But until that happens, the ride could be bumpy. Thankfully, we have a tree-hugging President that will do anything in his power to make sure that alternative energies – like solar – remain in the forefront of US energy production.

I’m not making this stuff up. This is common knowledge– you can already see the stock of one solar producer Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE:STP) behaving exactly how you would expect…

The first thing you’ll notice is exactly how far STP has fallen since August of last year. This isn’t unique to this company – virtually every stock in the market shows this fall. More interesting, is the potential bottom forming.

You can tell something good is brewing because…

1.    The RSI is showing a strengthening trend over the past three months. The bottoms are higher.

2.    A bullish cross of the 20 and 50-day moving averages. Even though the stock’s price is lower, the bullish cross remains.

3.    The Slow Stochastic is Oversold. This signals that conditions are ripe for buyers to flood the market and take STP much higher. At this point, a 50% spike isn’t out of the question. And the possibility for a double is very real.

It appears that the chart of this solar company is showing really great signs of a potential bottom. Considering the billions Obama will flow into this sector over the upcoming ten years, we might be seeing the cheapest price we’ll ever see for this company.

Positioning yourself today for the long-term could enrich you immensely in the years ahead.

The Times’ story cited the Solar Energy Industries Association as reporting that 3,400 companies in the solar energy sector employ only 25,000 to 35,000 workers, including installers, manufacturers, distributors and project developers and materials suppliers. Those numbers are expected to hit more 110,000 employees by 2016, according to the association.

Wait a minute: So seven years from now, this highly touted, save-the-world market will employ only 110,000 people?

From an investor’s perspective, I thought that number was absolutely puny. Let’s put that into perspective…

– Toyota employs 110,000 part-time workers.
– That’s the number of foreclosure notices sent to homeowners in California during the first quarter of this year.
– And in terms of size, Exxon, Rio Tinto and Wachovia each employ about 110,000 people.

So we’re supposed to be impressed, as investors, that the entire solar-energy industry will support 110,000 workers seven years from now?

Of course, those numbers from Solar Energy Industries Association could be wildly optimistic given a sea change in the politics of solar energy.

You see, that articles in the New York Times quotes Bob Cowen of Morris County, N.J., who opted for solar panels for both ecological and economic reasons. The tab for 49 solar panels for Mr. Cowen’s home came to $64,700. The state of New Jersey gave him a rebate of $42,500. That left Mr. Cowen with an out-of-pocket cost of $22,200.

Now the article didn’t say when Mr. Cowen installed his system, but recently the state of New Jersey moved to abolish its solar-energy rebates.

The state found itself with backlog of more than 700 applications for the rebates. This meant that people to wait months, even years, to get solar panels installed. Faced with an abundance of success, New Jersey regulators concluded it is time to wean solar providers from tax-paid subsidies and replace it with a complicated energy credits program.

New Jersey is not alone in reconsidering the benefits of subsidized solar energy. Maryland, Colorado, New York and several other states have either withdrawn their subsidy programs or are weighing their viability. Even San Francisco can’t seem to draw support for a solar subsidy.

The question that remains is: Would Mr. Cowan have paid the full $64,700 for his solar system? Probably not, since he probably would not have lived long enough to see the full ROI on it.

Likewise, I doubt that any of you would cough up $64,700 for a solar system that has a Rip Van Winkle ROI.

If that’s the case, then as an investor you shouldn’t put a penny into solar energy either.

The putrid haze of Beijing that has engulfed China and greater Asia is reducing the amount of sunlight that actually reaches the ground, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Program.

In addition to being responsible for millions of deaths and blighted crop yields, these so-called Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs) have dimmed China’s skies to the extent that the country’s solar initiative, and its huge solar industry, could become DOA.

As it stands now, Chinese solar stocks are on life support — depleting the portfolios of investors who got in at the top of the China IPO solar bubble of 2006-2007.

The losses have been staggering…

Solarfun Power Holdings Co. (Nasdaq:SOLF) has a 52-week range of $4.20 – $40.19 – a drop of 89.5%

Trina Solar Ltd. (NYSE:TSL) fell from 56.50 to 8.51 over the past 52 weeks – for a loss of 84.9%.

Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE:STP) saw it’s 52-week price plunge to $9.53 from $90.00 – a loss of 89.4%

And JA Solar Holdings, Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq:JASO) fell from $27.00 to 2.01 over the past 52 weeks – a loss of 92.5%.

In a conference call to analysts on Nov. 12th, JA Solar CEO Samuel Yang said “At this moment the market reaction has been panic.”

Now it appears that China’s home market for solar products is facing a very dim future as well from decades of pollution.

ABCs reflect solar radiation back to space by absorbing heat in the atmosphere.

In China, ABCs can cut sunlight on the Earth’s surface in two ways. Fossil-fuel particles such as sulphates reflect and scatter rays back into space, while black carbon in soot, absorbs sunlight before it reaches the ground.

According to the report, smog blocks 10-25% of the sunlight that should be reaching terra firma in China.

This isn’t just a thin layer of pollution blocking out the sun. In some places, it can be a mile thick. It can stretch from the Arabian Peninsula to the Yellow Sea, sometimes drifting as far east as California.

The U.N report says “In China the observed dimming trend from the 1950s to the 1990s was about 3-4 per cent per decade, with the larger trends after the 1970s.”

What does this mean for investors?

Those of you who tend to be bottom feeders should stay away from China solar stocks at any price. As we all know, when it comes to stock markets nothing is permanent. But zero is the share price we could be looking at for some these fallen IPO stars.