First Solar: An Encouraging First Quarter

We are putting off investments in alternate energy as we are still infatuated with Apple among others as if we have no energy issues to worry about. We are saving until the investors had their fills with Apple stock and start looking for greener pastures... It seems.. by then it may be too late and we will be back to dirty coal ...

Apple performance is still quite positive in 2010 with strong New Mackbook numbers and iPhone 4G numbers. Although First Solar still enjoyed lower cost advantage, investors seems to focus more on Apple performance. PVinsights, www.pvinsights.com, showed solar panel prices seemed to be steady at US$ 1.78/Watt for silicon based module. This price is quite good for First Solar.

$1.78 is still too high for a single watthour in generation ..photovoltaics is competitive only during peak hours whereever utilites are suddenly short on capacity needed to power air conditioners in office buildings during hot summer days or other surges in demand in unlikely hours which utilties are forced to purchase juice off the grid at the spot prices which often fetch many times the normal price for a kilowatthour which typically charges at pennies a hour. Peak hour kilowatthour prices can be charged at $5 or higher for brief periods of time . What remains to be known is how much electricity at peak hours are bought at outlandish prices . My guess is many gigawatthours, anyway. I believe that public utility commissions across America should require utiilties to invest in photovoltaics to help utilites avoid paying outlandish prices during peakhours. It doesnt have to mean that utilites have to install their own solar farms in their premises. Utilities can join together to invest in huge solar farms in the deserts and earn credits around the year to help offset peak hour prices from the grid. It doesnt make much sense to invest in any solar installations in foggy cities like San Francisco. Pacific Gas and Electric already inked multimegawatt solar farms with First Solar to be installed in the desert of South California. There is Sunbelt across toward Texas that can be the host to all utilites required to install solar farms there by public utility commissions and start earning credits. This is the only way we can do to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel at the lowest cost . We do not install wind turbines in areas where winds hardly come, do we?? same argument for solar. We cannot install solar in rainy areas or foggy ones. Forget it.. First Solar may act as an solar utility that doles out credits to utilities required to invest in solar farms in the deserts of the Sun belt. There is still plenty of business to go around only for peak hour usage . We got to start following where the money is going.. We are fed up with the slush money sloshing around in the electricity business..

here is another story to back up my argument above.. Take Southern California Edison at San Diego that had been battling environmentalists to erect about 200 mile long gridlines to connect its planned solar farm in the Imperial Valley way south next to the border of Mexico. At first, I thought that enviromentalists is being a bit fooldhardy for holding up the planned solar farm of about 500 megawatts there in the Imperial Valley over the objections of property owners and endangered reptile speices there.. Later on, I read another story accusing Southern California Edison of planning a fake solar farm in order to get the grid line in place so that electricity can be imported from cheap electricity in Mexico . I dont know what is true or not. So you see, that is why I believe that all utilities should be required by respective public utility commissions to participate in "joint ventures" with other utilities to invest in necessary numbers of solar farms that will at least be adequate to replace the peak hour shortages repeatedly experienced by utilites all across America. We use more coal than necessary to power the peak hour usage and worsening the carbon emissions during the hot summer hours. Utilities running coal fired powerplants should no longer be allowed to hawk excess elecricity at outlandish prices to other utilies through the grid system during peak hour periods when solar farms can do the job at its most opitmal performance during those periods where it is 110 degrees in the deserts.. Of course, those solar farms will continue generating elecricity around the year which is a plus anyway.. it si not always about profits but also about saving a buck or two..

Whether First Solar is risky or not is besides the point overall... what most doesnt seem to understand or realize is that America is critically short on energy sources. As you know that America had been outsourcing jobs overseas and it was not only because of cheap wages there but that America is trying to reduce energy consumption here by moving jobs overseas .. Americans are notoriously energy guzzlers and we would be running out of energy by now if not for the decades of outsourcing jobs.. Remember that Americans commute to work and back home, watch TV, turn up thermostats... Unemployed Americans dont do that... This is cruel though but it remains a possible fact that we are not going to hire Americans at all until we tackle our energy issues head on.. We are not going to drill out of our energy problems.. Be it oil, gas, coal or nuclear.. We cannot keep on building more dams for more hydropower, can we?? Huh? What are you staring at me for?? Sure, we are gung ho on wind energy and it is helping a lot.. Can you count kilowatts, megawatts, gigawatts, or even terawatts, can you? Is statistics one of your favorite subjects or what? It is all in statistiics .... statistics speak loud... Experts sometimes choose to gloss over it and spout off red herrings ... We are still unwilling to attack the energy crisis in America... Dont forget energy conservation and it surely helps a lot yet we dont use it to the max at all. When will we have our fillls of those political posturings and such??? America is going down the tubers and the gold prices is a very strong hint of that coming around the corner.. at $1200 a ounce and gold investors is making it out like geniuses.. Do we really need gold investors or what?? Oil investors/?? They are pouring billions if not trillions there but scant millions in solar energy... Speaking of political and finaincial entrenchements... They dont relaly care about YOUR JOBS AT ALL1!! Now you tell me whether First Solar is indeed still a very RISKY STOCK OR WHAT? BUSTER???? Think , think boneheads"!!!

This is the umpeeth time I had posted such comments that address the possible reason for outsourcing jobs outside of America.. It is not about cheap wages and sustaining fat cats' lifestyles here in america... it may have something to do with our energy supplies... America is busy covering up or postponing the inevitable and horrible energy shortage that will hit us all like a brickwall... Why isnt anybody reading my comments at all?/ Is all on the grapevine somewhere where it is a saying not to read my comments ?? Oh , ignorance is blissful!

in case , you are not wondering at all ... there is more than one definition of ignorance as you should know ... first one is like unawareness the second is more sinister as such that it is intentional abandonment of others as in uncaring or inconsideration or bigotry etc... So you tell me which definition apply to the line "ignorance is blissful".. your pick!

call me a perpeutal whiner for all you care.. I will keep on doin' it until more people are getting disgusted with our political grapevine all across America!!!