Solar Energy Industry Can’t Compete with China

I should be writing about something more upbeat, after Irene ripped through Northeast last weekend. Some of my neighboring towns are still without power and water. I feel pain when I see the pictures. *Groan*

I should be more optimistic and positive, rather than getting mad about politicians making “jokes” about the climate and God, and what God’s message is. *Stupid politicians*

I should be energetic (no pun intended) about innovative and cheap LED light bulbs that are soon to be available for us.

But I’m not.

Obtuse Thinking About Energy

The new “norm” of our lives being disrupted by natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, and unusual weather patterns should make us come to grips with the fact that the climate change is real. We should be facing the music that we are responsible for earth getting warmer and causing these unusual weather patterns. And we should be researching and developing alternative energy sources that do not impact the environment and the climate faster than other nations.

After all, we are America, right?

But sadly, that’s not the case. Unlike China, where alternative energy is heavily subsidized by the government and is manufacturing solar panels, LED light bulbs, wind turbines, hybrid cars, and so on, we, Americans can’t get our act together to see the importance of alternative energy yet.

We are still damn dependent on oil. We are still so archaic in our thinking that oil is forever flowing endlessly, underground, for us to use. Forever.

While the rest of the world sees the writing on the wall about oil, we are still in denial that oil will save us and that it’s the best reliable source of energy.

We still don’t invest enough in research. We don’t develop new technology fast enough or support the new technology there is. We don’t crank out engineers. We don’t support kids to learn about science. Yeah, we say, we need “scientists”, we need science majors, and we need science teachers. But where are the jobs?

I’m not saying we don’t. I’m saying we don’t do enough.

Solar Energy Companies Closing

Solyndra, a solar energy firm is closing because it ran into trouble with its design and ran out of money. The federal government can’t keep its promise to fund them in order for them to continue operating. The company’s design was too complex and too costly to produce in America but it’s not taking its operation overseas like others. A company called Evergreen had to move its manufacturing to China in order to keep its doors open. A company called SpectraWatt closed its doors due to poor market condition created by China’s subsidies to manufacturers. China is producing more solar energy components and parts cheaply because it’s subsidized by the government.

But we can’t compete.

I recently came across an article about $15 LED light bulbs. That is cheap! But the bulbs will be available in India at the end of the year and globally next year. They are still not American made.

We can’t blame these countries. They are the smarter and faster ones. In this race of global economy, slow and steady DOES NOT win the race. In the race of alternative energy, slow and steady DOES NOT win the race.

We’ll be all wiped out in flood waters, blown away from tornadoes, and fall through the cracks by earthquakes, in the race of ‘who will be spared from the climate change” race.

When I see pictures of towns without power, wiped out roads, and faces of people in despair, I wonder how many more disasters we’ll have to experience before we admit that we are not doing enough.

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Auriette

No one thinks of the big picture anymore. I mean, no one in power thinks of it. They are motivated by profit (greed). Gulf Power says they want to raise everyone's power bill by $12 per 1,000/kwh so they can raise $40 million over the next however-many-years. But, they made $150 million+ in profit in the past three months. They could pay all their stockholders a few pennies less per share in dividends, and it wouldn't hurt anyone. Raising power bills will hurt most of the population. It's the same thing with moving manufacturing to China. The bigwigs at the companies want to give the stockholders higher dividends, so they have their products manufactured cheaply in China. Never mind that there's a good chance that the products will quickly break or they'll be tainted with something. That immediately doubles the company's costs (for every item they have to replace or refund), and it costs them their reputation. In addition, paying foreign workers to make the products in China means fewer dollars spent in America, fewer dollars contributed into Social Security, and a worsening economy that will hurt everyone in the end. If all these companies looked at the big picture and chose to break even for a couple of years, and invested their billions in profits back into their products, their workers, and ultimately their country, the economy would rebound quickly and we'd all be better off in five years.