Mr. Gros was left with just $3,450, and clinging to his latest dream -- of uniting Louisiana's shrimpers into a political force that could one day win the tariffs or price supports to fight the rising tide of imports.
Germany, the world leader in PV thanks to its "feed-in tariff" support, installed 1.1 gigawatts of capacity last year - the equivalent of a large power station.
There is no feed-in tariff support for electricity from geothermal.
"I grew up with a firm belief that both Labor and the Coalition were supportive of industry protection and there was no way any Labor government would withdraw tariff support," he said.
They were initially given protective tariff support, although that is being removed in line with China's World Trade Organization entry obligations.
Why is it, I asked, have the power firms meekly accepted the government's requirement to deliver Whitehall policy on the shift to lower carbon and renewable power, while funding energy efficiency measures, smart metering and the social tariffs that support poorer customers?
The tariff received broad support in the Senate, but the senators backed down after China took steps to appreciate the renminbi.
"The question now is what can be done to give those IPP prisoners who are still in prison over their tariff the support they require in order to be safely released into the community.The Howard League and many others said for years that the IPP sentence was both wrong in principle and wrong in practice.
"But they need to be viewed and treated differently from the community schemes the tariff was created to support.
The overall goal of ending the tariff deficit has broad support, including from the renewable energy industry, but nobody is happy with how the government has proposed to split the unavoidable economic pain.
