major strain on the nation’s electric power grid – an already aging system built for a world that runs on fossil fuels, according to Katie Brigham in her story for CNBC.
Charging EVs is quite electricity intensive
While a direct comparison with appliances depends on many variables, an owner of a new Tesla Model 3 who drives the national average of around 14,000 miles per year would use about the same amount of electricity charging their vehicle at home as they would on their electric water heater over the course of a year, and about 10 times more electricity than it would take to power a new, energy-efficient refrigerator.
Larger electric vehicles such as the Ford F-150 Lightning would generally use more electricity than a central AC unit in a large home.
In a study commissioned by the California Public Utilities Commission, grid analytics company Kevala forecasts that California alone will have to spend $50 billion by 2035 in distribution grid upgrades to meet its ambitious EV targets. Energy providers could have the option to switch off EV charging stations remotely to reduce pressure on the electric grid, said Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times.
Charge time
EV charging can take minutes or days. There’s really no way to nail down exactly how long it takes to charge an EV because it depends on a myriad of factors. Battery size, its overall efficiency, the speed of its onboard charge and the power source you’re plugging into are just some of the more obvious variables though there are countless others, US News reported.
Range
EVs are perfectly adequate to go around town or to run short errands. The truth is electric cars inherently limit a journey based on their small range.
Range involves charging the battery all the way to 100 percent, which is not the EV norm. Topping off the last 10–15 percent is when the rate of charging slows considerably and it also leads to increased degradation in battery capacity over time, according to Car and Driver.
For example, Tesla recommends limiting charging to 90 percent for daily use. Even on long-distance trips, the stops are determined more by the charging infrastructure than anything else, and the most expeditious method is to top up the battery just far enough—to maybe 80 or 90 percent, keeping it in the speedy part of the charge-rate curve—to get to the next charger. (Related: EV NIGHTMARE: Man spends 15 hours to travel 178 miles, proving EVs are unsuitable for long-distance travel.)
Infrastructure
As of November 8, 2022, there are 56,256 EV charging stations with about 148,000 charging ports across the country. Approximately 52,375 were available to the public, and 3,816 stations were private, according to the Alternative Fuels Data Center.
While this is enough to sustain the current number of registered EVs, the US would need to roughly triple installation rates over the next eight years to support the anticipated number of EVs on the road by 2030. (Related: EV owners complain about “logistical nightmare” caused by lack of charging stations.)
Cost
Lower-income consumers still see EVs as out of reach, USA Today reported. Corey Lydstone, founder and CEO of Autolist, a CarGurus company, said the gains of EVs are currently largely limited to higher-income households.
In a survey fielded by Autolist to 3,104 buyers between February and July, 46 percent of those earning less than $30,000 annually cited EVs’ upfront costs as a major hurdle and a third said they had no place to charge where they lived. That compares to the survey average of 42 percent and 27 percent of people who cited these as top concerns, respectively.
Government
Currently, government incentives are encouraging the purchase of electric cars in America with tax credits of up to $7,500 available.
This brings the purchase price in range with comparable traditional models to make them a viable alternative for buyers. But there is only so long a tax incentive can last, and once the credit dries up, it is only a matter of time until electric car sales slow as well.
So while the government is helping in the short term, the long-term effects could be harmful.
Watch the video above about the US power grid – can it handle the EV boom? This video is from the Daily Videos channel on Brighteon.com.
More related stories:
- Ford halts production and shipping of F-150 Lightning EV due to unspecified battery issue.
- Electric vehicle entrepreneur struggles to find EV charging station for his car during road trip.
- GO GREEN, GET BROKE: Test finds new electric Hummer costs over $100 to charge – more than it costs to fill up most gas tanks.
Sources include:
]]>On average, electric vehicles (EV) fall short of their advertised range by 12.5%, according to a study by SAE International. The study included 21 different brands, and revealed that EV manufacturers as a whole inflate the range of their vehicles far beyond their actual capabilities.
Tesla seems to be inflating the numbers far more than other brands. SAE International revealed that the range displayed on Tesla vehicle’s dashboard is 26% lower than the car’s ability.
This led to a slew of service requests by Tesla customers. The employees denied these requests because, in reality, the batteries did not need to be fixed; they were just operating at a level far below advertised. Tesla employees were informed that they save the company 1000 dollars every time they turn down a service request.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JANUARY 30: A tesla vehicle is displayed in a Manhattan dealership on January 30, 2020 in New York City. Following a fourth-quarter earnings report, Tesla, the electric car company, saw its stock surge to another record high Thursday that blew past estimates, giving the leading maker of electric vehicles a market valuation of $115 billion. Shares of Tesla (TSLA) rose 10.3%, closing at 640.81, a new closing high. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The exaggerated range can be attributed to the testing procedures prescribed by the EPA. Although most manufacturers follow these guidelines, Tesla uses additional testing that may boost the car’s purported range.
“I’m not suggesting they’re cheating. What they’re doing, at least minimally, is leveraging the current procedures more than the other manufacturers,” said Gregory Pannone, an expert on EV’s.
This is not Tesla’s first time being accused of such transgressions. South Korean regulators fined Tesla $2.1 million for exaggerating the performance of their vehicles in 2019. The fine came after it was discovered that Tesla cars drove half of their advertised distance when used in cold weather, according to Reuters.
Tesla did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
]]>Entitled “No climate crisis: carbon dioxide has zero effect on temperatures,” the piece blows to bits the myth that carbon dioxide, a natural substance that all plants need in order to produce oxygen so we can breathe, has absolutely nothing to do with planetary temperatures.
Using two graphs and less than 300 words, the front-page story demolishes the climate hoax, exposing it as a sinister tool for stripping humans of their basic freedoms, including the right to work, travel and access public places.
Under the guise of promoting “ecological responsibility,” the globalists and their roving bands of climate fanatics aim to shift the world away from freedom and tradition into the tyrannical hands of corporate greed and control.
“The climate hoax is an attack on farming and food production – documentaries bemoan the methane production of cows, while the growth and transportation of soya beans destroys rainforests and requires an immense amount of water,” the article states.
“In terms of CO2, little is done to prevent celebrities and world leaders from flying in private jets from London to Inverness, while we must cycle to work, turn off the lights and eat bugs, while none of it makes any difference …”
(Related: One of the co-founders of Greenpeace is on record as confirming that carbon dioxide is the building block of all life on earth, which used to be taught as a basic science concept in grade school before the climate cult gutted education and turned it into a propaganda factory.)
COVID protocols like single-use masks, gloves and tests massively polluted the world
The article includes two graphs illustrating that even as CO2 levels have risen, air temperatures have remained roughly the same or even decreased at different points throughout recent history.
Over the past several thousand years, in fact, temperatures have been on an over decline, which is why back in the 1970s the corporate media was warning about global cooling. Since then, they shifted to a warming narrative followed by a general climate change narrative that encompasses it all.
During the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), there was a lot of talk about implementing a “new normal” that dovetailed with the goals of the climate brigade. They took the opportunity to use the “pandemic” as an excuse to push for massive changes in support of the climate, even as they forced the world to use highly polluting things like single-use masks, gloves and tests.
“Post-pandemic, it was said that animals returned to towns and air quality improved,” the article explains. “This was not the case, and also the recent push for reusable plastics was ignored, as single-use plastic COVID tests, gloves and masks were produced and used by the billions, while again making no difference.”
“The idea that we are helping the Earth by staying inside and complicit is pushing the public to accept that, in order to save the world we love so much, we must completely sacrifice our freedom.”
The article is really eye-opening and worth a read, as is the entire 23-page June issue of The Light.
“It’s really a simple hoax,” one commenter wrote about the myth of climate change. “The UN set up the IPCC to find evidence of man-made climate warming – not to investigate if it is actually occurring, but rather to procure anything suggesting that it does without question.”
Learn more truths the climate cult wants you in the dark about at Climate.news.
Sources for this article include:
]]>
In a new set of remarks attacking the global oil and gas industry last week, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres raised the hyperbole level one more time, attacking oil company investments in carbon capture and storage projects (CCS) as “proposals to become more efficient planet wreckers.”
The Financial Times, AP and other outlets reported that Guterres further stated, “Let’s face facts. The problem is not simply fossil fuel emissions. It’s fossil fuels — period. We are hurtling towards disaster, eyes wide open, with far too many willing to bet it all on wishful thinking, unproven technologies and silver bullet solutions.” Later in his comments, he also said, “Trading the future for thirty pieces of silver is immoral.”
The allusion to fossil fuel emissions apparently targeted United Arab Emirates COP28 president-designate Sultan al-Jaber, who is also the head of the state oil company Adnoc. Mr. al-Jaber has rejected attacks on the future license to operate of the industry itself, like those from Mr. Guterres, reasoning that the focus should be on the control of emissions instead. The UAE will play host to the 2023 COP28 conference in Dubai from November 30 through December 12, a reality that has provoked concern from the global climate alarmist movement.
Secretary Guterres has made a habit of using hyperbolic, bombastic rhetoric in his periodic attacks on the oil and gas industry, at one point in August 2022 claiming the industry was responsible for putting the world on a “highway to climate hell,” so his latest outburst is really no surprise. What is notable from this current bit of bombast, though, is the irony of a consistent proponent of an “energy transition” that schemes to displace highly energy-dense fuels like oil, gas and coal with low energy-density wind, solar and lithium-ion batteries accusing anyone else of being willing to rely on “wishful thinking, unproven technologies and silver bullet solutions.”
For decades now, since at least the early 1990s, we have been treated to claim after claim of a step-change in battery technology that would enable weather-reliant wind and solar to suddenly become 24/7 providers of energy being just around the corner. Yet, though billions have been invested in research and development of new technologies, this silver bullet remains unproven, still just around the corner, where it has supposedly resided for 30 years or more.
We have been consistently told by much of our legacy media, invariably quoting from renewables boosters, that wind energy is now extremely cheap and supposedly out-competing coal and natural gas. Yet, just Monday, the CEO of Big Wind developer Orsted, Mads Nipper, urged the British government to provide even more subsidization to offshore wind projects struggling to obtain private financing. This plea came despite the many billions of pounds in subsidies and tax breaks already provided by the UK to the wind industry, and despite the fact that Orsted itself enjoyed record profits in 2022.
Given that, perhaps UK officials should be pursuing to levy a windfall profit tax on Big Wind instead. After all, if “trading the future for 30 pieces of silver is immoral,” what then is trading the future for hundreds of billions in debt-funded subsidies?
The point here, though, is that wind energy remains exactly the kind of “unproven technology” Sec. Guterres accuses oil companies of pursuing. So, too, are the electric vehicles Guterres and other global elites promote as the “silver bullet” that can and will displace internal combustion engine (ICE) automobiles. Yet, despite 20 years of heavy subsidization, Teslas and other EVs remain pricey luxury items affordable only to the higher classes of people in most nations, including the United States and Europe.
The impulse Sec. Guterres apparently feels to ramp up the hyperbolic attacks on oil and gas in support of an energy transition that is increasingly failing to progress as he hopes is unhelpful, and frankly silly. Global leaders should be engaged in a serious debate about the future of energy and energy security, but doing that requires having serious people engaged in the discussions.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Guterres so frequently demonstrates he does not qualify as such a person.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
]]>The United States currently has an estimated 149.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed nationwide. In the first quarter of 2023, the country installed 6.1 GW of solar capacity, which is its “best first quarter in history,” according to a June 8 press release by research firm Wood Mackenzie. Over the next five years, Wood Mackenzie expects America’s total installed solar capacity to hit 378 GW by 2028.
China is the biggest solar manufacturer in the world and a key supplier of panels to the United States. But trading with China comes with human costs like slave labor.
Last year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) withheld 1,642 electronic shipments valued at $841 million, including solar panels, due to the implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act that sought to counter the use of forced labor when sourcing from China. In March, the CBP released 552 pieces of equipment worth $345 million.
The stalled import of solar panels from China caused delays in solar project development programs. But with the release of part of the withheld shipments, the Chinese solar panels will now make their way into American projects.
Besides the human rights issue in the manufacturing process, the solar industry has another hurdle that is yet to be resolved and which is soon touted to be a global ecological nightmare.
Most solar panels have a lifespan of around 25 to 30 years. As these panels stop working or are retired, they pose a significant challenge as countries have to make sound arrangements to deal with the massive amounts of solar panel waste.
Burgeoning Solar Waste
Based on numbers from Yale School of the Environment, solar panels due to retire by 2030 in the United States would cover around 3,000 American football fields.
In a May 13 interview with CNBC, Suvi Sharma, the CEO of Texas-based Solarcycle, stated that solar energy is “becoming the dominant form of power generation” while citing an EIA report which said that 54 percent of new utility-scale electric-generating capacity in the United States this year will come from solar.
However, nothing has been done to make the solar industry “circular,” Sharma said, referring to recycling. At present, there are over 500 million solar panels in America, with tens of millions expected to be added in the coming years.
A 2019 study published in Renewable Energy estimated that the country will see roughly 9.8 million metric tons of solar panel waste between 2030 and 2060.
In China, solar panel waste has become a major issue. Over the past years, China scrambled to boost the production of solar panels without properly maintaining technology standards. As a result, many of these panels are becoming unusable before the end of their expected lifetime.
The scrapping rate of solar panels in China is estimated to have reached around 30 percent per year, Fang Qi, an investment consultant living in the United Kingdom, told The Epoch Times on April 4.
In March, Liu Limin, deputy secretary of the PV specialized committee of China ECOPV Alliance, predicted at a forum that China’s solar module waste will hit 18GW by 2030 and 253GW or 20 million tons by 2040.
Recycling Solar Waste
Solar panel waste presents a substantial pollution problem. The panels consist of numerous toxic chemicals like cadmium telluride, lead, hexafluoroethane, and more. A chemical created as a byproduct of solar panel manufacturing is silicon tetrachloride which can lead to burns on the skin.
Putting solar panel waste in landfills presents a long-term risk to the environment as the toxic minerals and metals can end up seeping into the ground.
However, this is what is being done right now. At present, around 90 percent of defective or end-of-life solar panels are sent into landfills. This is because the costs of recycling solar panels are far higher compared to just dumping them.
According to Sharma, this gap will be “closing over the next five to 10 years significantly” due to a “combination of recycling becoming more cost-effective and landfilling costs only increasing.”
California is the biggest residential solar market in the United States, and as of mid-2022, the state had only one recycling plant that accepted solar panels.
U.S.-based solar panel manufacturer First Solar believes recycling will become profitable. “I’m very confident we will get the costs of recycling below landfill,” the company’s chief quality and reliability officer Patrick Buehler said in an interview with WSJ last year.
According to First Solar, it can recover nearly 95 percent of a solar panel’s materials by weight. The recovered materials can then be used to make semiconductors for brand-new panels.
Another aspect of the distribution network is that when waste management costs are added, the price of individual solar panels will also move up.
Practical and efficient energy policies need to be adopted by lawmakers. There are many drawbacks presently concerning the solar industry ranging from dependance on China’s slave labor to effectively getting rid of old panels.
Unless actual progress is made in the entire supply chain, it is not recommended to deploy solar panels on a large scale, and develop a dependence on such environmentally unsustainable technology.
Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
]]>The company had been backed by two Australian billionaires, Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and former CEO of Fortescue Metals Group Andrew Forrest.
In a vague media statement on Jan. 11, the solar venture said it has “made the difficult decision to enter voluntary administration.”
The move will “unlock a path forward” for Sun Cable to “access additional capital for continued development of its marque project, the Australia-Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink).
The company describes AAPowerLink on its website as the world’s largest solar energy infrastructure project, which will harness solar energy from the Northern Territory, one of the sunniest locations on Earth.
The energy will then be supplied to Darwin and Singapore 24/7 through a 5,000 km transmission system.
“The appointment followed the absence of alignment with the objectives of all shareholders,” the company said.
“Whilst funding proposals were provided, consensus on the future direction and funding structure of the company could not be achieved.”
The solar venture has appointed global advisory firm FTI Consulting as its administrator, noting that FRI will work with Sun Cable and key stakeholders to “determine appropriate next steps for the business.”
“This will likely involve a process to seek expressions of interest for either a recapitalisation or sale of the business.”
Project Well Placed For Completion
David Griffin, founder and CEO of Sun Cable, said the company has made “extraordinary progress in developing the AAPowerLink”, which “remains well placed for completion.”
He maintained that the demand for delivering “reliable, dispatchable 24/7 renewable energy” in the Northern Territory and the region has “risen materially.”
Meanwhile, Cannon-Brookes, Chair of Sun Cable, said he was confident it will “play a huge role in delivering green energy for the world, right here from Australia.”
“I fully back this ambition and the team, and look forward to supporting the company’s next chapter.”
The collapse of Sun Cable comes despite the centre-left Labor government’s push for net-zero emissions by 2050, having committed $4.7 billion (US $3.2 billion) to fund renewable energy infrastructure in New South Wales in December.
“Recently, large-scale solar generation has begun rapid expansion. Large-scale solar generation has grown from negligible levels before 2016 to four percent of all Australian electricity generation in 2021, representing a five-year growth rate of 1,747 percent,” said the government’s climate change department on its website.
In Australia, rooftop solar PV systems remained the largest full-time equivalent employer among renewable energy types.
However, the share of renewable energy jobs has declined each year since 2012, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
A 2021 report by the International Energy Agency found that “relatively high investment costs, lack of dedicated auctions and competition from solar PV and battery storage projects prevent the faster expansion of concentrated solar panel.”
Expensive Transition to Renewables
While renewable energy has been touted by the government as a cheap solution for climate change, a Canadian study found that if all costs are considered, wind and solar are actually more expensive to produce electricity and such a transition would be environmentally nonviable.
“When we look at the environmental impact of our energy systems, we have to look at the entire value chain,” the first author of the study Dr. Lars Schernikau said in SAGE talks in May. Schernikau is an energy economist and commodity trader.
“There is a production of raw materials that we have to consider. There’s the processing of raw materials that we have to consider. There’s the transportation of raw materials and products that we have to consider,” he said.
“Of course, there’s the actual operation, the combustion of materials, whatever we do with the production. And then there’s the recycling. So these are the main steps where we have to consider our environmental impact.”
Schernikau said there’re non-emission issues to consider as well, such as energy efficiency, material efficiency, space requirement, waste requirement, the effect on animal and plant life, and the effect on health and safety.
“Wind and Solar have zero CO2? Why? Because during combustion, they don’t produce CO2. But when you look at the entire value chain, they produce a lot of CO2,” said Schernikau.
Harry Lee contributed to this article. Cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
]]>The company dropped a statement for local media:
Our industry has been adversely affected by a multitude of factors like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global microchip shortage, but the most impactful challenge is the increasing cost related to the electrification of the automotive market.
Stellantis has taken a number of actions to stabilize production and improve efficiency at its North American facilities to preserve affordability and customer satisfaction in terms of quality.
While it considers other avenues to optimize operations, Stellantis has made the decision to idle the Belvidere (Illinois) Assembly plant effective Feb. 28, 2023.
This difficult but necessary action will result in indefinite layoffs, which are expected to exceed six months and may constitute a job loss under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. As a result, WARN notices have been issued to both hourly and salaried employees. The company will make every effort to place indefinitely laid-off employees in open full-time positions as they become available.
The company also is working to identify other opportunities to repurpose the Belvidere facility and has no additional details to share at this time
According to WIFR:
Stellantis is one of the largest employers in Boone County. Thousands of workers will be affected by the halt in operations.
Local leaders are also weighing in on the news Friday and its effects on the community:
Senator Steve Stadelman, a sponsor of the Reimaging Electric Vehicle Act which includes state resources for Illinois automakers ready to make the switch to electric vehicle production released this statement:
”Stellantis’ announcement is difficult news for the Rockford region, but discussions between the state and the company continue to find a future product and identify opportunities to repurpose the plant that for decades has been a source of good jobs and financial security for thousands of local families.”
The left’s push for the green agenda is crippling businesses who are trying to keep up with forced wokeness. The automotive industry is being hit hard and their troubles are just getting started.
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