'Putncalls' pid='61570' datel Wrote:I see a different picture of Solyndra. Ron Klain was in on it. Total moral failure!!!!! http://www.nationalreview.com/article/39...c-mccarthy
You're entitled to your views, put, I have no problem with that, especially as you're part of the SHU family and are always civil.
Even if fraud was committed and responsible for the downfall of Solyndra (I don't exclude that, I'm not a forensic accountant), what does it prove?
There are plenty of other available explanations for the downfall of Solyndra, as the solar industry went through the biggest shake-out at the time and many more private companies, including the biggest solar producer in the world (Suntech) and a good deal of the German solar manufacturing capacity went bust as there was a prior gigantic overinvestment wave in new capacity.
But do guys like me say the whole market system is defunct because of that overinvestment resulting in so many bust companies, or alternatively because of a fraud case? Not me. Nothing is perfect.
What I do say is that too much special interest is messing with politics and altering outcomes. Perhaps Solyndra was a case like that, although I can sort of understand why the DOE wanted to back it. The Chinese were taking over the industry at the time and their companies are almost exclusively based on polysilicon.
At least in theory, it did make some sense to try to replicate the success for First Solar, which is based on an alternative technology (CdTe thin film) and Solyndra was trying another thin film tech:
Back in 2005, when solar energy was on the brink of today's boom, Solyndra set out to produce a lower-cost alternative to panels made with crystalline silicon, a century-old photovoltaic (PV) technology that uses polysilicon to produce solar cells and wafers. At the time, polysilicon was scarce and expensive, which meant that solar panel prices were high. So Solyndra invested in a nascent thin-film solar technology called CIGS for the copper, indium, gallium and selenium elements it contains.
Can Solyndra's Breakthrough Solar Technology Outlive the Company's Demise? | InsideClimate News
Like I argued, the price of polysilicon collapsed, there was an enormous over-investment wave leading to an epic bust. Had that not happened, who knows, the US might have had another important domestic solar producer, besides the likes of First Solar and SunPower (and a few others). All IMHO, of course.