Clearly SunEdison needs to scale back its near-term plans given its financial situation, but here, after all, was a tie-up with obvious benefits for both companies.

Upon closer inspection, however, the tub is being drained very carefully.

For all the recent chaos at SunEdison, and all its very real challenges, nothing the company has done suggests its long-term ambitions to become the world's first renewables supermajor have dimmed or shifted in the least.

If