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Title: More bad news for the anti-energy, green greed brigade [LMAO!]
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URL Source: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j ... ti-energy-green-greed-brigade/
Published: Dec 23, 2011
Author: James Delingpole
Post Date: 2011-12-23 13:38:05 by Capitalist Eric
Keywords: None
Views: 1431
Comments: 1
Dum dum dum. Another one bites the dust.....
What do solar energy companies have in common with Second Lieutenants on the first day of the Somme? Yes, that's right. (H/T GWPF)
In Germany, especially, the attrition rate has been amazing. According to Reuters, no fewer than 5,000 German solar companies have gone bust in the last year, shedding around 20,000 jobs.
Workers in Germany's once booming solar energy industry face a shakeout of major proportions following declines in the price of solar panels over the past year.Cuts in subsidies for solar energy, weaker demand for panels and fierce competition from cheaper Asian rivals are eating into what was once the world's biggest hub for the production of solar cells, taking the shine off an industry that was effectively born in Germany.
Well boo hoo. That's the price you pay for building an industry which should never have existed in the first place – and certainly wouldn't have done had it not been for the heavy subsidy programme launched a decade ago by the Schroeder-led Green/Social Democrat coalition.
Whenever I make this point, the menagerie of trolls who congregate below this blog go into paroxysms of self-righteous rage, accusing me of heartlessness. No, trolls: heartless is when governments confiscate money from taxpayers and squander it on creating fake (aka "green") jobs in fake industries which go bust the second the exchequer realises it no longer has enough money to keep them on the life support machine.
And though, as I've said before, I have a certain degree of sympathy for the workers who joined the solar industry in good faith, imagining it had – ho ho – a bright future and would provide them with a lasting career, I have none whatsoever for those at management/investment level. If people like Tom Singh, brother of Britain's third most-famous celebrity mathematician Simon Singh, end up getting their fingers badly burned by solar, well, caveat emptor. Presumably they must have done their due diligence. And if they did, it would have been perfectly clear that solar power is little more than a rent-seeker's charter: it does not – and quite possibly never will – create real value; it is obviously unsuited to northern climes; it is, like most renewable energy, yet another pernicious scheme by which wealth is transferred compulsorily from the poor into the pockets of the rich and cynical.
Something similar is happening to the European carbon trading industry. In November last year, you'll gleefully recall, the US Chicago Carbon Trading Exchange (CCX) collapsed when, in the space of two years, the carbon dioxide price fell from $7 a tonne to 7 cents a tonne. And where the US leads, Europe follows.
In early January, investors in the continent's cap-and-trade system still had to pay some euro14 ($18.30) for the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide into the air. By last week, the price of one emission allowance had tumbled to a meager euro6.41 — making it much cheaper to pollute and slashing the financial incentives for companies to invest in low-carbon technologies.Analysts warn that the prospect of another recession in the debt-ridden continent, and the accompanying decline in emissions, could push prices below euro2 by the end of next month.
Meanwhile, up in the skies, the Indians, Americans and the Chinese have formed an unlikely alliance against the carbon taxes being imposed by the EU on air travel. A trade war is threatened:
China has warned the European Union to abandon its controversial carbon tax on airlines or risk provoking a global trade war. Adding weight to the warning, an industry insider told the Financial Times that the Chinese government was seriously considering measures to hit back at the EU if it insists on charging international airlines for their carbon emissions.
and:
The US has threatened to take retaliatory action against the European Union unless Brussels drops its plan imminently to start charging any airline flying into the bloc for its carbon pollution. In a sharp escalation of tensions over Brussels’ move to bring aviation into its emissions trading system from January 1, Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, has written to her European Commission counterpart, Catherine Ashton, and other top commissioners, to “strongly urge” the EU to halt or suspend its plan.
Finally here's Matt Ridley with some perspective on the great green jobs boondoggle:
WHEN is a job not a job? Answer: when it is a green job. Jobs in an industry that raises the price of energy effectively destroy jobs elsewhere; jobs in an industry that cuts the cost of energy create extra jobs elsewhere.The entire argument for green jobs is a version of Frederic Bastiat’s broken-window fallacy. The great nineteenth century French economist pointed out that breaking a window may provide work for the glazier, but takes work from the tailor, because the window owner has to postpone ordering a new suit because he has to pay for the window.
You will hear claims from Chris Huhne, the anti-energy secretary, and the green-greed brigade that trousers his subsidies for their wind and solar farms, about how many jobs they are creating in renewable energy. But since every one of these jobs is subsidised by higher electricity bills and extra taxes, the creation of those jobs is a cost to the rest of us. The anti-carbon and renewable agenda is not only killing jobs by closing steel mills, aluminium smelters and power stations, but preventing the creation of new jobs at hairdressers, restaurants and electricians by putting up their costs and taking money from their customers’ pockets.
We now have an estimate, from meticulous work in a new report by the Renewable Energy Foundation, of just how costly those subsidies are going to get in a few years’ time: £15bn a year, or 1 per cent of GDP. Ouch. That’s more than this year’s growth.
Contrast that with news from the United States that, according to a report from IHS Global Insight, the cheap shale gas revolution now in full flow has created 148,000 jobs directly within the gas industry and – by making energy cheaper – has created at least another 450,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy. By 2015, the total impact of shale gas will be 870,000 new jobs, says the report.
One of these days I'd love it, no really I would, if one of the trolls who lurk below this blog hissing their ad homs and their straw men and their appeals to authority could actually respond lucidly to the points raised in posts like this. Let me explain, once more for their benefit, in very simple language why I have a problem with the man-made global warming industry: on the basis of little hard scientific evidence (only computer projections), trillions of pounds, dollars and euros are being pumped into projects which make energy needlessly more expensive, cause tremendous environmental damage, slow down economic growth, stifle liberty and destroy jobs. If just one of the trolls can prove me wrong, I promise never to broach the subject again. But if the best they can come up with is the usual malicious chuntering, then here's a suggestion: bog off and hang out with the other eco-loons at Komment Macht Frei. The way the Guardian's going, it will need all the help it can get if it hopes to survive another year. (1 image)
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In early January, investors in the continent's cap-and-trade system still had to pay some euro14 ($18.30) for the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide into the air. By last week, the price of one emission allowance had tumbled to a meager euro6.41 — making it much cheaper to pollute and slashing the financial incentives for companies to invest in low-carbon technologies.
What happened to "cap&trade" in the USA? Where is Al Gore (the guy that invented the Internet and CCX) when we really need him?
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