Obama praised Solar Cell firm goes bust..costs tax payers $500 million

I'm sorry, but some of you seem to think 'Huh, this government investing in something seems to be rather beneath normal capitalism' seem to forget every other country in the world does this as well, and quite frankly, if you are just going to say, 'Nope, we are going to stop ALL forms of government-backed loans to potentially important companies', then you could well be making the US fall behind other countries who will be all to glad to pick up the US's slack (ahem, China's solar subsidies).

 

Solar energy might be considered even more important than national defense. Considering the U.S. is falling behind China and other countries, and our economy is so poor.

If this is immoral, than you have a beef with dozens of presidents prior to this one.

 

I think natural gas would be a better option since we have so much of it.

 

I think it should be one of several options, we need to get off the tit of the middle east and let the rest of the world fight over their dwindling fossil fuels.

Fresh water is the next big battle, IMO.

DD

 

+1000 - the top solar panel manufacturers are in China, Germany, Japan, all of which feature massive subsidies. Even the biggest US company (First solar) has its plants in Germany and Malaysia.

Rocketman1981- I suggest you do some basic research on the industry before you start a thread like this.

 

Efforts to reduce this nation's dependence on foreign oil have more to to with our long term national interests than everything the Military is doing right now.You only have to look back at the 1973 oil embargo to get a hint of the implications; not to mention the effect on our economy not sending billions of dollars out of the country every day.

And sure Solyndra is a failure, but like a lot of other failed government spending the money was not just lost. It went in to the economy by salaries, wages, purchases from other businesses, and the resulting taxes on those. The facility didn't just go away, a modern plant is there and a second user can benefit.

But, it's not unusual for cutting edge and first generation technologies to fail, that's why it takes government loan guarantees to attract investment. 500 million sounds big but it represents less than 2% of the Energy Department’s loan-guarantee program initiated in 2005.

From what I understand, Solyndra failed because of a market change in silicon prices. They were going to be the non-silicon based technology conceived when silicon was expensive.

It's an issue that needs to be reviewed but it's not an indictment of this administration, green energy or government promoting new industries. Halliburton probably drops that much money on the way to the bank.

 

Most success is built off of others failure.

There is a saying.....Pioneers die, settlers thrive.

DD

 

Agreed!

 

We do! Its called research grants which pays for the development of many of the commercial drugs that we have on the market. The money should be placed in academia, and the results should be open sourced or liberally licensed.

 

Sure, that should be part of it.

Also, you guys have to uderstand, I am currently working at a company that develops for the government.

Yes, there is an app for that.



DD

 

Natural gas is great, but it does produce CO2 emissions.

I don't want to ever go through another weather year like this one. The catastrophic nature could be a statistical anomaly, a natural phase or could be the first signs of climate change.

 

The main issues that led to Solyendra's downfall were 1) the commoditization of PV solar much earlier than expected 2) record low natural gas prices 3) European debt crisis and the resulting solar subsidy cuts.

In the first instance, Solyendra's PV solar cells are very expensive, niche products which couldn't compete with alternatives from their cheaper Chinese counterparts. Their cost structure was also terribly out of whack: I think their S1 showed $50M in revs vs. $100M in cogs.

On the second issue, of course cheap natural gas discourages investment in renewables. Hard to encourage investment in large scale solar projects when nat gas is cheap and readily available.

I think Germany and Spain were two of the largest proponents of solar, with pretty large govt subsidies for buildouts. Unfortuantely, many of these subsidies were cut, which destroyed a large chunk of Solyendra's revenue steam.

At the end of the day, this was a black eye for government-backed loans for renewables that could have been avoided with some due diligence on Solyendra's cost structure and a better understanding of some of the market dynamics.

 

Baqui,

A little off topic, but do you know anything about a company that was developing a solar film to fit on top of existing roof tops?

I seem to recall hearing about that a couple of years ago, and nothing since.

DD

 

Haven't heard about it. Sounds like promising, albeit grossly expensive, technology.

 

http://www.konarka.com/index.php/power-plastic/about-power-plastic/

Konarka is what they are called, another one called Nanosolar does cells through inkjet printers.

DD

 

Disagree. The existing energy industry is already a billion dollar industry. The renewable one will not be as profitable, hence the "renewable aspect of it" One company will come in, spend all the capital, research and develop the methods, then another company will swoop in and spend a tenth of what the first company did, tinker the design and saturate the market. No company will willingly take that first step, which is exactly why there is a need for government in this scenario.

Other than enviornmental and moral reasons, there is zero incentive for big oil to push forward with renewable energy for everyone. Zero.

DD hit the nail on the head with his pioneer comment.

See exhibit A:

 

this is disappointing. i think the facts are clear that the loan guarantee was politically motivated.

the government's small business loan guarantee program has very capable people and i'm sure that evaluation was not the problem in this large case.

 

Turns out the President and Administration rushing this through may not have been the current one...

http://www.grist.org/solar-power/2011-09-13-bush-admin-pushed-solyndra-loan-guarantee-for-two-years

 

Okay since this has nothing to with this story, but some of you might find it interesting if you didn't already know. We wasted $2 billion on the largest funded hole in the universe in Texas.

http://www.damninteresting.com/americas-discarded-superconducting-supercollider/