US Solar Industry Ready to Pop? Not Quite.

Saw this TPM post on the US Military potentially driving a spark in the US solar industry and though I would chime in. By way of background, I covered the US solar industry as an investment analyst for ~4 years (basically since the start of the solar IPO machine in early 2007). In evaluating the potential for “buy America” to drive true growth in the US Solar Industry (for physical production), it’s important to look at the industry size and cost structure in proper context. Expectations for global demand for solar in 2011 range from 16GW (thousand megawatts) to 21GW. Germany will likely install 1.5GW+ in the first calendar quarter of 2011, with Italy not far behind; ie combined ANNUAL run rate of over 10GW. Germany is almost entirely small and medium rooftop projects (they gutted the big open field subsidy last year) and Italy the opposite. The Chinese manufacturers have built their businesses around this type of demand with 30%+ growth. Not only do they have the benefit of low labor costs, but also extremely low electricity costs and massive scale. Suntech Power alone expects to ship 2.2GW in 2011. Now, let’s look at the US military opportunity.

Let’s start with a project that has been done:

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Why Tumblr?

I’ve decided to move this relatively unread blog from Blogger (owned by Google) to Tumblr. Aside from what I consider to be a better feature set and more intuitive interface, the main reason for the transfer is this: personal information disaggregation. I’m de-Googling myself, somewhat. Un-googling myself? I’m also de-facebooking myself (completely). Below, I’m reposting the letter I sent to all of my facebook friends shortly before deleting my facebook account:

Dear Facebook,

I’m writing to say goodbye. After over 6 years, I’m leaving you. I feel like I hardly knew you. But then again, you certainly know me. You know what I told you about myself. You knew what others told you about me: what I was doing, what I liked, where I went, what I was buying and more. You let others put up pictures of me without my knowing it. Not once, not twice, but three times you shot first and asked questions later with regard to protecting my privacy; not to mention your founder’s questionable respect for other people’s privacy throughout facebook’s history. You’ve always opted everyone in; now I want to opt out.

Come to think of it, your entire purpose is to sell my information to advertisers. I don’t begrudge you, it’s a brilliant business model. How could a search engine know more about me than a site I load with my personal information, interests, personal connections and history? You even built-in a “like” button to better understand my likes and dislikes within the facebook universe; recently expanding your thumb[s up] into my eye wherever I browse. But I’m worried about what you are doing with all of this data and how you protect it. On top of that, facebook, your Terms of Service basically state that you own my data as long as I have an account with you.

I know you consider yourself a “social utility;” Outlook on Steroids. I think that’s right. A utility provides basic services at low, regulated prices: electricity, telephone, TV and, now, social interaction. The convenience of this utility is great, but the price is too high. I want my privacy back. Unlike the world of real utilities, where my choices are limited to one, two or three service providers (potentially capping my Quality of Service), the Internet gives me dramatic choice.

Video - Vimeo
Photos - Flickr
Email - Gmail
Chat - Skype
Link Sharing - Twitter
Blogging - Tumblr
Events - Punchbowl
Networking - LinkedIn
Killing Time - Any book

All of these sites provide significantly higher service quality than you. But that’s not all. The best part about all of these sites? They are each owned by different companies. I don’t have to rely solely on your technological ability to protect massive amounts of my personal information. More importantly, I don’t have to rely on your “good intentions.” I’m disaggregating myself in an attempt to reclaim what little protection of my privacy exists in the modern internet world. By the way, that goes for you too, Google. So, if you need to reach me, just send me an email. That technology isn’t exactly out of date and the email server won’t tell everyone what I had for breakfast.

It was oatmeal.

Best of luck to you in the future.

grill

Virgin Wins Again

While Delta surprised me on the way out to SF, I have to say that nothing tops Virgin America. Today, boarding my return flight, they impressed me yet again. After boarding first class, they boarded everyone without roller suitcases. This seems very obvious to me, but I’ve never seen it before. Boarding without a rollerboard is much quicker (don’t have people jamming up the aisle, trying to stuff their so-big-it-needs-to-be-checked suitcase in the overhead. The boarding process was insanely quick.

Thank you Virgin. Let’s hope everyone else copies you.

Hey Cabbie

You know what’s coming next, right? I mean seriously, do not complain to me about my using the credit card system installed in your cab. It’s in there exactly so I can use it. I get that it takes days to process, that’s why I gave you a bigger tip than normal (and than you ephing deserved (taking the extra long way, thinking I wasn’t paying attention)). Don’t wait until after I give you said tip to sigh and say, “oh jeez, what the hell? It takes ten days to process, man!” I know this isn’t unique to Boston cabs either. Cab drivers everywhere seem to hate it. I get it, you want cash. When I have it, I’m happy to pay with cash. But when I don’t, just relax and deal with it, I’m sure I’m not the first (or last) person to pay with credit card.

And, by the way, you work in a service industry. So be happy that I don’t take your crappy ass service as an excuse not to reward you for crappy as service. If you want to complain, GFY. I’m swiping.

Govenator

I’m sitting in a ballroom with probably 600 people, waiting for Arnold Schwarzaneggar to speak. It’s the Solar Power USA conference and he is getting ready to address the crowd about CA’s existing subsidies, the economic environment and various body building exercises (perhaps not the last topic). In reality, with the state facing a $7b budget shortfall, I don’t know how they can continue to fund renewables aggressively, though obviously the industry could/should be a net job creator.

I’m expecting a lot of mushy, climate changey type talk, focusing on “doing whaht we maust to sayve Cah-li-forn-ya and our planet.”

Sent From My iPodPhone