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Wind Is Winning
hardhat
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https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/317745.php
OFFSHORE FOLLIES
There could be a worse way to generate electricity than by implanting giant windmills in the ocean, but it is hard to think what it might be. Not surprisingly, Britain is finding its plans for offshore wind to be illusive: How Britain’s offshore wind industry ran out of puff.
Championed by politicians as a controversy-free alternative to onshore wind and solar farms, the Government wants offshore wind capacity to surge from 13 gigawatts today to 50 gigawatts by 2030.
Why giant turbines in the ocean should be controversy-free is hard to understand. In any event, things are not going well.
A string of major projects are under threat from spiralling costs, sclerotic planning rules and shrinking subsidies. Industry sources warn that it risks tilting the economics into negative territory. “Things are very hard out there right now,” one source says.
“Negative territory” in this context means that government subsidies are not large enough, and need to be increased.
The malaise is triggering fresh questions about whether the Government’s 2030 target is still achievable – and if the long–assumed maxim that offshore wind costs will keep falling can hold.
There is no significant element of offshore wind’s costs that should be expected to decline, and increasing government-driven demand for the minerals of which wind turbines consume vast amounts will inevitably cause those prices to rise.
Britain’s offshore wind industry exploded over the past decade, with most development concentrated off the east coasts of Scotland and England. Capacity has grown tenfold since 2010, when it stood at just 1.3 gigawatts, with ever-bigger turbines boosting output.
One example is Dogger Bank, a phased development in the North Sea that will eventually generate enough power for 6 million homes.
It would be more accurate to say that if completed, it will occasionally generate enough power for 6 million homes. Wind turbines create electricity 35% to 40% of the time. Most of the time, another source will need to be found.
But rising supply chain costs globally – fueled by energy prices that jumped after the Ukraine war – have slammed the breaks on this progress.
But wait! The energy prices that “jumped after the Ukraine war” were those for natural gas and gasoline. Why would that impact the supply chain for wind turbines? Can’t you just use wind energy to run the factories that produce wind turbines?
Just kidding. You can’t run a factory on electricity that is AWOL 60% to 65% of the time. Reliable energy sources will always be needed to manufacture unreliable energy sources. Although why you would want to do that is anyone’s guess.
Apparently everyone is losing money on wind turbines:
General Electric’s renewables business, which makes the 260 metre-tall Haliade X turbines used at Dogger Bank, reported a $2.2bn (£1.7bn) loss in 2022. The division has been loss-making for eight straight quarters.
Rival manufacturers Siemens Gamesa, Vestas and Nordex also posted further cumulative losses of €3bn in the same year, notes Kathryn Porter, an independent analyst at energy consultancy Watt Logic.
“There has been this narrative, that wind farm costs are falling and will keep falling, but the reality is these prices are too low.
“Turbine manufacturers have effectively been selling at a loss – and those losses have become huge now.”
Wind energy is a sinkhole for money. The only solution is more government subsidies. In that regard, the Brits are jealous of us Americans, who are going deeper into debt to keep the “green” money machine going:
Many of these problems are not unique to the UK. But they are colliding with domestic issues, including the slow planning system and shrinking British subsidies – which now look even meaner when compared to those being showered on companies in the US through Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Thanks, Joe. Another problem is that giant wind turbines anchored in the seabed don’t actually work well, even when “working” is defined as 35% production:
The “bigger is better” approach to turbines is leading to more failures, costing manufacturers more in warranty claims, Porter says.
***
In an effort to cut costs, some developers are attaching the turbines using cheaper foundations on the sea floor, the executive adds.
“Offshore wind is not the Nirvana that everybody thinks it is,” they add. “The risks are enormous. And the rewards are not very good.
“Everyone is going for the biggest turbines, the cheapest foundations, and they’ve all gone for cabling solutions that mean if you get a failure, you could lose the wind farm.”
I think that in 25 years, offshore wind will be seen as one of the worst follies in the history of technology. Even now, a few are asking good questions:
[F]or some, these problems raise much bigger questions about subsidies for offshore wind generally.
“We are 20 years on from when we started subsidising offshore wind, yet we are still having to do it”, says Porter at Watt Logic.
Crazy talk
Ford is losing 32k a car but were going to make it up in volume
Or ESG score
https://ace.mu.nu/
THE MORNING RANT: Ford Accepts Billions of Dollars from (and Full Capitulation to) Eco-Communist Overlords; Seeks to Emulate Success of Trabant and Solyndra
—Buck Throckmorton
Even after GM earned the moniker “Government Motors” for its $9 billion government bailout in 2008, Ford Motor Company stood resolutely as an American auto company that could survive and prosper without government assistance, by leveraging all its assets at the time to raise $23 billion in cash and staying independent.
Ford could still thrive and prosper today without government assistance, but that is not the style of modern corporatism. Its executives have fully bent the knee to government and global eco-communists by taking $9 billion from the US government in return for its commitment to fully pursue the electric vehicle fantasy. (One reader calls Ford’s electric vehicle division the “E-dsel.” Heh.)
Ford-SK Venture to Get $9.2 Billion US Loan for Battery Plants [Reuters – 6/22/2023]
The U.S. Energy Department plans to lend up to $9.2 billion to a joint venture of Ford Motor and South Korea's SK-On to help it build three battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky, the biggest-ever award from the government program.
The conditional commitment for the low-cost government loan for the Blue Oval SK joint venture comes from the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program.
“Low cost government loan” is a euphemism for free taxpayer money. If the government is subsidizing either the principal or the interest, it means money is being given to a corporation…with strings attached.
"Major technology transitions have always been accelerated by collaboration between the public and private sectors," said Ford Treasurer Dave Webb.
Lada and Trabant were outstanding examples of auto manufacturers working closely with government overseers to provide consumers with vehicles the government would allow its citizens to purchase. In regards to the “energy transition,” Solyndra is an outstanding example of “collaboration between the public and private sectors.” (If you don’t recall, Solyndra sought to revolutionize the solar panel industry, and burned through $570 Million of “government loans” before it suspended operations.)
Ford’s executives have chosen to abandon its capitalist roots, and now seek to emulate Trabant and Solyndra by “collaborating” with the government in financing a “technology transition” in the automotive industry.
*****
How is this government funding even authorized? According to the Congressional Research Service, $7.5 billion was appropriated by Congress back in 2009 for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program, and somehow that long-ago appropriation gives bureaucrats in 2023 the authorization to distribute $9 billion of taxpayer dollars.
Congress funded the program in 2009, when it appropriated $7.5 billion to cover the subsidy cost for the $25 billion in loans
Appropriations for the program do not cover the entire value of the loans but instead cover the “subsidy cost” (i.e., the risk of default). For the original appropriation, Congress assumed a subsidy rate of 30%, meaning that $7.5 billion would be sufficient to fund $25 billion in total loan value.
I knew that Congress had long ago outsourced lawmaking to the permanent bureaucracy. I did not realize it had also permanently outsourced appropriations authority to the bureaucracy too.
*****
Other than taking billions of taxpayer dollars to throw down the green sinkhole, how are things going for Ford?
Just last August, Ford had a huge round of layoffs, with a focus on cutting engineers and others associated with its legacy gas-engine division. Here they go again.
Ford Preparing for Another Round of Layoffs: Latest Round of Job Cuts Could be Announced as Early as Next Week [Fox News – 6/23/2023]
The upcoming move by the automaker is part of a continuing effort to streamline operations and reduce costs. The layoffs will be announced as early as next week, people familiar with the situation tell The Journal.
Ford has a successful gas-powered car division that its executives are ashamed of, and it clearly feels about its loyal truck and SUV customers the way Anheuser Busch feels about its (former) Bud Light customer base. It actively dislikes those customers, and seeks to replace them with the types of people who would never consider their product in the first place.
So Ford just keeps terminating employees who are involved in manufacturing products that customers desire, and which generate actual cash flow.
Since Ford is committed to destroying its legacy business in favor of EVs, how are its electric vehicle sales coming along? Very poorly. In fact, Ford’s EV sales are decreasing. The novelty is gone. There is no mass market of potential Ford EV customers to follow the handful of early adopters.
Per The Ford Authority, Ford’s electric vehicle sales fell 13% in May 2023 compared to May 2022. Ford sold just 5,444 EVs last month, compared to 154,744 vehicles with gas-powered engines, which were up 11% year over year.
For what it’s worth, consumers are assertively rejecting the electric Mustang. Its May 2023 sales of 2,917 units were down 44% from May 2022, while gas-powered Mustang sales easily outsold the electric version, up 11% year over year.
Yet Ford’s executives, being obedient apparatchiks of the communist ruling class, are determined to kill off its ICE vehicles and replace them with their unwanted EVs.
Ford’s most popular vehicle is the F150 pickup truck, and its flagship electric vehicle is the Ford F150 Lightning. Unfortunately for Ford, the Lightning is extremely unpopular with F150 buyers, constituting just 2% of sales, both year to date, and in the most recent full month.
But Ford is ramping up electric pickup production all the same.
No Reservations: Ford is Charging Up Electric F-150 Lightning Production
Ford's plan to increase production of the electric F-150 Lightning is moving full steam ahead.
Ford delivered just 7,333 of the pickups through May, due largely to downtime at the factory as work to upgrade it was being completed.
“…due largely to downtime at the factory as work to upgrade it was being completed.” Heh. The “upgrade” was due to a sales moratorium placed on all Lightnings when one spontaneously burst into flames in the lot of a Ford Production facility. This is a picture of the Ford Lightning that spontaneously combusted.