Daniel Englander
The Morning Feedstock: June 4, 2008 June 4, 2008 at 4:09 AM
This is the end of an era. General Motors will close four major S.U.V. and truck plants in North America as the auto giant bends to declining consumer demand driven by surging gas prices. At the market’s height in 2002 GM was selling more than 600,000 S.U.V.’s and trucks a year. This year the company will likely sell less than 250,000. The plant closures are part of a larger strategic shift for GM. CEO Rick Wagoner announced at the company’s annual meeting yesterday the company will start putting more emphasis on building smaller, more efficient cars and engines while building out its capacity in developing countries. At the meeting GM’s board also approved the production of the Chevy Volt, the company’s long-awaited electric vehicle. The board also made it known it would likely put the Hummer brand up for sale. Whether spinning out Hummer and adding the Volt to the company’s product line will do much, if anything, to stem the tide of defections remains to be seen. By way of comparison, Honda’s Civic and Toyota’s Camry and Corolla were the top three cars in the U.S. market.
E.ON UK’s CEO Paul Golby has issued a warning to the British government that adding renewables capacity sufficient to meet Britain’s EU targets will require building additional fossil fuel based power supplies as backup. E.ON has calculated that the UK will need roughly 50 GW of renewables capacity to meet its goal of 15 percent by 2020. However, Golby argues that the UK will need to build close to 90 percent of that amount as fossil fuel based power to make up for intermittent or non-dispatchable renewables capacity. As a result, Britain’s installed capacity base would rise from 76 GW to 120 GW within the next 12 years, costing the country roughly £50 billions. Golby, expressing frustration with individuals against fossil fuel based power said, “it is easy to say ‘no’ to coal, easy to say ‘no’ to nuclear. I’m quite interested in what they are going to say ‘yes’ to.”
San Francisco’s solar subsidy is inching forward once again. The program was tabled in March in a surprise move by city supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who argued the solar subsidy program would constitute a tax benefit to high-income city residents who could afford to install solar panels on their homes. On Tuesday San Francisco’s board of supervisors approved a preliminary measure yesterday by a 7-4 margin. Under the program, homeowners would receive a subsidy of between $3,000 and $6,000 per kW - the higher subsidy level is for systems installed by locally-trained integrators. Businesses would be eligible for a subsidy of $1,500 per kW. The bill still faces a final vote at the board’s next meeting, where it will face continued opposition from city supervisors McGoldrick, Chris Daly, Aaron Peskin, and Ross Mirkarimi.
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