Vestas cuts over 2,000 jobs after profit wipe-out (More "Green Energy" Bust)

reuters ^ | 11/12/2012 | staff

[tobyhill]

Danish wind turbine maker Vestas will cut 2,335 jobs in a bid to restore profitability after rising costs wiped out its 2011 earnings.

Vestas Wind Systems A/S said the cuts, about a tenth of its workforce, would help it reduce costs by more than 150 million euros ($190.3 million) by year-end. Another 1,600 jobs could go at U.S. plants if a tax credit for renewable energy is not extended.

The world's biggest wind turbine maker is battling fierce competition, including from Chinese rivals , as well as the threat of subsidy cuts for renewable energy by hard-pressed governments forced to tighten budgets.

Vestas said that Chief Executive Ditlev Engel would remain in his current post, but Chief Financial Officer Henrik Norremark would become chief operating officer and acting CFO until a replacement is found.

"I can certainly understand if employees as well as people outside Vestas consider us to be in a state of crisis," Engel said. "The challenges we have faced in the fourth quarter of 2011 have given us a credibility problem. It is not undeserved."

[drbuzzard]

What a shock. Didn’t O tell us that green energy was the key to a new economy? </sarc>

[Recon Dad]

as well as the threat of subsidy cuts for renewable energy by hard-pressed governments forced to tighten budgets.

Bingo, this is an industry built on subsidies and when they are pulled the industry dies, like a parasite dies when removed from the host.

[Makana]

I’m channeling Captain Renault in Rick’s Cafe myself.

[RFEngineer]

If they are going to use the “tax credits create jobs” argument, I implore them to take the tax-money they get and instead of making windmills, just hire people to show up and jog-in-place all day.

This will create a core of people who, over time, will be more physically fit and healthy, offsetting potential future healthcare costs.

This would be in contrast to the costs that would have to be incurred by everyone as a result of actually installing wind turbines that far exceed any potential benefit in almost every case.

[USS Alaska]

as well as the threat of subsidy cuts for renewable energy by hard-pressed governments

The single "profit maker" for green energy is other people's money in the form of tax subsidies, without which, the entire scam just goes the way of the dodo.

[TheOldLady]

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[Nevermore]

Anybody who's stupid enough to install a huge, heavy whirling steel blade made by Chinese ought to be sentenced to living underneath it.
My impression of everything I have seen that was manufactured in China is that it is either (1) designed to fail (maybe giving ChiComs too much credit), or (2) not "designed" at all (i.e., designed to only sell, & who gives a $%@! what happens after that).

[virgin]

This will teach Colorado a lesson or two.