SunEdison, which bills itself as the world’s largest green energy company, may soon file for bankruptcy protection, according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, as the company faces “liquidity difficulties” despite getting millions in government subsidies. News of SunEdison’s impending bankruptcy filing comes after the company’s shares fell 95 percent in the past 12 months, with shares now trading for less than $1 for the first time since the green energy company went public in 1995. SunEdison’s market value fell from $10 billion in July 2015 to around $400 million today. --Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, 29 March 2016
Abengoa SA has filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. as the Spanish energy company continues talks with its banks and bondholders to agree on its plan to restructure billions of dollars in debt. The bankruptcy filing comes after Abengoa struck a deal with key creditors that gives it more time—through Oct. 28—to continue negotiations on restructuring its debts, which court papers show total more than €14.6 billion ($16.48 billion). The company hopes the U.S. bankruptcy will provide extra breathing room for these talks. --Patrick Fitzgerald, The Wall Street Journal, 30 March 2016
Britain’s steel industry was plunged into crisis last night with thousands of jobs at risk after reports that Tata Steel is to leave Britain. At least 4,000 jobs and the reputation of Wales as the crucible of British steelworking were in jeopardy as sources indicated that the owner of the giant Port Talbot steel mills no longer wanted to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in the UK industry. Port Talbot is thought to be losing £300 million a year as the steel it produces for the automotive and consumer goods industries fails to be competitively priced in a market racked by stock-dumping in the Far East and at home by punitive domestic environmental and energy consumption taxes. --Robert Lea, The Times, 30 March 2016
The Global Warming Policy Forum is calling on the Government to delay the 5th Carbon Budget and scrap Britain’s unilateral Carbon Floor Price both of which are contributing to the crisis of UK steel and other energy intensive industries. Britain’s Carbon Floor Price is a unilateral carbon tax at a floor price of £18 per tCO2. It is more than four times higher than the EU’s current carbon price which is less than £4 (€4.80 on 30 March 2016). The GWPF has been consistently warning about the rising policy cost of electricity prices which are expected to increase by 47% by 2020 for large industrial energy consumers. The UK’s extra large users of electricity are already paying nearly twice as much for power as the EU average. --Global Warming Policy Forum, 30 March 2016
The shock announcement that Tata is looking at putting the whole of its UK steel industry up for sale has plunged David Cameron and the Government into a massive industrial crisis. But besides the plight of 15,000 steelworkers in England, Scotland and Wales, the Tata bombshell also presents the Prime Minister and the Tories with a political crisis too. --Jon Craig, Sky News, 30 March 2016
Energy companies can only keep building new coal and gas power stations for one more year if the world is to avoid dangerous levels of global warming, Oxford university researchers have found. It even shocked some of the Oxford academics who produced it. “I was surprised,” said economist Cameron Hepburn, co-author of a peer-reviewed paper on the findings to be published in the Applied Energy journal. --Pilita Clark, Financial Times, 30 March 2016
Many U.S. states are considering dialing back solar-power incentives amid growing pressure from local electric utilities, potentially dealing a blow to the companies that install home solar systems around the country. Utilities in Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Utah and many other states are currently proposing measures that include changing their net metering programs or raising the monthly fees charged to home solar users for hooking their equipment to the power grid. The utilities argue that the ever-smaller base of traditional power customers shouldn’t get stuck paying all the costs of maintaining the grid. --Cassandra Sweet, The Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2016
The Chinese government isn’t building any new wind turbines because most of the new electricity created was wasted, causing serious damage to the country’s electrical grid. The government stopped approving new wind power projects in the country’s windiest regions earlier this month, according to a China’s National Energy Administration statement. Government statistics show that 33.9 billion kilowatt-hours of wind-power, or about 15 percent of all Chinese wind power, was wasted in 2015 alone. --Andrew Follett, The Daily Caller, 29 March 2016
