The Great Green German Solar Depression – Green Revolution Brings Massive Layoffs

Warmist site Klimaretter (Climate Rescuer) here brings us the news that yet another German solar company is going under, and with it taking down hundreds of “future” jobs.

We should note that like the solar industry, the warmist movement is also hurting financially. For example, Klimaretter is now begging its readers for money and donations. So if you have any loose change in your pocket…

Please understand they don’t have the luxury of the fossil fuels industry sending them millions and millions like us skeptic sites do –  sarc off.

Personally I don’t know what these crybabies want. Us skeptic sites do what they do because we feel it’s the right thing to do, and not for money.

The latest news is that US photovoltaic company First Solar is pulling completely out of Germany, check it out here. I’m sure everyone has already heard and read this news everywhere in the mainstream media, right? Not really.

First Solar was the third largest solar energy company in the world behind China’s JA Solar and Suntech.

So what happened? Mike Ahearn, Chairman and Interim CEO of First Solar:

It is clear the European market has deteriorated to the extent that our operations there are no longer economically sustainable, and maintaining those operations is not in the best long-term interest of our stakeholders.”

First Solar will shut down its plant in Frankfurt (Oder) and cost the economically depressed region 1200 jobs by the end of the year – a massive blow because the company was by far the region’s largest employer. The plant was opened barely 5 years ago amid much hoopla and proclamations of how it was the industry of the future. Klimaretter writes that at the time, everyone heard comments like:

Establishing First Solar at Frankfurt (Oder) is a prime example of successful climate protection and economic policy in Germany.”

Now, less than 60 months later, not only will the company close its solar plant in Frankfurt (Oder), but also its sales HQ in Mainz, costing another 150 jobs. The people who gave us these promises of “jobs for the future” are the same who insist that the projections of climate models can also be taken to the bank.

First Solar follows an entire series of solar industry collapses in Germany, led by Solon, Solar Millennium, Q-Cells, and Solarhybrid, to name a few. Call it Merkel’s Miracle.

In total, the tens of billions of euros in subsidies have produced only massive economic misery and dashed dreams – and forget about changing the global climate. First Solar is a prime example result of a scientific farce.

 

14 responses to “The Great Green German Solar Depression – Green Revolution Brings Massive Layoffs”

  1. mwhite

    Have you got this type of problem over there

    http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2130985/RICS-warns-house-hunters-buying-homes-free-solar-panels-fitted.html

    “House hunters have been warned by surveyors against making offers to buy properties fitted with free solar panels, over fears their mortgages will be turned down”

    1. DirkH

      By now, I have not heard of those types of long term leasing contracts in Germany. Here, individual homeowners who intend to profit from the feed in tariff buy their own solar installation, sometimes aided by cheap loans from the KfW; Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, a public bank.

  2. Edward.

    Apologies for this PG not on topic but this is priceless green lunacy and OMG -shock horror!! ………………… be careful what you may wish for…………..

    “When the German government shut down half the country’s nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, followed two months later by a pledge to abandon nuclear power within a decade, environmentalists cheered.”

    http://junkscience.com/2012/04/21/germanys-nuclear-power-phaseout-turns-off-environmentalists/

    Then, in Deutschland they started burning lignite in coal fired power generating stations [ha ha ha]…………you couldn’t make it up!

  3. Edward.

    Should have said this in above post……..No apologies – I know you’ll [at NTZ] be aware of this but hell – it sure still amuses me.

    1. DirkH

      Most ordinary Germans are fervently against nuclear power but couldn’t care less about lignite. The flipflopping of the enviros will alienate the sheeple. Merkel has co-opted the biggest driver for the Green movement by switching off half of the old GE Mark 1 reactors; they’re a design from 1968 anyway. In my street 20% of the cars have an Atomkraft Nein Danke bumper sticker. Since Fukushima approval ratings for the Greens are plummeting. People got what they wanted from the CDU and don’t need the Greens anymore. Greens are at 12% approval rating down from a high of 30% right after Fukushima.

      I’d sacrifice the nukes anytime if it saves me from living under a Green tyranny.
      Now let’s hope the Rio+20 summit ends in the usual discord.

      1. Edward.

        Good that the greens are getting stuffed, ah the lignite-carbon comeback neu-zeitgeist?

      2. Casper

        Divide et impera 😉

  4. DirkH

    On topic, about the demise of First Solar: They are producing cheap thin film cells with about half the efficiency of silicon cells. So you need twice the area. This means that the land costs are twice as high for the thin film technology. Inverter costs are obviously not affected.

    So, as silicon got cheaper, the market niche for thin film in Germany evaporated, as land is expensive in Germany. To my knowledge, homeowners have never mounted thin film cells, the roof space is limited and better exploited with silicon. Thin film was used in large scale installations, mostly on degraded old military space in the East, poisoned by decades of Russian army carelessness with chemicals. You got a slightly higher feed in tariff for re-using this degraded land, compared to using unpolluted areas.

    The subsidies for those large installations have been cut more sharply than for the homeowners, exacerbating the cost pressure on First Solar. This was done to stem the tide of GW coming online. The homeowners are not the big problem. It’s the big ones that destabilize the grid.

  5. DirkH

    Some stupid arsehole has hacked real science so don’t believe that Steve’s dead, and don’t comment there except for sending them your greetings.

    Steve’s here now:
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/

    1. DirkH

      Oh, addendum: the hacker will collect the e-mail address you use if you send him greetings. Take care.

    2. Casper

      Hacked? I really had some problems to get in touch with Real Science site. I saw something like “database error”. I thought there were some technical problems which may normally happen.

  6. Brian G Valentine

    Happy “Earth Day,” Everybody!

    Let’s get up some Five-Year Plans for Chairman Mao and Comrade Stalin!

    http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/296045/next-lsquonext-solyndrarsquo-robert-bryce

  7. Bernd Felsche

    Looks like FirstSolar has discovered that the subsidy milk-cow has dried up.

    Their whole motivation for setting up could never have been anything more than to milk the fat cow owned by the stupid farmer who keeps the cow well fed, runs the milking facilities at no charge and has the unpaid labourers (taxpayers) clean up the muck.

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