In the wake of a massive acquisition binge gone wrong and a stock that’s plummeted in recent months, beleaguered clean energy company SunEdison is closing factories and cutting jobs in an attempt to right itself.
By all accounts, 2016 should be a great year for solar power. . . But investors are not feeling the love. This week shares of U.S. solar leader SolarCity tumbled to a new low, while several other solar companies also took a pounding.
The California Solar Jobs Census report released Wednesday found that roughly one out of three employees in the solar industry works in California.
A series of studies by Tsinghua University, whose alumni includes the incumbent president, showed electric vehicles charged in China produce two to five times as much particulate matter and chemicals that contribute to smog versus petrol-engine cars. Hybrid vehicles fare little better.
“Even if the economics of oil favor gasoline, I think the Model 3 still does well,” he said. “It’s more cases where there is little to no differentiation between the gasoline version of something and the electric version. If they’re about the same, and the electric version doesn’t have a compelling economic proposition, then you’ve got a real issue in the market.”
Nearly every major Chinese car maker is churning out electric cars these days in hopes of capitalizing on regulatory largess. . . One suspected strategy involves manufacturers selling faulty or incomplete cars to related parties who pocket the subsidies and then return the cars. That could explain why wholesale shipments of electric cars between January and November were 56% above retail sales, according to LMC Automotive data. By contrast, in the broader car market, wholesale was 6% higher than retail.
The initiative was sold to voters in 2012 as a way to generate billions for green energy projects at California schools and create 11,000 jobs each year. The Associated Press reported in August that less than $300 million had been distributed to schools and only 1,700 jobs created in three years.
But critics warn that California’s adoption of REDD would have far-reaching human rights and environmental consequences. Initial investments by the World Bank and United Nations in REDD have already precipitated violent evictions of indigenous people from their forested homelands in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya — to make way for carbon-saving projects. In fact, countless activists and grassroots organizations regard REDD as a recipe for a global land grab, prompting them to dub it a case of “CO2lonialism.”
But a sharp slide in the price of oil to 12-year lows this week has rekindled long-held worries that low fossil fuel prices will sap demand for renewable energy sources. Many say those worries are misplaced, yet they have affected share prices.
SolarCity has laid off more than 550 employees — about a quarter of its workforce — in Nevada, the company said today.
SolarCity announced plans Wednesday to cease operations in Nevada after regulators drastically cut benefits for retail solar owners.
“Absolutely not. I think that’s complete hogwash … If you look at this from the point of view of California, this [climate change regulations] is a job creator, it’s a reducer of people’s energy costs. It gives people higher incomes. On a pure numbers basis, I totally reject the idea that there is a cost to this.”
Gardena electric car start-up Faraday Future announced Thursday that it will build a $1-billion production plant in Nevada, a major move for an upstart rival to Tesla Motors.
State officials estimated the company would create 13,000 direct and indirect jobs and generate $760 million in tax revenue over 20 years, he said.
The climate agenda being pursued in California is one of high taxes and stringent regulations that are hampering cheap and abundant forms of energy while propping up costly ones at taxpayer expense. It may please activist billionaires (who don’t seem to have a problem producing their own massive carbon footprint), but it is increasing unemployment, poverty and income inequality in the state.
