Renewable Energy Industry is going through some of the toughest times yet with profits and share prices of Green Companies crashing. 2011 was a horrendous year with the biggest solar company by value First Solar being the worst performer in S&P 500. Many of the biggest wind and solar companies were mired in red ink as competition and oversupply from China led to green indicies falling by more than 50% . Many of the biggest companies collapsed and many others are on lifeline.
India’s Energy Storage Market is seeing strong action from foreign MNCs looking to grab a piece of this fast growing market. India’s Electricity Situation is quite bad with huge deficits and problems across the whole supply chain starting from fuel to the end distribution. A Huge Segment of the Population has to depend on privately generated power to meet their energy needs. Storage of power becomes essential for places where power goes off for 8-10 hours a day. Using Lead Acid Batteries is the only cheap option in these cases as running a diesel genset my not be convenient for a home. UPS companies have been doing great business in the country for a long time and will continue to do so.
The relentless rise of Chinese telecom equipment and OEM companies has massacared telecom jobs in the West with major companies like Nokia, Alcatel and others firing in the thousands. Note Huawei and ZTE have become the nemisis of the telecom equipment makers which are showing losses in the last few years. These companies are not managing to compete with the low cost engineer advantage of the Chinese firms . Nokia is also firing thousands in its western factories in Poland and other places as it moves production to Asian factories. Note while Nokia has become unprofitable to other causes like Apple and Android, low cost phones from Asia is the biggest factor in its demise as well.
Now Car Bombs have been used against Israel’s Diplomatic Personnel in Georgia and India. While the bomb in Geogia was diffused by the action of alert guards in Tbilsi, the one in India went off. Note India is a very susceptible country when it comes to terrorist attacks. The Bombay blasts when a number of Israelis were killed took place only 2-3 years ago. Now again an Innova SUV from Toyota was targeted in one of the most secure areas of India’s capital Delhi. Note this attack could have been done by numerous organizations like Al-Qaeda, Pakistan based terrorist groups or even some of the Iran sympathetic groups.
USA has the largest amount of spent nuclear waste in the world and it does not have a single permanent nuclear waste storage site. It is quite shocking that thousands of tons of dangerous nuclear waste is put in temporary locations waiting to start a new disaster in the Fukushima pattern. Note the greatest danger and fallout from the recent nuclear disaster was due to spent nuclear rods . The first site that was being prepared in Yucata mountains is mired in controversy despite millions of dollars being spent.
This is not my usual type of blog post about industry or economics but more in the realm of philosophy. We are taught during most of our childhold and teen years that ability and hard work are the most important determinants to our future lives. You should study and work hard to make yourself a better human being etc. etc. However one thing that never enters the mind of the young is the importance of luck in our lives. I never put much thought behind the luck , kisment ,destiny before reading Nassim Taleb’s famous life.