Breaking: Solyndra solar plant closes; $535 million vanishes; Obama curse strikes again; UPDATE: Bankrupt
This ought to be the top story on every news outlet nationwide, and ought to be the death knell for the “Stimulus” concept and for the “green jobs” fallacy. But I get the feeling the MSM will bury it.
When workers showed up at the Solyndra solar-panel factory in Fremont, California, this morning — they were ordered to leave by guards, and then given instructions on how to pick up their final checks. In other words, the dream is over:
Solyndra, a major manufacturer of solar technology in Fremont, has shut its doors, according to employees at the campus.
“I was told by a security guard to get my [stuff] and leave,” one employee said. The company employs a little more than 1,000 employees worldwide, according to its website.
Shortly after it opened a massive $700 million facility, it canceled plans for a public stock offering earlier this year and warned it would be in significant trouble if federal loan guarantees did not go through.
The company has said it will make a statement at 9am California time, though it’s not clear what that statement will be. An NBC Bay Area photographer on the scene reports security guards are not letting visitors on campus. He says “people are standing around in disbelief.” The employees have been given yellow envelopes with instructions on how to get their last checks.
Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs. The President visited the facility in May of last year and said “it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. And you guys all represent that. ”
The federal government offered $535 million in low cost loan guarantees from the Department of Energy.
Here’s a brief clip of Obama shaking hands at the Solyndra plant just a year ago, after giving a speech touting green jobs and the $535 million giveaway:
If you want to watch his incredibly long and self-indulgent speech, click here. Starting at 4:33, here’s what Obama had to say about Solyndra’s rosy outlook:
It’s here, that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter, more prosperous future.
Remember, he said this just one year ago.
Basically, the federal government just invested $535 million of our taxpayer funds in a loser company that went belly up in only one year. And that whole investment — poof! Gone.
As an investor, Obama is either cursed, or perhaps merely blinded by ideology.
UPDATE I:
Maybe this is a clue as to why Obama gave $535 million to Solyndra in the first place — it was a union stronghold:
IBEW members at Solyndra with President Obama
UPDATE II:
Solyndra has just announced its bankruptcy. You can download the press release (in. “.doc” format) here:
Solyndra Bankruptcy Announcement
Solyndra LLC, the American manufacturer of innovative cylindrical solar systems for commercial rooftops today announced that global economic and solar industry market conditions have forced the Company to suspend its manufacturing operations. Solyndra intends to file a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code while it evaluates options, including a sale of the business and licensing of its advanced CIGS technology and manufacturing expertise. As a result of the suspension of operations approximately 1,100 full-time and temporary employees are being laid off effective immediately.
Wow — worse than I even would have thought. I understand why it seemed like a great idea, but Spain has basically bankrupted the country on this stuff (well, and runaway social programs, but still)….
Being the first guy to make a dumb investment in a nowheresville industry is excusable. Being the second guy is just dumb.
I think that Spains concentrating solar plants were and remain as good an idea as solar gets. The 51-MW Andasol plant uses 51 acres of parabolic troughs, storing its energy in molten salt, which allows it to run at night and in the rain, overcoming the #1 objection to solar power. It is expensive, the per-KWh cost running about twice what I pay TXU, and this may eventually kill it, but at least technically it works. The PE-1 Spanish plant is similar to Andasol, but substitutes Fresnel mirrors for the troughs, something that should reduce the investment by a significant amount.
I think Solyndra failed because it was a union shop. Couple this with the draconian regulation and tax policies in California, plus the absolute power of litigation there to thwart technological change, and your solar panels become so costly that its much cheaper just to buy them off the Internet. Of course you can make them yourself for a small fraction of what any American-built panel costs, but you still get a pitiful 75 Watts or so from the best of them, which is fine if you want to cook with wood, light with flashlight bulbs, bathe in ambient temperature water, and heat or cool not at all.
But solar energy in general is a rich persons solution: Sunlight is too diffuse to be of much commercial value. A far better path might be to explore zero-point (free) energy, which has been generated in useful amounts in the laboratory. The government wont fund this, but I have a business plan at http://www.chollybygolly.com that suggests a way it could be funded by selling hydroxy generators until we can locate and secure a marketable zero-point energy device. Google Don Smith, Nicola Tesla and Tariel Kapanadze for the basic ideas, and see http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk/ for a more detailed treatment.
“The Obama administration bypassed procedural steps meant to protect taxpayers as it hurried to approve an energy loan guarantee to a politically-connected California solar power startup, ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News have learned.” (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/obama-administration-solyndra/story?id=13640783)
Hmmm, guess that procedure was there for a reason.
And I guess that answers the question whether Obama is cursed or just ideologically blinded. I submit curses and “bad luck” have nothing to do with it.
The big news here is that ABC, a major network, is covering this as a scandal.
This reminds me of Evergreen Solar in Massachusetts that received state taxpayer funding then proceeded to file bankruptcy.
Democrats green strategy is working. It doesn’t get more enviro-friendly than people sitting home unemployed.
What makes you think that Obama regards this as a failure? The fact that $535M of taxpayer money is gone without explanation might be considered a feature instead of a bug. Who wants to bet that we can trace $1M worth of campaign donations back to Obama’s re-election campaign? Repeat this with the 787B times (i.e. Stimulus) and you now have discovered his re-election financing strategy.
The same probably applies to all the waivers he signs to exempt unions and corporations from certain provisions of ObamaCare and suchlike.
By the way, I saw somewhere that the going rate for campaign contributions is 10% of the money made or saved. In this case, Solyndra might have contributed something like $53.5 million to Democrat/Obama coffers. Now, do we see the whys and wherefores of Obama’s intent to raise a full billion campaign fund? Yes, the Dem Party is sure to collect its rake-off for Congressional use.
Second such government subsidy blows up, jobs go away JUST IN SOLAR this month! http://claytonecramer.blogspot.com/2011/08/green-jobs-of-future.html
“A loan guarantee is a contractual obligation between the government, private creditors and a borrower—such as banks and other commercial loan institutions—that the Federal Government will cover the borrower’s debt obligation in the event that the borrower defaults.” (from https://lpo.energy.gov/?page_id=29)
If this company’s technology was so advanced, so brilliant, then why did it need Federal loan guarantees? If this is “best technology”, why aren’t purchasing agents beating paths to these company’s doors?
Could it be that what qualifies as “best technology” doesn’t necessarily mean that it has practical, and/or profitable, uses?
When the tunnel diode was invented back in the Fifties, electronics industry pundits began claiming that tunnel technology would drive other forms of semiconductor fabrication out of the market place.
Tunnel diodes are still made (a tiny niche market.) They happen to be very, VERY reliable, and they’re d*mned good at what they’re used for. One can certainly say the technology is “best”.
Problem is, they’re not much good for anything else.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
But you can’t fuel “green jobs” that pay
Even with massive federal backing
The market realities don’t go away
Every single thing this President touches is a disaster. From the economy to the wars to the deficit to his own marriage. He really is a moron.
Do not confuse idiocy with malevolence.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Of course the problem is that ALL of this might not adequately be explained by stupidity.
Stupid + ego is quite possibly the most powerful force in the universe.
We need to ask ourselves:
If you owned a business and you had an executive who’s decisions and actions continually caused large losses to your company, to the point that your company is going under, would you still retain that employee?
If you had a management team that was over-paid, highly inefficient, did not perform their jobs properly, thus causing even more income losses, would you still retain them?
If you had just a tad more acumen than the simple sense that G-D gave geese, your answer would most likely be “NO!”
Then, why are we still retaining this employee, and this management team?
He is not a king. He is not entitled to the office of POTUS. He is there based upon OUR majority’s decision, unfortunate as it was. He, like all of those in government, is OUR employee, and OUR taxes pay their salaries. I think we all forget that little fact. So does he. So do all of them. Perhaps it is time to remember it, and issue the pink slips. Otherwise, we have no right to complain when our “business” fails completely.
Bruce Krasting at Zerohedge had a good post about this yesterday.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/government-investment-disaster-works
Final line:
Keep in mind that the Boss/Owner just took a powder a few days ago.
One might look at this as similar to the”Affirmative Action Curse”: When a college has an Affirmative Action policy, students and teachers tend to assume that those minority students admitted to the school must be of a lower standard, otherwise why would they have needed special preferences to get in? This applies even to those minority students who gained admittance on their own merits! Thus, Affirmative Action tends to end up increasing prejudicial attitudes toward minorities.
Same holds true for the world of business and investments: if a company needs a $535 million government loan guarantee to survive, real-world investors probably think: “What’s so flawed about this company that it can’t survive on its own steam? Not to be trusted; don’t invest in them or do business with them.”
Thus, getting a government loan might indeed be an actual kiss of death!
Either that or investors observed that the sun doesn’t shine at night.
And science has been developing better batteries for over a hundred years now without much luck.
But I’ve got the equivalent of 100 full-time solar panels in my gas tank right now. I can do about 20 miles in a SUV on about 5 pounds worth.
Since those 100 full-time solar panels in my gas-tank are still only about 30% efficient, wouldn’t it be a better use for 535 Million dollars to improve that efficiency to 31% than poring the money down a rat-hole?
Proreason, you’re right. If we focused on incremental improvements in existing technologies with measurable track records, everyone would win: producer, user, economy, country. Dollar for dollar, it’s a far better investment.
However, I’m not sure “win/win” is Obama’s objective.
His version of “win” is not our version of “win”. His is control, ours is liberty and opportunity.
Breaking: “kiss of death” dooms Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi
The difference:
Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi turn a profit. Huge profits. Investors already know and have known for decades that the companies are stable and a good investment, whether or not the Japanese government wants to insure a spin-off merger.
Solyndra, on the other hand, was an unproven and unprofitable new company. The government loan just looked like a artificial crutch not merited by market realities.
Gosh Zombie, do you PJM/Tatler editors *ever* do fact-checking? Stock-prices for Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi are all three down sharply from ten years ago. Duh.
And do you EVER stay on topic? This post is about Solyndra, and the United States. Because you don’t want to comment on the failure of the taxpayer-funded green jobs stimulus, you start talking about some totally irrelevant Japanese corporate news. Even so, Hitachi et al. are profitable companies, whether or not their stock prices go up and down with the various swings in the Japanese and US stock market.
Your very existence here and purpose is to waste the time of people who could be otherwise making an impact, so that’s the last minute I’m going to spend on your change-the-subject time-wasting maneuvers.
Zombie, I’m just suggesting that public-private investment partnerships might be a wee bit more complicated than your editorial suggested. It will be mighty interesting (IMHO) to hear Jon Huntsman’s take on this in weeks to come. Goodness knows, the present field of Republican candidates is otherwise a slogan-shouting/no-idea monoculture.
Deflect, distract, change the subject, erect strawmen, use false equivalents, and when all else fails, call the other side poopyheads. These are all juvenile debate tactics.
You do all these things, Dr. Sidles, and you do not realize that you do them, because in your academic environment, these are all de rigeur. Everyone does them, and they are considered viable arguments. It is about “winning” the debate, not about actual rational discourse. It is emotional debate, not rational discourse.
They say that the political infighting in academia is so vicious, because the stakes are so small. It’s not true. The infighting is so vicious, because the people are so small. They are perpetually juvenile, stunted in their emotional growth.
What Japan did has no bearing on the action Obama has done. They are not the same situation, nor even really similar. It is also a different government and culture with different motivations. Japan has also been in a world of hurt for about 20 years. Thus, I would hardly use what they do as a reason for us to do similar things. You offered here a false equivalent.
Here is why it is so bad to do so. We would have to have a whole different conversation about how exactly all that came to pass, and how it all played out. Meanwhile, we would be ignoring the neon elephant in the room of Solyndra’s grotesque failure.
In time, we will likely find that they spent the money lavishly on executive perqs and stellar salaries. We may find that money was embezzled. Maybe someone will be brought back to face charges. We will likely find that some of the money found its way back into campaign funds for Democrats. We will find that the money went to cronies of Obama. It was all political payoff. The hogs were lined up at the trough.
Meanwhile, you would have us off on a discussion of the merits of the Japanese government actions in a “kind of similar” situation. You would argue theory, when the empirical results stare us in the face. The Left is all about theory, while the Right is all about results. One cannot defend the indefensible, but you sure try, Dr. Sidles. You beclown yourself, thereby.
Marc, separative transport is a major focus of modern systems engineering … solar power is one or the largest and fastest-growing applications of it.
I commend to you (and everyone) the weblog GreeTechSolar … for the kind of thoughtful discussion that American conservatism needs to embrace … in order to be taken seriously.
`Cuz ideology-first slogan-shouting and smearing are *not* what American conservatism needs to be about.
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Will Solyndra, or Part of It, Get Bought?
URL: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/will-solyndra-or-part-of-it-get-bought/
You use that term rather loosely, Mr. Mallone.
Marc you said it all so well and so very true. and I agree if there is an investigation into solyndra and the dem’s there eill be collusion found and lots of fraud,
what an idiot
Proreason, there’s plenty of in-depth, high-quality, non-partisan reporting out there … for folks who look for it.
And there’s nothing “idiotic” about about a positive US trade balance.
Prediction: thoughtful conservatives like Huntsman will be on-board with this.
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US Solar Industry Was Net Global Exporter by $1.9B in 2010
URL: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/us-solar-industry-was-net-global-exporter-in-2010/
Jon Huntsman’s take will be equal to that of ‘a physicist’. It will not address Solyndra’s collapse, nor the politically-instigated waste of half a billion taxpayer dollars, nor will it hold the bestowers of that bad loan accountable.
“I’m just suggesting that public-private investment partnerships might be a wee bit more complicated than your editorial suggested.”
You’re right.
Here’s something Zombie’s editorial didn’t mention:
According to Recovery.gov, to date Solyndra has received $475 million in those loan guarantees–but has produced just 475 jobs.
That works out to an amazing $812,000 per job.
For a high-tech company, that’s the most capitalization per employee I’ve ever seen.
And a total waste of taxpayer money.
For that price, we could have gotten 50 times more solar panels simply by buying them from China.
These kinds of investment failures have been commonplace for many years and never get any media attention. Government funding is the one where their is no management oversight of the investment so it most always ends with a high degree of accounting fraud. From mega international corporations down to small business startups through the SBA you will find countless number of such failures and problem a very high percentage of fraud involved.
“for folks who look for it.”
Nothing’s more laugable than an idiot who takes himself seriously.
This guy is the Maxine Waters of PJM.
What an idiot.
No true constitutional conservative cares one whit what John Huntsman’s view is because we already know that he is a liberal RINO with no concept of constitutional government any more than Obama or Boehner.
What’s wrong with his picture? Professor Johnny, up in Seattle, who hasn’t seen the sun in 800 days, pushing solar as the panacea. Sometimes I wonder if he knows what the sun is.
Boy:
Aren’t you supposed to be in class or something?
You want to base your argument on stock prices? Seriously?
There are many reasons a company’s stock price might be down at any point in time, or even for an extended period of time. The sector might be out of favor, growth may have stopped (profits could be fine…growth is very important to investors, generally), the market as a whole may be down, estimates of future credit prices may not be resolved… and many more possibilities.
You have no case to make based solely on a company’s share price.
” ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News first reported on questions about the choice of Solyndra for the loan in May after the Department of Energy disclosed it was being forced to restructure its loan package for the company, which was showing early signs of financial distress. One of Solyndra’s major investors was George Kaiser, an Oklahoma billionaire who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama during the 2008 election.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/white-house-backed-solar-solyndra-company-collapses/story?id=14420755
” MORE EMBARRASSING, SOLYNDRA was the first recipient of a loan guarantee under the dual auspices of the Recovery Act and Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Department of Energy noted the loan guarantee was the first it had issued since the 1980s. On Sept. 4, 2009, the day of the award, Vice President Joe Biden crowed that it was “part of the unprecedented investment this Administration is making in renewable energy, and exactly what the Recovery Act is all about.” DOE Secretary Steven Chu called it “part of a broad, aggressive effort to spark a new industrial revolution that will put Americans to work, end our dependence on foreign oil and cut carbon pollution.”
To borrow the words that Biden used on another auspicious occasion, it was a big &#*%! deal.
Taxpayers are on the hook for $390.5 million—73% of the loans. Some observers questioned the wisdom of the government’s deal from the start, saying the company was an inefficient, high-cost producer.
Chu announced the Solyndra guarantee within 60 days of taking over the DOE, which in hindsight seems rather rash. DOE spokesman Stephanie Mueller said a credit-review board run by DOE Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman recommended it. The panel includes the department’s deputy secretary of energy; undersecretary of energy; undersecretary for science; chief financial officer; general counsel; senior advisor to the secretary for the Recovery Act, plus Chu’s chief of staff. ”
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970203296004575352982133405348.html
This is just more evidence that shows the current administration does not care about this country and even when they want something to work it will not because they have no clue how businesses actually work.
Unfortunately for the nation, the Obama curse not only applies to plants/businesses he visits. It has also struck the nation … when he showed up, our nation went bankrupt.
Unfortunately the Obama Curse does not apply to Govt.
Notice that a half a billion taxpayer dollars was given, by Obama, to this company…whose backers, as noted, are key Obama donors.
“Another beneficiary of Energy Department aid is Solyndra Inc., a California solar power firm whose financial backers include Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser, a bundler who raised at least $50,000 for the president’s campaign in 2008. Solyndra, a recipient of a $535 million 2009 loan guarantee to help create jobs, laid off some 180 temporary and fulltime workers the following year, prompting questions in Congress over whether its new manufacturing plant will spur the 1,000 fulltime U.S. jobs the company promised”.
Obama visited the plant to announce the grant in 2009, got a photo-op (he’s ALWAYS after these, whether it be at the return of the killed military, despite the families requesting no photos..or at a plant that will lay off workers and then, go bankrupt..
And now, those 1,000 plus jobs -as well as the half billion taxpayer dollars – have all disappeared. Or has that money been donated to the Democrat Party. That’s Obama-Economics.
I have concluded that everything Obama says is a LIE !! Everything he does is based on a lie …
What took you so long?
Half a BILLION bucks, squandered on a pipe dream that was probably never meant to work. “Springtime for Hitler,” all over again. That money is in offshore accounts, some of it to be kicked back to Obama’s campaign.
Fat chance anyone will be prosecuted, let alone jailed for this massive robbery. =>[.]<=
Lets see … $535,000,000 for 1,000 jobs for a year. So B.O. thinks $535,000 per job per year is the way to go?!?!? I hate to hear what his roll-out plan is on 9/7/11! We can’t afford this guy!
2012 can’t arrive soon enough. I hope this country can last that long under his (mis)direction…
Tom,
Thats the goal….when youre politically connected to the sweat of the Tax Payers Brow, there is NO limit…
A common Teacher in my district (Council Rock PA) AVERAGES 93k per year, where the median adult male salary in my town is 53k. They say we are “affluent” and can therefore afford to have the bottom most cogs in the Government Machine (teachers) earn near “executive level” 6-figure salaries….93K is the AVERAGE for TEACHERS…Administrators, Specialists, Principals and Union Bosses earn well above that…
My Son started school this week, his classroom is in a “temporary” trailer thats been behind the behind the distant elementary school for more than a decade. But they spent 30 million renovating the centrally located “old” school (that could easily accomodate them all), into OFFICES FOR THEMSELVES.
Their building is centrally located, middle of town, walkable to everything in on nice quiet streets, with the “temporary” school trailers for our kids located on a busy road, at the edge of town, with NO sidewalks, and a CHILD STRUCK BY A CAR ON THE VERY FIRST DAY THIS WEEK.
Thats a Govornment Operation: A 30 million dollar palace for us, a trailer, and no sidewalks for your child.
And nearly DOUBLE your salary, for just 180 days of work.
And a perpetual strike threat, beacuse “nearly double” is an UNSULT to them.
The rank and file, lowest cogs of the machine expect to earn MORE THAN DOUBLE the salary of the schlubs supporting them, because they “deserve it”
Its the way Tax Funded jobs are.
Democrats and Theives, Theives and Unions, Unions and Democrats.
That incestuous circle-jerk that robs us blind, and has the NERVE to tell us we should be GRATEFUL.
The Root ’83: this is brilliant stuff: Take pictures, get it up on a blog, send it to Rep Candidates. Every little bit helps. Zombie should do a photo essay on this, but I can’t afford to send him a ticket.
I’m so sick of teacher whining. I did some sub teaching some years ago and was amazed to s ee how little they did. A bit O/T but I covered Spanish and French, and it was clear the regular teachers often had no mastery of the languages.
someone should have done an ‘exit’ poll to see how many of those drones still support Obama..
The technology is the result of the need and the greed,while the science is the result of the curiosity. All the ideas that promise the blessing of the humanity lead to the hell like communism.The green science is the fraud like the science with any epithet.
A solid B+!
Did anyone note that this is illegal under California law?
But then, these are Democrats in California, so don’t expect any sanctions.
Of course, since the company is now bankrupt, there’s no point in pursuing fines, I guess. They get to thumb their noses at the law.
That seems to be a specialty of Democrats.
I don’t know California law at all, so could you tell me what’s illegal about it (and I will make sure never to start a company there!)
This just came in from the Obama Central Planning Committee. The discussion centered on the high use of electric tooth brushes and the amount of power all those brushes consume. It was decided that by banning such electric tooth appliance we could have a whopping saving in electrical use. Known now as the Green Teeth Project, it will be offered to the US Congress as an amendment. If passed it will require all individuals to turn in their electric tooth brushes. Exempted from this will be those few of us that have solar power electric tooth brushes. However, it was pointed out to Mr. Obama that such brushes currently don’t exist. To alleviate the situation, Mr. Obama has allocated another 500 million for its development.
For folks who like to see all the cards in-play.
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Chart of the Day: Solyndra Edition
How does U.S. government backing of Solyndra compare
to China’s support of their solar industry?
URL: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/chart-of-the-day-solyndra-edition/
China can afford it, because they’re not $14 trillion in the hole like we are.
When you’re flush with dough, you can afford to take a lot more chances than when you’re facing insolvency.
If you knew as much about home economics as you do about physics, you would know that.
OK, this is a joke, right?
How does the US government compare with China on this?
There is not supposed to be any need for comparing the US government with China on investing in private companies. The US government is not supposed to be in bed with American corporations. Obama, GE and Immelt may have the look and feel of what China would do, but it shouldn’t.
The US should not be buying auto companies or firing the CEO of GM. That is something to be expected in China– not America.
And why do you continue to ramble on about solar power? Is there any comment or any suggestion in the article that somebody is opposed to solar power?
But, I guess your next comment will also be about the wonders of solar power. You may need a checkup.
Back in the 80s the Dems, and al-Gore especially loved to talk up the Japanese Model. Uh huh.
Guess what:
china will Crash too. Nobody can defy the laws of economics forever. Property bubble, mega infrastructure projects, and apparently megalomaniac plans for multi ocean naval fleets and so on. It will catch up with them. And oh yeah, a demographic bust because of their brutal one child program. Americans who look to China remind me of Mosley and his ilk in England in the 30s. Disgusting.
Hasn’t anyone seen the movie “The Producers”?
There’s so much goin’ down this month … that PJM/Tatler’s coverage doesn’t even *BEGIN* to scratch the surface.
Oil runs out … coal junks-up our planet … meanwhile solar costs have the huge advantage of being headed in only one direction … DOWN.
It’s a gold rush, folks. A planet-wide gold rush.
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Solexel, Kleiner-Backed Stealth Solar Firm, to Invest $940M in Malaysian Fab?
No explanation of where that money is going to come from …
URL: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solexel-KP-Backed-Stealth-Solar-Firm-to-Invest-940M-in-Malaysian-Fab/
Oh how nice, solar powered dildos for the oh so stylish.
Free, no less!
Hey didpstick:
This article isn’t about whether or not solar is viable and possibly profitable. This story is about government corruption and incompetence and a badly-run company with a solar tech idea whose time has NOT come.
Why do you keep going on and on about solar? What does that have to do with Obama touting a failed company, or tax dollars being squandered?
You do not seem to have a point, unless it is that all solar companies are a good investment. Is that it?
FYI, China is building new “clean coal” power plants at an average rate of one new plant per MONTH.
That’s in addition to their solar power investments, their high-speed rail investments, their new (actually refurbished) aircraft carrier, their purchase of state-of-the-art fighter jets, and lots more.
We know this.
They’re creditors, we’re debtors.
Their GDP grows at 9% per year, ours is growing at 1%.
We’re broke, they’re not.
Think there might be a connection?
Hey Physicist,
We have a physicist running the DOE( which has yet to produce ONE btu of energy). How’s that going?THE MARKET DECIDE. And support NOrth American energy development to break OPEC.
It’s about hydrocarbons, and they are abundant.
Dirty air, oh dear, it’s about the children. Well when I wax a kid we got sent home from school in LA because
of smog and cars had their headlights on in the middle of the day.
WE have learned to use hydrocarbons more responsibly and more efficently. And
Sure, the EPA had a hand in that. But now, the pollution argument is a bugaboo scaring people with nearly non existent statistical improbablilites of maybe getting cancer.
If you think solar is so cool, invest your IRA in it; leave my money alone.
Gosh, I hadn’t appreciated how much PJM/Tatler’s readers have to learn about solar.
And there’s plenty of dry-eyed sober-minded business analysis for conservatives to like. Good!
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How to Make Money in Solar
URL: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-to-make-money-in-solar/
The point of that article is that there are a lot of different approaches. And just like with the early PC makers like Atari and Commodore, some approaches won’t succeed while hopefully others will.
That’s a good argument for the Government to stay out of the business of picking winners to shower hundreds of billions of dollars of largesse on. Because Obama hasn’t a clue which companies will succeed and which will fail. No one does.
Back in the 1970s, IBM was the king of computers. If the Federal Government had wanted to sponsor personal computing, IBM would have gotten the contract–not a couple of young men named Jobs and Wozniak working a shoestring operation out of a garage in California.
So far, most of the energy companies backed by Obama have been flops. He’s as bad a venture capitalist as he is a President. What’s worst about that is he’s doing it with our money, not his.
LOL … yes, sinz54, it’s true that IBM *was* king of the computers in the 1970s … mainly because in the 1950s and 1960s DARPA (then ARPA) invested massively in the materials science of semiconductor manufacture … and NASA hired a then-small company to be responsible for all manned spaceflight trajectory computation … a contract that company still holds today.
That then-small US company of the 50s and 60s was named … IBM.
There’s a book that ain’t easy to find (once upon a time, you had to pay to have your personal copy duplicated … and yes I have done this … but nowadays its free) … and this book ain’t easy to read either … but here’s the book that tells the behind-the-scenes action of *that* amazing success-story.
Y’all can thank me later.
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The Advanced Research Projects Agency, 1958–1974
Richard J. Barber
URL: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA154363
What are you talking about???
IBM was already a giant company back in the 1950s, making tabulating machines and sorters and punch card machines and other office equipment. In the late 1930s, the fledgling Social Security agency bought IBM tabulators to build the first database of Social Security payees and recipients.
IBM was hardly a startup company like Solyndra. IBM’s startup days were way back at the start of the 20th century, when it was first called the “Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company”.
And DARPA does research, which I support. DARPA also did the basic research on the TCP/IP protocol which led to the military ARPANET, the direct ancestor of the Internet. That was great too.
I don’t even have a problem with the Government paying a private company to push the state of the art in technology which the Government intends to buy. That’s how the aerospace industry has pushed the state of the art in military aircraft.
That’s quite a different thing from handing $475 billion of taxpayer money to ONE company–not to engage in research, but to mass-produce solar panels for the consumer market.
The Government should NOT be subsidizing manufacturing production for the consumer market. It should do basic research and perhaps applied research–and STOP there. And if it has its OWN needs in advanced technology (like stealth fighters and unmanned aircraft drones), it should pay for those.
Did you hear about Obama bridge- Obama want to spend billions on that bridge and he submit it to congress the congress say but Mr president there is no river in there, Obama says oh don’t you worry about that will make rivers too.
the only thing “green” about this whole mess is watching taxpayer dollars go down the proverbial tube.
Solar window is ‘green’ game-changer
By Daniel Ben-Tal
August 08, 2011
A new solar window from Israel can generate power, reduce energy consumption and let in daylight, promising a green revolution to the construction industry.
Pythagoras’ photovoltaic window.
The dream of constructing a net zero-energy building has yet to become a reality, but now an Israeli company has come up with an idea that could make it possible.
The innovative product from Pythagoras Solar can be described as a solar window that combines energy efficiency, power generation and transparency.
The world’s first transparent photovoltaic glass unit (PVGU) has been designed to be easily integrated into conventional building design and construction processes. This means that existing office blocks can be retrofitted with the new material instead of energy-seeping glass windows – a process that will pay itself back within five years.
“What we have today – this is what we hear from architects – is very unique,” Pythagoras Solar CEO Gonen Fink tells ISRAEL21c. “The high transparency makes for esthetically pleasing building designs.
“There are many companies today doing energy-efficient windows or energy generators using photovoltaics such as skylights, but this is mostly to show you can produce energy from the building’s envelope. This is the first time somebody has actually combined the advantages in one product.”
Prestigious award
In June, Pythagoras Solar’s breakthrough was selected from nearly 5,000 entrants as a winner of the prestigious GE Ecomagination Challenge (challenge.ecomagination.com), which recognizes the most promising innovations for capturing, managing and using energy in buildings.
“GE sets high standards and we are proud that our technology has been recognized as a distinctive solution, ready for the real world and set to enable a market shift towards net zero-energy buildings,” said Udi Paret, vice president for marketing and business development.
“This award, along with its $100,000 prize, validates our proposition and supplements the increased interest we are seeing from successful pilots, first commercial projects and growing product demand.”
The company was co-founded in 2007 by Fink and Dr. Itay Baruchi (CTO). Before Pythagoras Solar, Fink helped turn Check Point Software Technologies from an early-stage start-up to a multi-billion dollar global market leader in internet security. Baruchi is an expert in neuronal networks, whose work on biological memory was named one of the “50 Most Significant Scientific Breakthroughs” by Scientific American in December 2007.
“The idea was to use innovative optics with solar cells to produce a new product that would allow solar energy to become part of the next generation of building design,” Fink explains.
“The application that we very early saw as most attractive was using optics to produce benefits such as allowing light into the building, power generation and reducing the building’s power needs.”
Further, he notes, “The need to improve the energy efficiency of buildings has been in the news a lot recently. Many companies are trying to come up with solutions that would reduce energy consumption. We want daylight, but not the heat because of the air-conditioning costs involved as result.
“Until now, the only solution has been to block windows with curtains or blinds — and that means you need more artificial lighting. Our optical design allows multiple advantages, by using direct light to generate energy. This is done with something that doesn’t look like a solar panel, but a window. This makes the whole concept more attractive to architects.”
Building revolution
“People underestimate the revolution that’s happening in the construction industry,” says Fink. “In almost every country there are more regulations relating to buildings’ energy consumption. The Obama administration has just set a new target – to reduce energy use by 40 percent.”
The United States Department of Energy estimates that building operations account for up to 39% of the country’s energy consumption and 70% of its power plant-generated electricity. Over 30% of this energy is lost through poor building efficiency.
“Within the industry there’s greater understanding of the needs, and the progress that’s been made is huge. It’s clear to me that new commercial buildings in the coming years will include power generation and energy efficiency. It is going to become a standard,” says Fink.
Having developed the product, the company carried out pilot projects last year in several commercial buildings in the US and Israel. “We took existing buildings, such as the Sears Tower in Chicago – a small part of it, just two windows to begin with – and showed that it works. Then we went to the next stage, which is commercial installation and expanding our manufacturing capacity. We are working with some of the largest glass companies in the world,” says Fink.
Pythagoras is based in Silicon Valley, and much of the production takes place in Los Angeles. The company’s R&D center is in Israel.
“The company is about to take off,” Fink says confidently. “There’s a good reason for my optimism. This is the first time we can bring power generation to green buildings. Until now it’s all been about reducing energy consumption. Ours is the first product that actually combines both. By combining this facet with power generation, we can change the equation.”
Menachem Ben Yakov, your post is outstandingly timely. Every industrialized nation in the world is investing heavily in solar power.
Another technology at which Israel excels is desalination … whose underlying entropy/energy principles (from a physics viewpoint) are remarkably similar to those of photovoltaic solar power … see Yoram Oren’s recent survey Capacitive deionization (CDI) for desalination and water treatment – past, present and future (2008), for example.
These two technologies go hand-in-hand (as Oren discusses): sunlight pours in, fresh water pours out. Excellent.
PJM/Tatler readers will prefer the fascinating site GlobalWaterIntel.com … yah know, sometimes I think the folks here PJM/Tatler don’t appreciate the 21st century strategic reality that “solar is the new nuclear and water is the new oil.”
The Israelis, Germans, and Chinese surely do appreciate the new 21st century solar/water strategic reality, though … & I believe that presidential science advisor Steven Chu “gets it” pretty well too. Good.
—————————–
Chinese Desal: Their Targets, Your Technology
URL: http://www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/12/5/general/chinese-desal-their-targets-your-technology.html
“Every industrialized nation in the world is investing heavily in solar power.”
FYI, Germany’s solar panel industry is collapsing too. They can’t compete with China on this technology either.
I’m sorry to tell you this, but China has won that fight, now producing most of the solar panels used in the world.
So be it.
If China can produce solar panels more cheaply, then just buy them from China. If YOU want to put solar panels on your roof, why not buy them from Chinese companies? Does it give you emotional satisfaction that every panel will have an American flag and “Made in USA” painted on it?
It’s impossible for the U.S. or Europe to compete with China or other developing nations on price. We’re not going to make low-end clothing as cheaply as Vietnam or Mexico, and we shouldn’t try. Certainly the Government shouldn’t give a $475 billion loan to an American clothing manufacturer in vain hopes that we’ll be able to produce clothing more cheaply than abroad.
Daryl Hannah hardest hit.
I would love to see solar power and a safe energy storage scheme of some sort succeed. I really would. It would warm my little heart to be able to say to all those petty tyrants that we don’t need their oil any more, so pound sand.
I would love not to see so much money flow overseas to countries that have all but declared war upon us.
I would really enjoy having a solar power source on my roof that could power my entire house, so that I don’t have to depend upon the grid to get energy to my home.
I would love it. But it hasn’t happened yet, nor is anything likely to happen any time soon.
Wishing won’t make it so. Throwing taxpayer money at firms like this isn’t a good bet either. At the very least, this president was bamboozled. I don’t want to think any worse of of him, so I’ll leave it at that. In the scheme of mistakes he has made, this one hardly rates. Personally, I would have done my homework before investing that kind of money. But that’s just me.
I think that A Physicist is engaged in wishful thinking. Photovoltaic solar is totally doable. That is for those who can afford it and choose to spend their fortunes on a novelty. The bottom line is that fossil fuels produce a bigger bang for the buck. In the real world, the world of dollars and cents, Solar is a loser, and probably will be for the foreseeable future.
Why some one that claims to have a PhD can’t figure this out borders on the absurd. Like you I would like to be wrong. However, If I was wrong, solar wouldn’t need any help. People would be buying it because it is better, it would be a booming industry.
And OBAMA WOULD BE TRYING TO GET SOLAR COMPANIES TO PAY MORE TAXES!!!!!!! To pay their fair share, lol!!!!!
Maybe A Physicist knows this, its just his job to try and drum up money by telling everyone what ever it is he’s trying to say. He is like one of the scientists that can prove that a bumble bee can’t fly.
There’s no evidence that the individual signing himself ‘a physicist’ is actually an expert in that field or has a PHD or even, any degree in a relevant science.
He’s a ‘one-track pony’, with his focus on AGW (he’s a firm believer) and his constant links to his pet sites which are usually unscientific. Plus, his ‘folksy’ jargon pretence….
The problem with solar energy and wind energy isn’t efficiency or effectiveness. It is energy storage. Energy storage technology is still too crude and dangerous.
When someone arrives at a decent storage technology with acceptable safety risks, burning oil for anything will be a thing of the past.
Your point about energy storage is very important.
I suspect there will still be a large market for gasoline. Its really incredible stuff. And very reasonably priced, even at the inflated prices we are currently paying.
Again, your point about energy storage is extremely important. A economically competitive energy storage technology would change the world.
The question is, “can it be done”?
You can put solar panels on your roof any time you’re prepared to shell out $40,000.
I guess this means Obama will have to change a paragraph or two for his jobs speech on September 8.
He’d better also figure out his spin for the 2012 campaign, assuming he agrees to debate. I’m thinking a nice little lecture with a dash of strawman: “Yes, we made mistakes, but at least we took a chance. You can’t expect every last project to be a money-making machine — that’s unrealistic.”
Arhooley perspective on greentechmedia is different (from comments there):
One big difference between GreenTechMedia and PJM/Tatler is that the engineers on GreenTechMedia appreciated that globalized pure markets are not simple, efficient, foresighted, or benign. And history suggests these engineers are right.
——————–
Will Solyndra, or Part of It, Get Bought?
URL: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/will-solyndra-or-part-of-it-get-bought/
I don’t understand the inclusion of Sperry in that quote. Sperry made a lot of it’s money in government contracts and also didn’t go bankrupt. It merged with Burroughs in 1986 to become Unisys (against it’s will, but merged nonetheless) and I helped ship Sperry software documentation in the late 1980s for Unisys, so I knew they hadn’t gone bankrupt. Unisys got out of the hardware business a while ago and is now a major government contractor in IT.
If that’s the quality of the knowledge over there (not knowing that Sperry didn’t go bankrupt), I see no reason to go visit.
Solyndra’s IP and engineering/manufacturing expertise won’t disappear any more than Sperry’s did.
`Cuz that’s the cycle-of-life in high-tech manufacturing.
Hakuna Matada!
“Solyndra’s IP and engineering/manufacturing expertise won’t disappear any more than Sperry’s did.”
Yeah, the only thing that disappeared was my kids future, because he will be saddled with the debt of funding this catastrophic failure/thieft.
Its not about technology, its about public finances.
For instance, how much Taxpayers Money did the Wright Brothers squander while teaching the world to fly? They were eclipsed early by Curtiss and others, still designing unstable “boxkite” looking things right up till the First World War, while Avro, Bleriot, Fokker, and others all had “modern” control surface configurations by 1912.
Your theory that “its all good, knowledge was had” despite staggering losses to the taxpayer is quite insulting to those left paying the bill.
You think like a Teacher…a soft pubic employee, paid today with tomorrows debt…it all makes sense that way, doesnt it?
With respect, Root’83, John Murray’s recent history First to Fly: the Unlikely Triumph of Wilbur and Orville Wright (2003) thoroughly documents the vital role that government-sponsored aeronautical research — Langley’s generous sharing in particular — played in the Wright Brothers inventive success … particularly during the long years of struggle before the Wright brothers finally flew.
That’s the part of the Wright brothers’ story (largely the mathematical part) that the children’s books leave out.
What expertise? Their costs were 3 times the competition’s.
I’m sure Ford’s still hanging on to all the old Edsel plans, too. Someday the Edsel’s going to be a real money winner, right?
Bullshit.
Langleys folly was a government operated FAILURE.
Who developed the wind tunnel? Who followed a MATHEMATICAL approach to air foil design? On their own? With no funding?
Who’s design actually FLEW?
You cant sugar coat failure with snobbery, and you cant deny success with arrogance.
Private enterprise creates success, Government enterprises create failure.
Any doubts that, consult:
Education, public, test scores.
See also: cost per pupil, last 100 years
You MUST be a professor.
The trouble is the demonstration of ignorance by the poster about Sperry. Sperry was a profitable company that merged with another company. Solyndra is a bankrupt company that produced a product that sold for significantly less than it cost to make. Saying that they are comparable is ridiculous.
The IP and engineering/manufacturing expertise can’t be worth much if it just explains how to lose money making products that someone else can make more cheaply at a profit. Additionally, unlike Sperry, all of those scientists and engineers are now unemployed rather than continuing to work together for a different employer.
Also, when you’re told to “get your stuff and leave” that is highly unlikely to have allowed time for someone to take home all of their research and plans stored on their computer. Closing up shop overnight is not at all like transitioning to new ownership. Heck, those computers might get wiped and the intellectual propert WOULD simply disappear. Just because someone designed it doesn’t mean that they have the plans stored in their heads. With software, for example, if you take away something I’ve written in Java over many months, it’s likely to take me nearly as long to re-write it from scratch.
Government should stick to funding research and not manufacturing.
I’ll say it again:
America cannot compete with China on price.
It’s not “we” who will drive down the price of solar panels. China is already doing that. Thanks to the Chinese, the price of solar panels is falling cheaply.
The U.S. should abandon these frantic efforts to compete with China on price.
Let China have the dominant position in the market–they know how to produce stuff cheaply–and we’ll just buy it from them, just as we buy a lot of other stuff from them.
Solar energy has an immense potential. It won’t be long before solar energy will be able to provide 100% of the worlds energy needs. When solar energy is ready, cheap enough, it will conquer the market.
The only obstacle is government funding. Government funding can create artificial circumstances under which technology which is not yet ready will be shoved down our throats, taking away the need for further development and leaving us with inefficiant and hugely expensive solar power nobody will be able to afford once the money runs out.
Well stated Mr. Teeboom. One could make the same argument against Obamacare, and should.
“It won’t be long before solar energy will be able to provide 100% of the worlds energy needs.”
The sun doesn’t shine at night. And sometimes its cloudy during the day. And if you’re thinking sunlight deflecting off satelites, creating nightless days, keep on dreaming. Solar energy will never provide 100%. Even 5% within the next century is wishful thinking.
Is it just me or is it very odd that the Solyndra LLC website doesn’t have pages (which are typical) that detail the management team, Board of Directors, and investors?
The left loves to scold the rest of us about “sustainability”. With the bankruptcy of this green jobs enterprise, we have a metric by which to judge the left’s claim that green energy creates jobs.
The median household income in 2010 was $52,026. Solyndra employed about 1,100 and the federal government just guaranteed $535 million in loans that it took out. So, a “green job” costs about $486k each, or NINE TIMES the median household income.
At a 9:1 ratio, green jobs propel will us to penury faster than if we were riding on a bullet train.
Not long ago, Spain “invested” heavily in wind and solar power. The government subsidized the wind industry for exporting windmills and for national installation to the tune of about $250K per job. The Spanish government is now on the verge of bankruptcy and many of those jobs are gone. A perfect example of a leftist government believing their own propaganda.
Ah yes, a 535 million government loan can be lost in bankruptcy and no one blinks an eye but God help you if you’re late with your student loan payment….
“but God help you if you’re late with your student loan payment….”
Even worse if your late paying the IRS.
You can not push a rope. It does not matter if the government wastes $500 million on the rope. A rope is good in tension, not in compression; it makes a lousy column.
And the end result is great sorrow: pink slips, Chapter 11, and if we continue, the end of an advanced way of life.
I have forty years engineering energy technologies, a score of nukes, two score of fossil fuel power plants and decades assessing advanced technology. From my end of the log, I loathe the concept that government officials must pick winners and losers in energy. Very few of them have any experience in meeting a payroll, and that is where green energy always craters. It costs too much for bulk supply. Baring a breakthrough, unknown despite intense searching; it will always cost too much.
There will be niche markets for green energy. My solar powered calculators were a real break through. Solar powered electronics will be a killer app. Distributed power (stand alone) particularly in low quality power (remote, intermittent) is/ will be a market for wind power, etc.
But when our leaders take $5 from each family in America and waste it on a phoney industry, they should pay, be held to account. I would confiscate the retirement funds of the top management of DOE, to punish this dumb idea. It would not cover the loss, but it would stop the next one. We must police the moral hazard (risk free waste) in the US government. This is a good place to start, but not end.
R. L. Hails, perhaps you ought to reflect that without massive US government start-up investments in computing, materials science, nuclear physics, and fluid dynamics, that not one of the power plants you worked on would ever have existed.
Them single-crystal super-alloy turbine blades didn’t design-and-grow themselves, yah know. And without them, none of it works.
—————————
Discussion on the existence and uniqueness or multiplicity of solutions
of the aerodynamical equation
John von Neumann
URL: http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/2010-47-01/S0273-0979-09-01281-6/home.html
This is inaccurate reading of US technology history (omits Bell Labs, Lincoln Labs, EPRI, etc.) but is beside my point. The crucial policy issue is: when does the government pull the plug on technical failures in energy? Taxpayers carry the load long after all the insiders know the costs can never be funded by the periodic bills? (I exclude national security interests which are real, different, but keep this simple.)
Government seed money is vital to technical advancement, government R&D money is wise in taking nascent science and fostering it into new technology. It starts first with scribbles on a pad of paper, moves to a lab bench, and subsequently a “multimillion dollar” demonstration plant (small industrial scale plant). It is built, to prove, or disprove a development concept. The purpose of demo plants, real world experience, is to define cost structures (talent mix, reliability, cost sensitivities, etc.) But at, or beyond this stage, the commercial risk should fall to investors, not taxpayers. The alternative is slavery, wherein our masters make the decisions. If the government lays its thumb on the scales, weird results happen.
Entire energy industries now live or die based on some Congressman’s influence. The certain result is that technically talented people’s contribution means nothing. Lobbying, and reelection contributions are everything. This is our present energy situation, a distorted energy infrastructure. Hard working employees are summarily laid off, not because a better mouse trap was invented, but due to political influences. Example: Would any one recommend that their bright child study for two decades after high school to earn a PhD in nuclear containment design? I know several; they have been unemployed for decades. Why should GE fund their containment R&D if they can lobby the government to fund it? The short answer: Big companies do not fund R&D. And kids rationally strive to become lawyers, earn MBAs but shun engineering. This is our reality, our current history.
If our leaders were honest (they are not), they would campaign to double, or triple your light bill, to save you from CO2, NOX, SOX, soot or the bogey man. They would candidly admit that the following technologies exist, not because they are better, but because I get campaign contributions from various factions. They would tell the voters that the Department of Energy is primarily responsible for thermonuclear bombs, not commercializing solar cells. Hopefully they are experts in one technology; they are floundering amateurs in the other, where cost and schedule disciplines are vital considerations.
Their boss must face the stern music: Why did you waste $300,000,000 of our money? You are no better than those poor devils at Solyndra; the guard will show you where to pick up your check.
We all have heard the phrase “military-industrial complex”. What’s less well known is the rest of Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address, from which that phrase came:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html
This part is particularly relevant to this issue, as well as the entire climate establishment:
Indeed, General. If only the world headed your warning.
You’re changing the subject. Again.
Government research has been critical. I could name many advances in computer technology where the Government did the R&D and then private companies figured out how to scale it up and make it cost-effective.
Loan guarantees to private companies to manufacture consumer products have not. The money Solyndra got from the Government wasn’t for research, it was for production. Production of a type of solar panel (cylindrical) that wasn’t easily scalable by automated production, evidently.
Should Palm have gotten a $475 billion Government loan to manufacture smartphones to compete with Apple and Android?
In the production of solar panels, the U.S. will never be more than a minor player compared to China. We can’t compete with China on price.
Sinz54, three recent histories of technology that refute your post are Johnson’s The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs (2002), Rasmussen’s Making a machine instrumental: RCA and the wartime origins of biological electron microscopy in America, 1940-1945 (2003), and Sheehan’s A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon (2009).
The point being, it’s best to study history first and *then* make up one’s mind.
Because reading history wearing ideology-first blinders is worse-than-useless … worse because insisting upon ideology-first blinders harmfully obstructs America from repeating past enterprise successes, which have generally arisen via pragmatic (non-ideological) public-private partnerships.
The lesson of history is simple: neither left-wing nor right-wing ideology can substitute for brains, foresight, risk aptitude, and commitment.
Perhaps you should summarize your hypothesis regarding the role of government in research or innovation in one succinct, testable statement.
Is your claim that taxing the population for the benefit of grant writers is a winning strategy if we want innovation? Or are you claiming that because private companies are “selfish” they can do no good and all good things flow from government?
And I don’t understand the relevance of your book list. Do you claim these three examples are sufficient to prove that government funded activities are always more successful or innovative than privately funded activities?
And your phrase “ideology-first-blinders” is really rich. Perhaps you should check your own garden. Advocating public-private partnerships IS taking an ideological stand, and probably a self-serving one also. How can there be a partnership between two organizations when one has the coercive power to confiscate wealth from citizens and the power to compel obedience while the other must comply with the law and answer to shareholders?
A more descriptive term is “crony capitalism” meaning corporate lobbyists have managed to tap into the tax payers pocket. Even more descriptive yet is the word “theft.” Using money confiscated from the citizen for your own gain is theft. That is true no matter the worthyness of your cause.
“Government research has been critical. I could name many advances in computer technology where the Government did the R&D and then private companies figured out how to scale it up and make it cost-effective.”
That has only worked when government R&D was undertaken for the purposes of national defense and the results were re-purposed to productive sector (civilian) applications by entrepreneurs with an eye on the profitable main chance.
Whenever government efforts have been devoted specifically to non-defense applications, the results have tended to be disastrously wasteful because politicians and bureaucrats suck at reading real market demand.
It’s the “calculation problem” (also known as the “knowledge problem”) discussed by Austrian School economists for about a century.
Winning popularity contests – elections – or getting socketed into a GS-whatever job for life does nothing to make a government thug an effective decision-maker when it comes to the diversion of productive effort from voluntary human action to the extortionate idiocies of normative “economic policy.”
Thought you knew your silicon valley titans? think again:
The Green Money Machine: Breaking the Obama Code
Link: http://wwwtwosetsofbooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/green-money-machine-breaking-obama-code.html
Wretchard’s blog, on Pajamas Media, has a nice discussion on the serious flaws in solar energy.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/08/31/that-magic-touch/#comments
And, here’s one outlining the pollution resulting from the manufacture of the solar panels.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-08/uota-sir083111.php
#41 – RJ Hails – great comments – and very accurate. Many thanks.
Lotta trekkies out there…
As noted in The Obama Timeline, The company was founded in 2005 and has never made a profit. Employees are nevertheless “standing around in disbelief”—apparently unwilling to believe that the taxpayers will not fund their profitless jobs in perpetuity.
In March 2010 Solyndra told the Securities and Exchange Commission it had “suffered recurring losses, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders’ deficit that, among other factors, raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a growing concern.” The company—whose majority owner is George Kaiser, an Oklahoma billionaire and a major fundraiser for the 2008 Obama campaign—spent $550,000 on lobbyists in 2010, and another $220,000 in 2011. Americans should wonder why the Obama administration gave $535 million to a company that had never earned a profit, and why a billionaire businessman uses their tax dollars instead of his own money to expand a business.
To the Left, it doesn’t matter that the company never made a profit. They all have a utopic idea of how business, engineering and science work. They think that technology may be either bought or legislated. “If only we invest enough money into a technology, it will be invented”. “If only we pass laws that by such-and-such a date, such-and-such technology must be in use by all industry, then it will be invented”. If it doesn’t happen, then it’s “We didn’t invest enough or we didn’t give enough time”. The left are dreamers, not pragmatists. And they are willing to bankrupt us for their beliefs.
government loan can be lost in bankruptcy
The perpetual problem with government “investment” in anything – from infrastructure to education to industry – is that popularity contest winners have an inescapable and inevitably fatal “knowledge problem” (per Ludwig von Mises and the rest to the modern Austrian School economists) that makes for absolute dead certainty that their diversions of resources to politically sweet projects will always turn out to be malinvestments.
And malinvestments must inevitably be liquidated, as we’re seeing in the case of Solyndra.
Dr. von Mises published Socialism in 1922, setting for the definitive articulation of the knowledge problem. Do we have to wait for the celebration of its centennial before there’s a proper appreciation of the point he was making in that book?
Obama made many of these deals.
all of these deals said you must employee union.
That’s what Sarah Palin said about Obama having to pay back his money angels..
Google: Judicial Watch/Fisker Auto……….
The deal to Fisker; you must hire union, you must puchase the piece of garbage GM plant in Biden’s home town. The plant will cost millions to retool and fix.
They did not want to be on the East Coast, did not want the union, did not want the old GM plant.
The same kind of deal with Quantum Fuel in Irvin, Calif.
These are just two out of many that gave money to the Obama campiagn.
These companies are not going to make it. The one in Irvin has lost like 900% of stock value.
The one person that has visited the White House the most is Trumpka the union boss, or what ever the crooks name is.
Palin/2012 ~ Mitt Romney as Sarah’s VP.. The only honest one’s of the bunch.
Drill Baby Drill
Just think if Obama had his 24,000 emails exposed. Him and his crew would be in jail now..
Oil is not high priced. It is high taxed.
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