From THE DAILY SKEPTIC
by Chris Morrison
Many renewable energy stocks are dog stocks that should be avoided at all costs by investors looking for a reasonable rate of return on their investment. Perhaps that’s not advice you’d get on the ad-compromised financial pages of the mainstream media, and it’s certainly not a message that would suit Net Zero fantasy promoters. Renewable Energy Industrial Index (RENIXX) is a widely consulted global stock capitalization index of the 30 largest renewable energy industrial companies in the world and has shown almost zero growth since its inception in 2006, along with reverse projections back to 2002. Over the last three years it has lost almost half the price.
The iShares Global Clean Energy retail exchange-traded fund aims for “targeted access to clean energy stocks around the world”. Last year, the price fell by 26.1% and since its inception in 2008, initial investments of less than £10,000 have halved. Greencoat Renewable PLC is a UK-listed investment trust and owner and operator of renewable energy infrastructure assets in Europe. It is said to provide “attractive risk adjusted returns with compelling growth opportunities; supported by a strong regulatory regime and managed by proven investment managers” – which is one imaginative way to explain the loss in share value of 18.6% over the past five years.
In the real world where serious money talks, it becomes obvious that the conclusion has been drawn that many green technologies, except for subsidies by the state, provide a profit, a second level solution to the problems encountered around the political climate crisis.
Here’s a chart showing RENIXX’s real-world performance. Consider also that investments made during the same period in the US Dow Jones Industrial Index will quadruple.
RENIXX covers a wide range of activities including the manufacturing and supply of wind power, together with the producer of solar PV cells. Current Index members include Orsted, Tesla and Vestas Wind Systems. Shares of the latter company have only risen 7% over the past 16 years and have fallen 58% from their highs in 2021. Typical of RENIXX’s dog is the US First Solar operation that has risen since 2021 but is below all-time highs reached in 2008.
In fact, many indices such as RENIXX would look worse if Tesla’s performance were removed from the chart. During his lifetime, the price of Elon Musk’s Tesla shares increased by 18,000%, despite the fact that almost all green stocks have experienced in recent years. But Tesla is the price exception Real Energy noted that its value by 2021 will increase to more than $1 trillion, making it more valuable than Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Ford, BMW and Honda combined. The star’s rise helped offset the dismal performance of other green stocks including EV manufacturers. Real Energy noted that as of 2020, 31 EV companies have gone public on the US stock exchange, but only one, China’s Li Auto, has increased in value since its initial public offering. Most were real bow-wows, but standout disasters were recorded by Fisker (-99%), Nikola (-94%), NIO (-50%), Lucid group (-75%) and Rivian (-88%). Six other companies have gone bankrupt.
One EV company, Plug Power, supplies hydrogen energy systems, and in 27 years has never turned a profit. In 2024 lost $ 1.45 billion, increasing from the deficit in 2018 $ 43.8 million. Even the big boys find upgrading equipment a challenge. By 2023, Ford will make $4.7 billion from the sale of 116,000 electric vehicles, or more than $40,000 per vehicle. General Electric’s wind turbine business will lose $1.1 billion by 2023.
Of course the reason came rolling in the same thing that happened with the early dot.com revolution, it supports. But the green revolution is not a free market gold rush. It peddles second-level solutions and produces equipment such as cars that the market does not want to buy much. Collecting wind and beam is only possible with huge subsidies taken from trapped consumers. No one would build windmills to supply electricity to the power grid if their mouths weren’t stuffed with taxpayer gold. In Britain, electricity prices are rising and wind and solar power, which provide almost 6% of total energy needs, require an annual bung of £ 12 billion. In the US, the Biden Administration has spent so much money in a desperate attempt to boost a green economy that few people would be willing to start and support with hard work.
The demanding nature of many green businesses may explain the bombed share price, along with the end of low interest rates and higher inflation. But provide a mix of free money and subsidies designed to ensure profits and the initial chancers will beat a path to your door with some great plan to save the planet. In the UK Energy department, Mad Ed Miliband and his band of strange wonks are now entertaining a number of financial black holes including carbon capture, hydrogen plants and battery storage.
But money – and borrowing capacity – is running out for luxury pet projects across Europe and the government’s unlimited spending needs to end in the near future. And fears are growing about the severe environmental damage EVs are causing, the lack of national green jobs they are creating, the further de-industrialization of western economies and the horrific, mostly unreported, toll on wildlife caused by the growth of monster wind turbines. destroy the village. and overhead power cables.
It is said that if you want to predict how people will vote in the election, there are prices guide bookmakers more reliable than opinion polls, which are often mistaken for the benefit of paying customers. Next, someone points to the green story, asking to see what it is worth in the real commercial world where hard-won cash is not necessarily God, but it is a religious experience. In these cases, past results may be a good guide to future performance.
Chris Morrison is Everyday Skeptics’s Environment Editor.
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