Why Are Renewable Equipment Companies Such Poor Investments?

Headlines promote renewable energy equipment companies as part of efforts to transition to Net Zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Wind and solar system providers, electric vehicle manufacturers, green hydrogen producers, and other green equipment firms form a growing share of world industry. But renewable equipment firms suffer poor market returns, so investors should beware.

The Renewable Energy Industrial Index (RENIXX) is a global stock index of the 30 largest renewable energy industrial companies in the world by stock market capitalization. Current RENIXX companies include Enphase Energy, First Solar, Orsted, Plug Power, Tesla, and Vestas.

IWR of Germany established the RENIXX on May 1, 2006, with an initial value of 1,000 points. This month, the RENIXX stood at 1,013 points, essentially zero value growth over the last 18 years. In comparison, the S&P 500 Index more than quadrupled over the same period. The RENIXX is down three years in a row from 2021, losing about half its value.

Wind turbine manufacturers faced serious financial challenges over the last three years, even with rising sales. Rising costs, high interest rates, and project delays continue to impact the profitability of wind projects and equipment suppliers. The stock of Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest supplier, rose only 7% over the last 16 years, and its stock price has fallen 58% from a high in 2021. Vestas struggled to make a profit in 2022 and 2023 and suspended dividends to shareholders.

Other major wind suppliers have also been poor investments for shareholders. The stock of Siemens Gamesa, the number two turbine maker, is down 65% since a peak in 2021. Gamesa reported a loss of €4.4 billion in 2023 and received a €7.5 billion bailout from the German government that same year. Other top wind suppliers suffered major stock price declines since 2021, including Goldwind of China (down 77%) and Nordex of Germany (-36%).

Some 80% of the world’s solar panels are manufactured in China and the top six suppliers reside in China. The solar panel industry is beset by overcapacity and severe competition. Stock prices of the top seven suppliers have all declined by more than 50% since 2021. The stock of U.S. firm First Solar has risen since 2021 but remains below its all-time high price reached in 2008.

Tesla, which was founded in 2003, remained the only pure-play, publicly traded EV stock until 2018. By the end of 2021, Tesla’s value had soared to over $1 Trillion, boasting a market value more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Ford, BMW, and Honda combined. But Tesla is the exception.

But in most cases, electric vehicle (EV) companies have been very poor investments. Between 2020 and 2024, 31 EV companies went public on U.S. stock exchanges. Only one of these 31 companies, the Chinese firm Li Auto, saw its price rise since the initial public offering (IPO). Thirty EV firms saw their stock prices fall, most precipitously.

EV company price declines from the IPO price include Fisker (-99%), Nikola (-94%), NIO (-50%), Lucid Group (-75%), and Rivian (-88%). Six others of the 31 companies went bankrupt. Tesla and Chinese firms BYD and Li Auto are the only EV firms profitable today.

ChargePoint is the world’s largest dedicated EV charger company (behind EV manufacturer Tesla), with over 25,000 charging stations in the U.S. and Canada. ChargePoint went public in 2021 by merging with Switchback Energy Acquisition Corporation, valued at $2.4 billion. The firm’s value today is about $585 million, down 76% since 2021. For fiscal year 2024, ChargePoint lost $458 million on revenue of $507 million.

It’s not clear that any charging company can make money. High-speed, 50-kilowatt EV chargers cost about five times as much as traditional gasoline pumps. Around 80% of EV charging is done at home, reducing the demand for public charging. ChargePoint, EVgo, Wallbox, Allego, and Blink Charging are all valued today at small fractions of their original IPO price. No EV charger firm is profitable, even after continuing to receive large government subsidies.

Plug Power is a leading supplier of hydrogen energy systems, including battery-cells for hydrogen vehicles and electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen fuel. Founded in 1997, the company went public in October 1999 at a split-adjusted price of about $160 per share.

But during its 27-year history, Plug Power has never turned a profit. According to financial reports, the firm lost $1.45 billion in 2024, up from a loss of $43.8 million in 2018. Its current stock price is under two dollars per share.

Traditional established firms are finding that renewable equipment can be poor business. In 2023, Ford lost $4.7 billion on sales of 116,000 electric vehicles, or over $40,000 per vehicle. General Electric’s wind turbine business lost $1.1 billion in 2023.

The U.S. federal government provided subsidies to renewable equipment companies of between $7 billion and $16 billion per year between 2010 and 2022. But the Cato Institute estimates that because of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, subsidies will skyrocket to about $80 billion in fiscal year 2025.

Without the fear of human-caused climate change and a rising level of government subsidies and mandates, many of these green companies would not exist. It’s doubtful that carbon dioxide pipelines, heavy electric trucks, offshore wind systems, green hydrogen fuel equipment, and EV charging stations would be viable businesses in unsubsidized capital markets.

During this last year, leading financial firms pulled back on their climate change pledges. Bank of America, JP Morgan, State Street, and Pimco withdrew from Climate Action 100+, which seeks to force companies and investment funds to address climate issues and adopt environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies. But it’s difficult to invest in renewable equipment companies when they are losing money.

https://heartland.org/opinion/why-are-renewable-equipment-companies-such-poor-investments/

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Wrong, Associated Press, New Short Corn Variety Is a Marketing Ploy, Not a Response to Climate Change

The Associated Press (AP) released a story claiming climate change is causing windstorms to worsen, threatening corn production, leading farmers to consider a new short corn variety. This story is false on almost every front. If farmers are considering a newly developed corn variety, its due to clever marketing by the company developing the crop, not changing climate conditions. Wind speeds and storms haven’t been increasing, aren’t forecast to at any time in the foreseeable future, and corn yields and production continue to set records with existing corn types.

The AP story, titled, “‘Short corn’ could replace the towering cornfields steamrolled by a changing climate,” the news agency writes:

Taking a late-summer country drive in the Midwest means venturing into the corn zone, snaking between 12-foot-tall green, leafy walls that seem to block out nearly everything other than the sun and an occasional water tower.

. . .

But soon, that towering corn might become a miniature of its former self, replaced by stalks only half as tall as the green giants that have dominated fields for so long.

The short corn developed by Bayer Crop Science is being tested on about 30,000 acres (12,141 hectares) in the Midwest with the promise of offering farmers a variety that can withstand powerful windstorms that could become more frequent due to climate change. (emphasis mine)

The facts tell a different story, however. Long corn is in no way being “steamrolled.” Corn yields and production continue to set new records, with some regularity, and there is no evidence that windstorms are becoming more frequent, or that wind speeds are increasing.

To the latter point first. The AP and other mainstream media outlets usually treat reports and pronouncements of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as authoritative on climate change. The IPCC’s latest report is clear concerning the impacts of climate change on wind speeds and damaging windstorms: no change has been detected at present; and, under the even the most extreme climate scenario, no change is anticipated in the foreseeable future, through 2100 at least. (see the figure, below)

So much for the AP’s claim that worsening winds pose a threat to corn production.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also show no climate change impacts on corn yields or production in the United States or globally.

A recently updated USDA report says that corn yields are expected to set a new record in 2024, increasing by 0.5 bushels per acre over the previous estimate, and by a full six bushels per acre of the previous record set in 2023.

Data from the FAO confirm the USDA’s findings concerning U.S. corn production and also determine that corn production and yields are regularly setting records around the world as well. Between 1990 and 2022 (the last full year of FAO records), spanning the three decades climate alarmists commonly assert have been the warmest on record:

Corn yields globally have increased by more than 54 percent.
On record yields, crop production has similarly set new records repeatedly as well between 1990 and 2022.

Even if, contrary to the AP’s suggestion, corn production is not being harmed by worsening climate conditions, Bayer’s short corn variety may prove beneficial for farmers. It seems that, per the AP, “[t]he smaller plants also let farmers plant at greater density, so they can grow more corn on the same amount of land, increasing their profits.” The shorter corn may also use less water. Both conditions should, in theory, make corn production more profitable, regardless of climate change, so there is a bit of good news in the AP’s otherwise unjustifiably foreboding climate change tale.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/09/wrong-associated-press-new-short-corn-variety-is-a-marketing-ploy-not-a-response-to-climate-change/

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Wallace Manheimer: Leaders of climate science societies are suffering from mass delusion

Renowned American physicist, member of the CO2 Coalition, and a life fellow of both the American Physical Society (“APS”) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (“IEEE”) Wallace Manheimer has expressed concerns about the climate crisis narrative and its implications for modern civilisation.

Wallace Manheimer argues that there is no scientific basis for expecting a climate crisis from increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere within the next century and the emphasis on a false climate crisis is becoming a tragedy for modern civilisation.

His research debunks many fashionable claims surrounding politicised “settled” climate science. And he argues that “Net Zero” policies would be disastrous, unreliable and expensive, both in the United States and globally. He has also expressed dismay at learned societies making definitive claims despite the availability of contrary information.

Last year, Manheimer published a book titled ‘MASS DELUSIONS: How they harm sustainable energy, climate policy, fusion and fusion breeding’.

In June 2024, a paper authored by Manheimer titled ‘Science Societies’ Climate Statements: Some Concerns’ was published in the Open Journal of Applied Sciences. A summary of which, authored by Manheimer, was published last year in The Washington Times.

In The Washington Times’ article, Manheimer described how statements by scientific societies, such as APS, are often used to justify extreme measures for addressing a supposed climate emergency. However, these proclamations are frequently almost universally false and do real harm.

Manheimer highlighted APS’s statement on climate change, which asserts that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have become the dominant driver of global warming. However, he disputes this claim, citing a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”) graph of world temperature from 1880 to 2022 showing that temperature increases before and after carbon dioxide’s rise in the atmosphere were similar. Additionally, he references historical and archaeological evidence of warmer periods, including the Holocene optimum, Roman optimum and medieval optimum, which contradict the notion of a catastrophic, human-induced climate crisis.

Manheimer suggests that APS may have been swayed by the “climate industrial complex” or prioritised grant funding over scientific integrity:

This author cannot read the minds of APS leadership. However, two possibilities are hard to dismiss: (1) The organisation was so completely taken in by what renowned physicist Richard Lindzen has called a “mass delusion” that carbon dioxide threatens climate doom that APS did not even perform minimal due diligence or (2) even worse, APS knows that there are big-dollar grants for alarmists, but none for sceptics. It may have sold its soul to the devil.

On Wednesday, Manheimer joined the Tom Nelson Podcast to present and expand on his June 2024 paper. His presentation covers an overview of climate crisis scepticism, arguments against net zero carbon emissions, historical climate data and misinterpretations, the impact of carbon dioxide on plant growth, an analysis of scientific societies’ climate statements and much more.

Speaking of the scientific society leaders he said, “How can people who are so smart do something that is so dumb? I believe there’s no other explanation for it other than mass delusion, they’re suffering a mass delusion.”

https://expose-news.com/2024/09/05/climate-science-societies-are-suffering-from-mass-delusion/

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A radical proposal: bring back coal

Up to the year 2000, coal was responsible for over 80 per cent of Australia’s electricity generation. Its share today for the country as a whole is under 50 per cent.

In 2000, we had among the lowest electricity prices in the world. We now have among the highest.

In 2000, Australia had a smoothly-functioning electricity system. The system is now tottering, with supply interruptions and regular threats of blackouts.

Fixing our electricity system requires a completely different way of thinking about it.

Electricity demand over the next 15 years – between now and 2040 – is likely to increase by 20-25 per cent. To meet this additional demand, we need new generating capacity.

This means new coal-fired plants. There are no other options for reliable, low-cost electricity.

Natural gas is in short supply in the eastern states and, in any case, is roughly twice the cost of coal for electricity generation.

Nuclear power, if accepted in Australia, will not be in place before the mid-2030s and will play no major role before the 2040s.

Wind and solar farms are not suitable as they cannot generate reliable electricity, given that cloud cover and wind are variable.

In addition, they are inherently expensive. This is because of high transmission costs (which form roughly 40 per cent of total electricity costs) and because the development of wind and solar farms to meet the needs of the grid requires serious overbuilding.

To illustrate the point on overbuilding, to match the electricity produced by one coal-fired plant of (say) 500 megawatts requires wind and solar farms and rooftop solar panels with total capacity of at least 1,500 megawatts.

The reason? Coal-fired plants can operate 85-90 per cent of the time, about three times the average for wind and solar farms.

Such overbuilding is enormously wasteful.

Conventional thinking requires that there should be a transition in Australia from coal to renewables.

The transition should be the other way around, from renewables to coal.

The critical first step in making this transition is mounting the case for new coal-fired plants.

And a way of starting this process would be the preparation of a concept studies of new plants, one (say) in the Latrobe Valley and one (say) in the Hunter Valley. The studies would almost certainly show that coal was the most cost-effective way of meeting Australia’s immediate electricity needs.

Widespread dissemination of such studies would stimulate public discussion on the way forward for our electricity system and put pressure on Labor and Liberals to say why the coal route should not be pursued.

Who will provide the financial and organisational support for such studies and their dissemination?

To date, there has been no clear answer to this question, given that opponents of our current approach to electricity have been scattered and lacking organisation.

However, the launch in August of a new organisation, Coal Australia, raises the possibility that support is at hand.

Mobilising coal companies and others to join Coal Australia, an effort led by Nick Jorss, Executive Chairman of Bowen Coking Coal, has been an impressive achievement.

The organisation aims to promote the industry in Australia, focusing on both thermal coal (used for electricity generation) and metallurgical coal (used for steel production).

It recognises that ‘without our coal industry, Australia would not have reliable and affordable baseload electricity’.

But is it willing to take the next step and support new coal-fired plants?

A serious problem in this context is Coal Australia’s apparent support for the goal of reaching Net Zero emissions.

For example, it says on its website that it ‘strongly supports the work of Australia’s mining industry associations, such as the Minerals Council of Australia, Queensland Resources Council and NSW Minerals Council’.

But the Minerals Council says that it ‘and its members have a strong commitment to climate action, supporting the Paris Agreement and an industry ambition of Net Zero by 2050’.

This is nowhere challenged by Coal Australia.

Coal Australia also says on its website that ‘by investing in low emissions technologies, together with carbon capture and storage, the industry can contribute to meeting both our energy needs and emissions goals’.

It wants to be seen as contributing to ‘emissions goals’, whose end game is Net Zero emissions.

The Net Zero goal entails the death of the coal industry in Australia – and the death of Coal Australia itself.

In supporting Net Zero, Coal Australia is attempting to walk both sides of the street, supporting coal and supporting those trying to destroy coal.

It should change course and oppose the target of Net Zero emissions If this is a bridge too far, it should at least not take any position on emissions.

Coal Australia may consider the conclusion here to be wrong – that it can walk both sides of the street.

If so, would it consider supporting the preparation of concept studies for new plants, in the Latrobe Valley and the Hunter Valley respectively?

And would it consider moving quickly on this work, completing and starting to disseminate the concept studies by February next year?

This would allow it to play a significant role in stimulating discussion of coal in the lead-up to the next Federal election (due by May 2025), with the chance that such discussion would force political decision makers to stop pretending that coal can be ignored for electricity generation.

It would be wonderful way of supporting coal.

Finally, a little post script on the topic of Net Zero. Not only does the Net Zero goal entail the death of the coal industry, it is also a fundamentally-flawed concept.

It risks the destruction of our economy as we know it, requiring impossible levels of expenditure to achieve ($7,000-9,000 billion according to a comprehensive study released last year, chaired by Professor Robin Batterham, former Chief Scientist of Australia).

And it is a disastrous concept when applied to countries poorer than ours.

For example, electricity consumption per capita in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka is less than 15 per cent of that in Australia.

‘In Africa, electricity is so scarce that the total electricity available per person is much less than what a single refrigerator in the rich world uses.’ (Bjorn Lomborg)

Addressing these problems overwhelmingly requires fossil fuels, notably coal and natural gas, not renewables.

‘Fossil fuels are the most important factor in explaining the advance of modern civilisation.’ (Vaclav Smil, Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, Canada)

In addition to being economically threatening, the Net Zero concept is contentious on scientific grounds.

While scientists agree that emissions contribute to global warming, there is no agreement that they are the main driver of warming.

Other drivers are at work, something that is clear from warming periods in the past, most recently in the Medieval period (around 950 to 1,200 AD) and the Roman period (around 300 BC to 300 AD).

These warming periods, referred to as ‘natural cycles’, had nothing to do with emissions, which did not start increasing until about 1850.

Natural cycles are probably solar related; they (not emissions) may be the main driver of the current warming period, which started around 1800.

Michael Asten, a retired professor of geophysics at Monash university who has done considerable work in this area as part of an international team, says that ‘until mainstream climate-science opinion can be reconciled with observations of natural cycles, climate science can be considered a work-in-progress’.

Or in the words of Judith Curry, a prominent US atmospheric scientist, ‘The climate system is way more complex than just something that you can tune with a carbon-dioxide control knob’.

On political and economic grounds, the goal of Net Zero emissions should be strongly opposed.

On scientific grounds, it should also be opposed, unless future climate science reaches the firm conclusion that emissions are the main driver, not just one driver, of global warming.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/09/a-radical-proposal-bring-back-coal/

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