Posted on 05/12/2017 5:36:54 PM PDT by lowbridge
The company once hailed as Europe’s largest solar panel producer filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, blaming cheap Chinese panels for flooding the market.
“The ongoing price erosion and the development of the business” has left the company “over-indebted and thus obliged to file for insolvency proceedings,” SolarWorld, which is also the largest U.S. solar panel maker, said in a statement.
The filing comes after SolarWorld was forced to lay off employees earlier this year. The company employs around 3,000 people, including 800 in Hillsboro, Oregon, and was one of the few German-based solar companies to survive a recent market downturn.
SolarWorld is only the latest bankrupt solar company to blame the Chinese. U.S.-based Suniva Inc. filed for bankruptcy in April, also citing stiff competition from Chinese solar panel makers.
-snip
Cuts to subsidies in Europe only made things worse for the solar industry, furthering ensuring cheap Chinese panels would win out. A similar story played out in the U.S. where lucrative federal and state subsidies spurred green energy.
SolarWorld has gotten a whopping $115 million in federal and state grants and tax subsidies since 2012, according to the Union-backed group Good Jobs First. And that’s on top of the nearly $91 million in federal loan guarantees the company got during that time.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelibertarianrepublic.com ...
You have a 150 gallon water tank on your roof? I hope you have some steel support beams. That's over 1200 pounds, not counting the weight of the tank or the pipes or the supports.
Your question presupposes that Chinese manufacturers are selling their unsubsidized panels below cost.
Some newer photovoltaic technology uses abundant, less-expensive materials like copper and zinc ― “earth-abundant materials” ― instead of indium, gallium and other so-called “rare earth” elements. These substances not only are scarce, but are supplied largely by foreign countries, with China mining more than 90 percent of the rare earths needed for batteries in hybrid cars, magnets, electronics and other high-tech products.
That depends on how spread-out it is. It may not be an actual “tank”.
how many hours of sunlight per year ?
I’m raising startup capital for a new venture called Sun Wind Deliverance Yay! Any takers? Just remember you heard it here first SuWinDelYa!
Sniff... sniff... smells like Solyndra.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
And regardless that the Founding States established the federal Senate partly to kill appropriations bills that steal state revenues, it’s no surprise that the post-17th Amendment ratification, state sovereignty-ignoring Senate wrongly helped to pass the unconstitutional appropriations bills that helped to fund the solar panel maker.
Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!
Remember in November ’18 !
Since Trump entered the ’16 presidential race too late for patriots to make sure that there were state sovereignty-respecting candidates on the primary ballots, patriots need make sure that such candidates are on the ’18 primary ballots so that they can be elected to support Trump in draining the unconstitutionally big federal government swamp.
Such a Congress will also be able to finish draining the swamp with respect to getting the remaining state sovereignty-ignoring, activist Supreme Court justices off of the bench.
In fact, if Justice Gorsuch turns out to be a liberal Trojan Horse then we will need 67 patriot senators to remove a House-impeached Gorsuch from office.
Noting that the primaries start in Iowa and New Hampshire in February ‘18, patriots need to challenge candidates for federal office in the following way.
While I Googled the primary information above concerning Iowa and New Hampshire, FReeper iowamark brought to my attention that the February primaries for these states apply only to presidential election years. And after doing some more scratching, since primary dates for most states for 2018 elections probably haven’t been uploaded at this time (March 14, 2017), FReepers will need to find out primary dates from sources and / or websites in their own states.
Patriots need to qualify candidates by asking them why the Founding States made the Constitution’s Section 8 of Article I; to limit (cripple) the federal government’s powers.
Patriots also need to find candidates that are knowledgeable of the Supreme Court's clarifications of the federal government’s limited powers listed above.
This is a fact already in evidence; the Chinese *are* dumping their panels here.
The latter is affecting the union base for the Democrats and is therefore ‘bad’ in their world, the former promotes the Democrat AGW religion and is ‘good’ so it’s fine in their world.
Assuming for the sake of argument that’s true, how is the American consumer injured?
Assuming for the sake of argument that’s true, how is the American consumer injured?
Aside from all the US solar firms that got run out of business as a result? It’s not just the power projects like buildings or solar panel farms, either - it means that the few remaining US consumer electronics companies lose another supplier for solar panels for consumer devices.
The lack of US sources for these and other products could be a big problem for the American consumer as now the US military has to depend on potentially hostile nations to supply them.
If US solar firms exist only by virtue of heavy taxpayer subsidy, their going out of business doesn’t injure the US economy one whit. If the military requires solar technology, paying the true market price to develop it would be much cheaper than maintaining companies at the public trough in the hope that they might, someday, come up with something worthwhile.
What’s the name again, Tesla?
I’m separating subsidies from dumping here. If the Chinese weren’t dumping, US makers would have a better chance. I am not necessarily saying we *should* subsidize US makers, just pointing out that Chinese dumping of solar panels, subsidies or no subsidies, *is* harming the US consumer directly and indirectly.
What *should* have happened when China was found to be dumping is to raise the tariffs on Chinese products. But, since the product was something wanted by Democrats and particularly the Democrats in power at the time to advance their green religion goals, they didn’t.
Trust me, it’s not a tank; the tank and pump are on the ground.
On the roof I would bet it is a series of pipe loops of copper or poly, relatively inexpensive and fairly light weight.
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