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Good old Fox News, always ready to stir the pot, and turn an old-news story into a fresh football.
Yep, gotta love a Fox story refreshed by the AP.lol
I just love PC people.
Quote:
President Obama touted Abound in a July 3, 2010 announcement of a $2 billion “investment” in green energy projects.
"The second company is Abound Solar Manufacturing, which will manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs," Obama said. "A Colorado plant is already underway, and an Indiana plant will be built in what’s now an empty Chrysler factory. When fully operational, these plants will produce millions of state-of-the-art solar panels each year."
But less than two years later, the company laid off half of its 400 workers, and then, in the summer of 2012, filed for bankruptcy. It became the third clean-energy company to seek bankruptcy protection after receiving a loan from the Energy Department under the economic stimulus law. California solar panel maker Solyndra and Beacon Power, a Massachusetts energy-storage firm, also declared bankruptcy. Solyndra received a $528 million federal loan, while Beacon Power got a $43 million loan guarantee.
While solar energy is touted as clean, The Associated Press reported that many panel makers are grappling with a hazardous waste problem. Fueled partly by billions in government incentives, the industry is creating millions of solar panels each year and, in the process, millions of pounds of toxic sludge and contaminated water.
To dispose of the material, the companies must transport it by truck or rail far from their own plants to waste facilities hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of miles away.
The fossil fuels used to transport that waste, experts say, is not typically considered in calculating solar's carbon footprint, giving scientists and consumers who use the measurement to gauge a product's impact on global warming the impression that solar is cleaner than it is.
After installing a solar panel, "it would take one to three months of generating electricity to pay off the energy invested in driving those hazardous waste emissions out of state," said Dustin Mulvaney, a San Jose State University environmental studies professor who conducts carbon footprint analyses of solar, biofuel and natural gas production.
The waste from manufacturing has raised concerns within the industry, which fears that the problem, if left unchecked, could undermine solar's green image at a time when companies are facing stiff competition from each other and from low-cost panel manufacturers from China and elsewhere.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Quote:
"If a coal, oil or gas company pulled something like that the EPA would send out SWAT teams and the U.S. Marshals to track down the offenders, bankrupt or not."
- National Legal and Policy Center, a think tank
The math still says it will not be a profitable venture....
Last edited by Cyberguy1950; 10-31-2013 at 02:20 AM..
Reason: adding
Investing in innovative, disruptive new technologies is risky, but it carries the possibility of big rewards. There are winners and there are losers, and hindsight is always 20/20, eh? And what if we had been able to play a dominant role in this emerging market?
In this case the sudden and drastic drop in market prices, due primarily to a flood of cheap Chinese PV panels, killed these US manufactureres. Ironically that price drop fueled a big jump in the popularity of PV installations, but it killed those domestic producers who were no longer able to compete.
Now we don't have to worry about competeing, we can just buy, buy, buy.
Encourage your grandchildren to learn Mandarin. They'll need it to speak to their new bosses.
The point I'm trying to make is the companies that are making these systems have all but failed even with government subsidies.
If the technology was viable, they wouldn't need them in the 1st place.The market is telling you that.
The reality is,they are failing one after the other even with subsides!
Our industrial policy is non existent, it seems out industrial policy is Buy It In China. They are stonewalling the energy industry every chance they get,viable forms of energy IE;coal-nuclear-etc. now they're even tearing down dams in favor of fish!
I'm sad for the youth of America,they'll be the ones that pay for this nonsense.
We should all be concerned with the money our government is wasting on projects that don't work.While China is kicking butt producing products the world uses.{have you checked lately where you're PC parts come from?}
New successful technology leaves the landscape littered with failed companies. That isn't a measure of the industry's success. I can name about 20 PC hardware and software companies that no longer exist.
State and local officials offered more than $43 million in incentives to lure the operation to Conway. State and local cash payments totaled more than $12 million and the Conway Development Corporation built a building for the operation to HP's specifications. It was envisioned to employ 1,200. It's unclear today how many will remain employed there and whether the company has any obligations for repayment under the incentive plan.
Rio Rancho, N.M., went through a similar downsizing with a heavily subsidized HP facility similar to the one in Conway. That city had "clawbacks" in place to recapture some money when jobs were lost, according to this report. One New Mexico legislator wants to stiffen clawback rules because of undelivered HP promises there.
I'm wondering why you think any of that is relevant. The government goal was to jump start the industry growth. That clearly is a success.
The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:
Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
Quote:
The problem begins with the issue of government picking winners and losers in the first place. Venture capitalist firms exist for this very reason, and they choose what to invest in by looking at companies’ business models and deciding if they are worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connected to the policymakers themselves or because it sounds nice to “invest” in green energy.
And of course if the stimulus law had contained language requiring "US Made Products" many companies would still be in business with many more jobs.
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