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Rooftop Solar Bust: 115 and Counting

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 10, 2026

A solar bankruptcy list has been compiled by Data Register, “Data from Solar Company Bankruptcy Register: US Home Solar Bankruptcies and Closures Since 2022.” Their summary of the current state of the industry speaks for itself (reproduced verbatim below). I then offer a final comment, followed by Appendice A on (long-term) contract transfers from busted companies and Appendix B on previous posts on the rooftop solar bust.


DATA REGISTER

Since 2022, more than 90 solar companies that sold, financed, serviced, or supplied U.S. homes have gone bankrupt, entered a court-supervised wind-down, or liquidated. The yearly count is 29 in 2022; 29 in 2024; 24 in 2025, and 11 in 2026 (to date). Seventy-seven (85 percent) went through a bankruptcy court or similar proceeding, 51 (56 percent) are Chapter 7 liquidations once conversions are counted, 79 (87 percent) are installers.…

‘Done in Oil’ by J. Howard Marshall II (book excerpts)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 5, 2026

“Many big shots in the business, who later denied it, literally prayed for us amateurs in government to ‘save us else we perish.’ A few years later, when most of them found salvation, few sinners remembered their prayers. Such is human nature.”

Earlier this year, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) launched Fueling America: 250 Years of Energy Innovation. A major part of this project is brief biographies on major and lesser-known industry pioneers. One biography was done on J. Howard Marshall II, whose book Done in Oil was published in 1996 by Texas A&M Press. I edited and wrote the introduction for this book, which was a rare opportunity in the field of industry history.

Unfortunately, Texas A&M Press had a woke, humorless editor (she is now a Deacon at St.…

‘Imagine 2200’: Grist Climate Fiction

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 4, 2026

“I’ll take my chances with energy freedom. I fear the energy dystopia of Climate Big Brother.”

Grist, “an independent nonprofit newsroom that’s spent 25 years telling the truth about our planet,” is now in the climate fiction business. Imagine 2200 is premised on “a core belief: The world we need has to be imagined before it can be built.” Grist’s Image 2200 Creative Manager Tory Stephens continues:

We are living through a moment where the stories being told about the future are shrinking, and the space to imagine something different is being crowded out by fear and despair. Imagine 2200 is an antidote: a global climate-fiction initiative in which writers from more than 90 countries have imagined new futures, shaped by justice and resilience, and informed by the real-world solutions already in motion.

…

“Energy is Prosperity” (Claire Coutinho speaks to the UK people)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 3, 2026

Overshoot? Neo-Malthusian Pleas

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 2, 2026

John ‘Halloween’ Holdren Remembered (exaggeration, failed prognostications should not be forgotten)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 30, 2026

Climate Anxiety? Just Teach Both Sides (a cure in waiting)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 28, 2026

‘Green’ Energy Tradeoffs

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 27, 2026

Washington Post on Natural Gas: No Plan = Best Plan (channeling F. A. Hayek)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 22, 2026

Greenhushing (climate loses its message)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 21, 2026