BP Solar Profitable – Solar has Bright Future Ahead
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 05.29.05
BP Global, formerly known as British Petroleum, has been trying to distance itself from its old name and image, even going as far as to say that "BP" now stands for "Beyond Petroleum". How much of this is greenwashing and empty PR coming from the #2 corporation after WalMart? Probably most of it, but still, their solar division is one of the largest solar companies in the world, employs 2000 people in at least 4 countries and – best of all – was profitable in 2004. That's good news for the solar industry which, as a whole, has grown 40% last year.
The Sun is still a small player compared to dead-dinosaurs & co, and BP says that solar probably won't have an impact on climate changes before 2020 (not sure that means much coming from them, or that they can be sure of anything - although they must know a fair bit about global warming, being one of the premier carbon pushers around), but now that they are making money with el sol, the pace should quicken and new players should be tempted to toss their hat in the solar ring (said the optimist - the pessimist is reading this).
As you can probably guess, I'm torn between hoping for the best in light of that positive development and knowing that what BP's doing is incredibly small compared to what they could do if they really wanted to.
::ENN, ::BP Solar [by MGR]
Unless I'vbe missed someething, there are only two US-owned, pure-play solar photovoltaic panel makers, and they are both relataivley small. If this market overheats further we might expect attempts at buying those out. Anyone want to bet the whales goiing after them will be Asian or European, not American corporations? Its so amazing that US industrial culture is largely immersed in denial (GE is big but only one among 99 others of the Fortune listed firms).
Distributor/installers are the next species to be gobbled.
Both of these "hunts" will good indicators of solar ramping up in time to actually mitigate climate change in a timely manner.
Even GE is still in denial. It's just a marketing campaign to them.
I've been buying up stock in ESLR (Evergreen Solar) lately.