What really happened to Solyndra, Gamesa, and alt.energy in the West
China's huge subsidies make solar and wind cheap - and China banks and taxpayers are eating the huge cost
The rush under Presidents Obama and Bush and their contemporaries in Germany, Japan and Spain to subsidize solar, wind and other "alternative energy" equipment makers has failed to generate the promised employment levels -- not just because North American oil and gas extraction technologies has made carbon-based energy cheaper and more plentiful -- but also because China has pumped much bigger subsidies into its own solar-electric and wind industries.
Bloomberg LP's Feifei Shen chronicles China's doomed excess "zombie" solar electric manufacturers here and China's own glut of wind-farms, one-eighth of which are now unused, here.
Result: a huge glut -- and plunging world prices -- for solar panels and wind turbines, the failure of overblown U.S. government-backed solar enterprises like Solyndra, and layoffs at wind-turbine factories like Bucks County's Spanish-owned Gamesa. Why keep extra subsidies for "alternative" energy when natural gas is cheap and plentiful?
At least the new techologies are available to meet increased demand in China, which still burns huge quantities of coal in old-fashioned plants.
Joseph N. DiStefano | Columnist
Joseph N. DiStefano | Columnist
Joseph N. DiStefano | Columnist
Joseph N. DiStefano | Columnist
Joseph N. DiStefano | Columnist
Joseph N. DiStefano | Columnist
Joseph N. DiStefano | Columnist
Analysis
Imran Siddiquee, For The Inquirer
























