Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What are some unconventional growth industries, motteizeans? I’ve picked the funeral industry due to population aging, any others?
Despite the current new administration, energy transition is a good bet. Decarbonization, electrification, GenAI. Energy companies will continue with low carbon and distributed generation buildout for the next 30 years. Nuclear maybe get little bit of investment, but I expect it will not be material to overall new generation. Gas turbines will be the backbone but expect more renewables regardless of fed policy.
Tempering this, most of the money in renewables is in shady grants, kickback schemes, and running scams. It's like investing in the Chinese stock market as a foreigner: all the value is harvested by 5 layers of insiders, and the iShares China ETF you can buy has only gained 20% since 2012.
(I seriously didn't realize it was that bad before looking it up for this post)
The profitable way to "invest in renewables" is by getting your non-profit a $50 million "inflation reduction act" grant to identify minoritized stakeholders and leverage indigenous community engagement for the equitable siting of utility solar (run an extortion and money laundering racket with ARM lawyers and a casino company, funneling kickbacks to certain political parties)
And you've got to be in the inner circle to keep the money flowing. Owning a residential solar installer has been a gold mine for years, but suddenly next year you're paying 50-100% tariffs so that some other guy's overpriced US solar panel factory can profit by getting a special tariff waiver on imported components
Just to piggyback on this a bit. In Sweden, the median net profit margin for wind power operators has been less than
-60-38% the last 15 years, and its getting worse as time goes on, for what should be obvious reasons. The largest wind power farm in Europe is having a net profit margin of less than -400%.This is in a market environment with substantial subsidies, favourable regulatory conditions, lots of hydro to combine wind with, manufacturing of wind power components being heavily subsidized by the Chinese state, not having to have a demolition fund and wind power not paying for any of the massive system effects it has due to intermittence and other related issues.
All new wind power projects in Sweden have been stopped by developers and they now want both the state to pay up towards ~30% of the cost of the parks and getting price guarantees like what is proposed for new nuclear plants, despite the well known and unsolved issues with intermittency and the like.
This is with record high power prices in northern Europe.
There are of course people making money here and that's the companies designing and constructing the wind power farms. Its always funny when there is some article saying something like "These people want to build a massive wind power farm!" and its just some project planning company looking for investors and journalists being taken for a ride (possibly willingly, possibly getting paid for running a covert ad).
Can you post this in the CWR tomorrow?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link