Despite billions — trillions — in massive government subsidies, the emerging energy transition has hit an equally massive brick wall. At least as far as investors are concerned.That’s because the stock market valuations of major wind and solar companies are in shambles, putting some major movers in serious jeopardy.Already, analysts and observers are calling it the ‘Alt-Energy Bloodbath’..“The irrational exuberance, all the excitement about clean energy is clearly getting squeezed out,”Blackstone Capital.On Wednesday, the German government unveiled a €15 billion (CAD$22.42 billion) bailout of its flagship Siemens Energy group, one of the largest renewable energy producers in the world.It comes after the company last week scrapped plans to build a USD$280 million wind turbine farm in Portsmouth, VA that was supposed to create 300 taxpayer subsidized jobs.The company’s shares promptly lost almost half — 45% — of their value on the London Stock Exchange although they managed to recover modestly after the deal was announced.The company also makes the rotors and turbines considered essential to the German government’s net-zero goals. In other words, it was too big to fail..Ditto for Danish wind giant Orsted, which earlier this month scrubbed a pair of offshore wind projects off the US Atlantic Seaboard and wrote off $4 billion in impairments. Both were heavily subsidized by ratepayers in New York State and New Jersey under special agreements negotiated by local power regulators.It threw in the towel after it failed to gain even more favourable terms from both state and federal governments under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).Its Copenhagen-listed shares are down 55% year-on-year.Nextera Energy Partners, a master limited partnership and subsidiary of the world’s largest renewable energy producer, is down 67%. .The list goes on.Plug Power Inc., an upstart hydrogen fuel cell producer listed on the NASDAQ exchange, filed a “going concern notice” last week that it doesn’t have enough cash on the books to fund operations. It’s shares have lost more than 70% since the start of the year.Meanwhile, the shares of good old-fashioned oil companies are up after an admittedly volatile year, showing the resilience of conventional resource stocks despite assertions that it’s a sunset industry.Texas-based Pioneer Natural Resources — which ExxonMobil is acquiring for $60 billion — are up about 6%. Rival super-major Shell — after ditching its ambitious net-zero targets — has gained about 8% since it made the announcement in September.The point was aptly taken in no less an authority than the Wall Street Journal which opined: “Rising financing costs and prices for equipment make it harder to develop clean-energy projects as industry investors increasingly weigh the risks of providing capital against the benefits of reducing carbon emissions.”“The irrational exuberance, all the excitement about clean energy is clearly getting squeezed out,” a senior managing director of Blackstone — one of the largest venture capital funds in the world — told a New York audience.
Despite billions — trillions — in massive government subsidies, the emerging energy transition has hit an equally massive brick wall. At least as far as investors are concerned.That’s because the stock market valuations of major wind and solar companies are in shambles, putting some major movers in serious jeopardy.Already, analysts and observers are calling it the ‘Alt-Energy Bloodbath’..“The irrational exuberance, all the excitement about clean energy is clearly getting squeezed out,”Blackstone Capital.On Wednesday, the German government unveiled a €15 billion (CAD$22.42 billion) bailout of its flagship Siemens Energy group, one of the largest renewable energy producers in the world.It comes after the company last week scrapped plans to build a USD$280 million wind turbine farm in Portsmouth, VA that was supposed to create 300 taxpayer subsidized jobs.The company’s shares promptly lost almost half — 45% — of their value on the London Stock Exchange although they managed to recover modestly after the deal was announced.The company also makes the rotors and turbines considered essential to the German government’s net-zero goals. In other words, it was too big to fail..Ditto for Danish wind giant Orsted, which earlier this month scrubbed a pair of offshore wind projects off the US Atlantic Seaboard and wrote off $4 billion in impairments. Both were heavily subsidized by ratepayers in New York State and New Jersey under special agreements negotiated by local power regulators.It threw in the towel after it failed to gain even more favourable terms from both state and federal governments under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).Its Copenhagen-listed shares are down 55% year-on-year.Nextera Energy Partners, a master limited partnership and subsidiary of the world’s largest renewable energy producer, is down 67%. .The list goes on.Plug Power Inc., an upstart hydrogen fuel cell producer listed on the NASDAQ exchange, filed a “going concern notice” last week that it doesn’t have enough cash on the books to fund operations. It’s shares have lost more than 70% since the start of the year.Meanwhile, the shares of good old-fashioned oil companies are up after an admittedly volatile year, showing the resilience of conventional resource stocks despite assertions that it’s a sunset industry.Texas-based Pioneer Natural Resources — which ExxonMobil is acquiring for $60 billion — are up about 6%. Rival super-major Shell — after ditching its ambitious net-zero targets — has gained about 8% since it made the announcement in September.The point was aptly taken in no less an authority than the Wall Street Journal which opined: “Rising financing costs and prices for equipment make it harder to develop clean-energy projects as industry investors increasingly weigh the risks of providing capital against the benefits of reducing carbon emissions.”“The irrational exuberance, all the excitement about clean energy is clearly getting squeezed out,” a senior managing director of Blackstone — one of the largest venture capital funds in the world — told a New York audience.
