Robert Bryce @pwrhungry on the SunEdison’s Subsidy-Fueled Collapse

Robert Bryce is the author of some very good books on the topic of energy, including “Power Hungry”, which I reviewed recently on my blog, and the newest one “Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong” which I am currently reading.

Bryce has recently written a very detailed piece on National Review about the looming failure of SunEdison, a company that touts itself as the “largest global renewable energy development company.”

Some points are raised by Robert Bryce in his piece, and they are worth mentioning:

Even $1.5 billion in subsidies and loan guarantees can’t save a “clean” energy company from bankruptcy. […] But the remarkable thing about SunEdison is how much cash it was able to get from state and federal taxpayers during its low-emissions trip to bankruptcy court.

moreover:

Alas, SunEdison isn’t the only example of how federal taxpayers have helped prop up poor management in the “clean energy” sector. Earlier this week, the Spanish energy company Abengoa SA filed for Chapter 15 protection in U.S. bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del., claiming some $16.5 billion in debt. Like SunEdison, Abengoa has been a leading promoter of solar projects in the U.S. According to Subsidy Tracker, Abengoa has received $986 million in federal grants and tax credits, as well as another $7.8 million in state and local subsidies. The bulk of that sum — about $841 million — was for solar projects.

To summarize:

In all, Abengoa got some $2.6 billion in federal loans and loan guarantees as well as $986 million in federal grants and tax credits. Thus, between the collapse of Abengoa and the looming bankruptcy of SunEdison, federal taxpayers have shelled out some $5 billion in direct grants and loan guarantees to lousy management teams in subsidy-dependent businesses that would never have grown to their current size had they not been able to binge on taxpayer cash.

5 billion dollars in direct grants and loan guarantees to companies which went bankrupt very quickly, regardless of how much taxpayer’s money has been shelled by the government. 5 billion dollars.

In closing:

Critics of the federal government’s support for “clean energy” companies have repeatedly claimed that the government shouldn’t be “picking winners.” To that, I can only say that the evidence — from the failed solar company Solyndra and failed battery companies like Ener1 and A123 to SunEdison and Abengoa — proves that the government hasn’t in fact, been picking winners. Quite the opposite.

It is quite obvious to me that we are once again witnessing how a government tries hard to force the free market to take a specific route, but sooner or later it is bound to fail. Governments should never pick sides, but if they do, it would be better if they would pick winners and not losers.

For those who have been reading Robert Bryce’s books, this should not come as a surprise. After all, in “Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong” Bryce is pretty clear on what characteristics are needed for a technology to displace a previous technology: solar power is NOT Smaller nor Faster nor Lighter, and most definitely neither Denser nor, quite obviously, Cheaper.

Solar power is still a very interesting way to generate electricity, but governments should let the market decide in what form solar will be used. And no government is doing this today, unfortunately. This is sadly why we will still see more failures like the ones of SunEdison and Abengoa in the future.

Book review: Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future by Robert Bryce

Power Hungry: The Myths of Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future by Robert Bryce
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

 

Power Hungry is an excellent primer on energy, specifically for all those who have been led to believe that there is a future by only using the “green” renewables that modern day propaganda seem to like so much.

First and foremost, it clarifies the difference between energy and power, and why we should not really care about energy per se, but rather focusing on power.

The introduction of the “Four Imperatives” then becomes a measuring scale to understand why we must have a mixed balance in our energy sources portfolio, and why certain sources are better than others.

The main reason is clearly spelled at the beginning of chapter 8: “Density is green”. The denser an energy source, the denser the power generated, the better.

Power density relates to how much real estate is needed in order to harvest the same amount of energy using different sources. Fossil fuels and nuclear are kings here.

Energy density is about how much energy is contained in the same amount of mass or volume. Here nuclear beats by far all other sources, because of simple physics. Fossil fuels come next, while renewables rank very low on this scale.

Cost is fairly self-explanatory to most people, though one should always consider all the factors when calculating costs, something that the supporters of “green” renewables seldom do. It would be unfair to compare solar (which produces power at best 50% during a 24 period), wind (maximum 30-40% on average) to fossil fuels and nuclear (with power generated very close to 100% of the time). If we do not add the additional gas-fired plants and infrastructure to the cost of “green” renewables, we are not making things any clearer, we are rather muddling the waters.

Scale is the last of the Four Imperatives, also very important. It relates to power density and energy density, clearly, and is probably the biggest issue in the “green” renewables field. I have always wondered how could solar PV produce enough for a medium to large city, day and night. This is still very much an open question.

The book is a must-read for all those who would like to cut thru the propaganda and get down to hard facts and figures. Granted, this book is now somewhat out-of-date, it was written before March 2011 when the tragic earthquake and tsunami which put the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP out of service with much media coverage of a non-event (not one person died from the little radiation spewed out from the damaged reactors, yet a lot of people died from unreasonable acts including evacuation of an elder people housing complex in the middle of night).

Some figures today might be different, as the push toward more “green” renewables is ongoing, using a lot of taxpayer’s money all around the world.

But politicians cannot change the hard facts of physics, and this book will clearly show you why.

View all my reviews

A must see presentation from Robert Bryce

Robert Bryce, author of many interesting books such as “Power Hungry” and “Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper”, both very much worth reading if you are interested in energy, is one of the many who hates to use slides during his presentations.

This will not really matter though, because he is a great speaker and he will keep you glued to the screen for the whole 46 minutes.

This presentation is from September 2014, and is still very actual. A must see in my view