Did A Large Obama Donor Influence Loan To a Failed Solar Company?
Solyndra has declared bankruptcy and laid off all of its 1,100 workers, the company had pioneered the much vaunted thin film solar technology, and with this President Obama’s dream of winning the solar war in his promotion of green ventures, went out the window.
Earlier, Solar Power Industries in PA had closed its doors in May, and Spectrawatt Inc., which evolved from Intel Corp. had filed for bankruptcy protection in August. Those were the three largest solar firms, the smaller outfits that have not yet closed their doors are struggling with high inventories, since the market demand has weakened all over the world. Added to that was fall in the revenue, as profit margins for solar modules tanked due to pricing weakness for overcapacity.
The Chinese companies have survived by continually reducing production cost by cutting down consumables, optimizing material supply chain, increasing cell efficiency, and executing overall improvements in the manufacturing process.
A Major Solar player, Applied Materials has announced a new 'Applied Baccini Pegaso solar PV cell manufacturing process' that prints electrical circuits on both sides of a solar cell by multiple screen-printed metallization method, and thereby delivers high yield at the lowest overall industrial cost-per-watt.
Writing on the demise of Solyndra, Ram Seshadri articulated, “Some say we shouldn't mourn the loss of solar jobs, we only lost manufacturing jobs but we have innovation. My question to the armchair economists who usually put forth such ideas is this: OK, we lost manufacturing, but what comes second (the corollary)? My answer: the complete loss of leadership in alternative energy. Economists yawn when manufacturing jobs are lost, but they are out of kilter when academic jobs or, God forbid, government handouts to their favorite cousins, the banksters, are lost.”
This is the endemic problem in our country, since the real power has shifted from the elected officials to banksters, government has become too weak to implement the policies that are needed to keep our economy thriving. Unfortunately, the bean counters cannot see anything beyond the current quarter’s profit, and no one can accuse them of having strategic visions.
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