[ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 03:30:35PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> Bosch exiting the field is probably just a reflection of advancing
> technologies in the USA and decreased labor costs in China. The

Sorry, there are no advancing PV technologies in the USA.
Germany was a world leader in PV, until China took over.
The reason for current overcapacity is that Germany and
Italy now have flat demand, because Germany has killed
incentives stone cold dead, and because Italy is broke.

The labor costs had little to do with it, it's an issue
of availability of cheap dirty coal power and very few
environmental regulations, as well as subsidies from
the Chinese government. I expect temporary overcapacity
will be over in 2-3 years, with considerable consolidation
happening meanwhile.

> Germans should stick with doing what they do best, big complicated
> things like roller coasters, wind nacelles and cars and the like.
> 
> Globally, solar will do fine over the long term, even if some

I agree that solar will be fine, but we won't. Oil plateaued by
volume by ~2006, but net energy decline only started in earnest
in 2012. Everybody who could shifted to coal, but if coal (along with 
everything else) peaks in 7 years, and the net energy decline 
follows the fossil liquids, then 2030 will quite differ from
2013. We have a lot less time than we thought.

> companies bow out. Look at the history of cars... in the teens, there
> were over a 100 car manufacturers in Indiana alone. Some consolidation
> has to occur for global efficiency.