Noel Cass, Research Fellow at University of Leeds, views himself as the purveyor of truth and goodness and his critics (me, in particular) as conflicted, wrong, and “evil.” His bio reads in part:
I am a researcher focussing on the social and political aspects of energy systems and everyday life. I have researched areas including environmental audits of organisations, tourism and travel, everyday life and travel practices, public engagement with renewable energy technologies, the ethical implications of nuclear power and options for radioactive waste management, the social exclusion implications of transport policies on congestion and climate change, climate change policy in local authorities in the UK, the energy demands of the built environment, later focussing on office building designs, and the implications of changing office work practices.
A recent exchange between Cass and me is worth memorializing as a data point in the intellectual battle between critics and supporters of the climate narrative of doom-and-gloom and the magical thinking of an “energy transformation” from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and batteries.…
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.…
“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.…