Critics have claimed that Germany has spent $130 billion in solar subsidies to provide only 0.3% of its electricity. This is a shallow and ignorant argument at its worst. The critics from all over the world cite figures and statistics without going into the deeper implications. Germany has in the last 5 years made solar energy reach the poorest people in the world . The country’s subsideis have made large solar companies lower costs and improve technology at a rapid pace to keep up with the lowered subsidies. Solar Panels which were sold for $4/watt in 2008 are solar for 80c/watt now. A truly remarkable story in Energy which has been missed the the fossil fuel funded hacks in media. For the last few centuries man has been trying to harness solar energy at reasonable costs but has failed to make a big impression. Germany in the last 5 years has made a huge and lasting impact as solar energy will go from strenght to strenght ..
While there is massive outrage amongst some politicians against the giveaways to support renewable energy, there is very little discussions on the massive subsidies given to the fossil fuel sector. Note globally more than half a trillion dollars is given away to support fossil fuels which is already a mature competitive sector. Green Energy which is a developing industry has got compete with not only the established 100 year infrastructure of fossil fuels but also against these massive $600 billion. However propagandist’s and ignorant sections of the media protest against the support given to the cleantech industry.Here is some bad and shallow journalism on German Solar subsidies
I continue to be surprised by the bad and shallow analysis of renewable energy subsidies done by media. Most of it is due to bad research and lack of investigative and unbiased journalism. Writers with little or no background in energy or cleantech sensationalize an issue taking a report from some biased thinktank. Here is one example from a website called ironically Reason.com which you can read here http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/31/black-hole-sun-germany-spends-100-billio
China using its massive foreign exchange horde to buy commodity assets around the world is an old story by now.It is now also getting into the act in the Green Energy area as China’s state owned chemical group Blue Star has bought Norwegian environment chemical company Elkem from the Orkla conglomerate.Elkem is one of the largest silicon metal producers in the world and makes a solar grade polysilicon through a specialized low cost process.Orkla which is also the 40% owner of one of the world’s largest silane and polysilicon producers Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) had been looking out for some time to sell Elkem.China has not been a big producer of polysilicon which is the main raw material for producing silicon based semiconductors and silcion based solar panels.The massive demand for polycrstalline modules has resulted in it being the main demand driver for polysilicon.
Norway has been hailed as the toughest cutter of Greenhouse Gas Emissions amongst the devloped countries promising to cut Carbon Emissions by 30-40% by 2020 from the 1990 Levels.Compared to this USA has promised a measily 17% cut from 2005 levels and the EU only 20% by 2020 from 1990 levels.Norway’s cost of cutting emissions […]