Slashdot Mirror
Solar Company Folds After $0.5B In Subsidies
First time accepted submitter dusanv writes "Solyndra, a Silicon Valley solar energy firm, subsidized to the tune of $500 million and held as a 'gleaming example of green technology,' announced bankruptcy yesterday. 1,100 employees fired."
Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that green technology is not profitable and therefore a big scam, or a modern religion if you will, with all of its guilt, shame and asking for money, let me state an opinion that might not be popular here: Maybe, just maybe, the subsidies was too low? I know what you think but let me play an evil's advocate for a second. How much the fresh air is worth to you? To your children? To your children's children? To your children's children's grandchildren? Well, you get the idea. And what about fresh water? What about cold weather? I am not saying that all of those things should be worth more than 500 billion to everyone but I suggest that we have to account for them in the business plans of companies developing green technology. We have to ask ourselves: Why do we develop green technology? How much money are we willing to waste? What sacrifices are we willing to make? What do we expect to get in return? Those are the most important questions that we should at least try to answer.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
Led, of course, by Salon's Andrew Leonard, for whom no amount of subsidy is ever enough, and no amount of state intervention can possibly suffice. The reality is far different, of course, and starts with the lousy energy density of solar; but we are dealing with a very heavily government-controlled "market" that is steadily eroding as subsidies decline. The myth of green jobs is something like promising to feed people with tasty barbecued unicorn ribs.
Dog is my co-pilot.
...that this is the company that Obama visited when he was on his renewable energy tour. I guess this is a symbol for how well those policies worked out. We really should be supporting these kinds of companies, not throwing our money at foreign oil/power interests.
The market will not necessarily support what is good for society, it will only support what is profitable. This company was even given a head start by the government and still couldn't make it. It's very unfortunate that the destructive libertarian argument that the government should stop spending money and let the private sector work it out seemingly has so much traction.
Bob is a troll.
Also by that metric neither does nuclear. I am a huge fan of it, but not a one has been built in the USA without a government backed loan and the Priceâ"Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act means that liability is very limited and your rights to sue are as well.
No power source in the USA is free from subsidies and typical corporatist protection.
An experimental business in an emergent technology fails to establish itself in a collapsing economy. Read all about it...
Give me a break folks, them and a whole bunch of other companies both old and new... Stop trying to make.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
They need to be able to compete on an even playing field, not on one where the major competitors are heavily subsidized.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ask any reputable Chiropractor about how radiation causes serious subluxations due to DNA malformation.
I lol'd
it's in my head
Ask any reputable Chiropractor
I LOL'd
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
Mod parent up. This is the story.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
“It is clear that Solyndra was a dubious investment,” representatives Fred Upton, of Michigan, and Cliff Stearns, of Florida, said in a joint statement. The company “is just the latest casualty of the Obama administration’s failed stimulus.”
Meanwhile China continues to invest is loss incurring businesses and technologies to under-cut and eradicate the competition.
This is so much BS - what killed off Solyndra was competition from off-shore competitors. Even with 0.5B infusion from the DOE - they couldn't build a factory that was cost competitive. Oh - I live in the town where the factory was built - they wasted huge amounts of money building a second fab when they had one two blocks down the street of similar size and capacity. There is nothing magical here - it is simple economic forces that killed them off. Get over your Evil Big Oil conspiracy theories.
It also proves that the government does a lousy job of picking economic winners and losers. That is a game the government should stay out of.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Dear Princess Obama:
Today I learned that you can't use legislation to force technology or change principles of chemistry and physics, no matter how heavy the subsidy, or from whom the subsidy money is coerced, or how many people who didn't vote for you which you blame. I also learned that economic practicality will trump blind idealism every time, as one is grounded in reality and the other in denial of reality. When a technology is ready and feasible, marketplace forces will ensure its rapid adoption if it is, in fact, superior as claimed. However, no matter how good the intent, a technology that is not ready cannot be forced upon the public.
Your faithful tax-sucking green-liberal Pollyanna,
Solyndra Sparkle
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Therein lies the challenge of power production. It's cheaper to produce energy than store it (in a battery for example), and the source technology doesn't effect the end product. Green energy is, to the end consumer, indistinguishable from that produced by slave labour. In other technology fields new technology does something different, so you can charge a premium for it, and a handful of customers will keep you afloat until you can bring costs down.
Green tech necessarily relies on lossy investments (usually from the government) to start up, or the addition of a cost for pollution or else it has no value. That goes to the second problem of producing anything, which is that pollution is relatively inexpensive, especially airborne pollution that is never forcibly cleaned up. If polluters are not expected to pay for the cleanup of the damage they do, it's very hard to persuade them any new tech is going to be viable economically.
So do we as a society want to make an investment in reducing pollution, and are we willing to lose money on that for long enough for it to turn out viable.
Of course any given company can still be completely incapable of producing a product, and if you're starting a new company, to produce something new, you're going to face a large selection of managerial problems to go with the technical ones.
I know, I know, YDRTFA, but the article mentioned LOTS of reasons this company went out of business that had nothing to do with the death of Green Technology. Among other things, it couldn't compete with larger, foreign rivals; the technology itself (cylindrical solar "panels") wasn't scalable; falling panel prices; and weak demand (like much of the economy, btw).
I have no idea whether in fact any of those things are, in fact, true. However, they seem more reasonable than the "Green Technology is not going to work, end all subsidies" schtick of some of the above commenters.
Actually, no.
China's solar companies are doing well because they get *tremendous* subsidies, as is always the case for nascent, high tech industry.
if it weren't for massive government subsidies - paying for R&D costs directly, and providing a huge protected market mainly through the defense department - then the computer revolution which drove the 1990s boom WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.
All you free market fantasists need to get that into your thick skulls - or, you could go love on Ayn Rand's island! Please do, so that we can run our country like sane people. In 10 years, when solar power is viable, it will be the Chinese who are reaping the benefits because free market fanatics in the US aren't willing to make the basic investments required.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
So we have about 312,026,572 people in America, roughly 53% of them pay taxes (which is insane btw). The investment was 500 million. If my math is correct all 165,374,083 of us tax payers deserve to get a $3.02 tax write off on this bs just to stick it to the man for them making poor business decisions with our money. Boooo big gov.
And this is a prime example of why government subsidies of production are a bad idea. I haven't firmly settled on a position with regards to federal funding for R&D (although certain examples, like sick shrimp running on treadmills, should be an obvious choice for budget cuts...), but trying to force adoption through subsidies only distorts the market, without adding any value.
In this case, the US Government effectively forced every US citizen to invest $1.60 in a company that had never been profitable and showed no prospects for profitability. The investment was not for development of technology that would make solar power economically viable, but rather it was for purchasing capital equipment for existing, uneconomic technology. The results were perfectly predictable. If no private investors see the value in the company, we should be thinking awful hard about whether it's a good idea to force them to invest in it anyway.
I would love to see solar power prove profitable, but such a goal will come as a result of research and development, not as a result of government subsidies for production of inefficient technology.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
"reputable Chiropractor"
Oxymoron.
"Ask any reputable Chiropractor about how radiation causes serious subluxations due to DNA malformation."
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chirosub.html
Off-shore competitors and a significant drop in the price of silicon which made panels with thicker applications of it more price competitive.
It's what I'd like to see the Feds use to go over the CxO compensation records and reports. I'm all for advancing technology and helping out, but if they guys at the top managed to walk away with more than $150-200k/year in total compensation, I would like to see them brought up on fraud charges for accelerating the demise of a company which used federal guarantee dollars.
Now, if it was all on the up and up, and they suffered with the masses, I'd be inclined to be more lenient. CxOs of start-ups should get no more than their highest paid technical employee until the company becomes profitable. Anything else, imo, is mismanagement of company resources.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
That is because the competition is artificially cheap. If all forms of energy were in a true free market, then alternative forms may very well be more competitive.
Currently we are not pricing in the total cost of the energy which would include the environmental pollution.
A very good discussion of this is covered in this interview with Ron Paul
http://www.grist.org/article/paul1
But billion sounds so much bigger than million, and therefore more scary. These days, $500 million sounds like something you spend on the weekend on a shopping trip to the mall, it's so small.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
So, I live (literally) around the corner from one of Solyndra's offices. And one thing I noticed is that, no matter when I left for work in the morning, drove out to the grocery store, or took the kids on a Sunday walk to the park, Solyndra's parking lot was always full and the lights were on in every laboratory.
At first, I was fairly intimidated. I was new to the Valley, and wondered if this was the pace I would be expected to keep for my employer. After a few months, though, I realized that Solyndra was the exception, not the norm, and not even the more hardcore start-ups in my field matched the hours their employees put in.
As I watched their work pattern, I wondered at the office culture that would lead to such employee behavior, as well as the pay and benefits that had to be backing it up. I could never shake the uneasy impression that Solyndra was vigorously burning the candle at both ends, with potentially disastrous consequences in store.
Steady as she goes, I guess. Even in Silicon Valley.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Ask any reputable Chiropractor about how radiation causes serious subluxations due to DNA malformation.
Is that why chiropractors order so many spinal x-rays? Job security?
ABC News did a story on May 24th, which discusses how 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", and how the loan "benefited a company whose prime financial backers include Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser, a "bundler" of campaign donations. Kaiser raised at least $50,000 for the president's 2008 election effort."
The summary is misleading. The company was given $500 million in loan guarantees. That doesn't necessarily mean a subsidy. If the company went broke and never got the loans no government money was spent.
Reading through the Solyndra web site, there's the following announcement of the departure of their Founder and CEO
http://www.solyndra.com/2011/08/chris-gronet-takes-on-advisory-role-for-solyndra/
from August 18th, about 2 weeks ago. Coincidence? Founder / CEOs don't normally leave after the first 5 years of a startup. Is there more to the bankruptcy story than what's in the OP's article?
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Current National Debt =~ 14.7 Trillion Dollars
Debt per Citizen =~ 47,000 Dollars
Debt per TaxPayer =~ 131,000 Dollars
US National Spending: 3.6 Trillion Dollars
US Federal Budget Deficit: 1.3 Trillion Dollars
Source: http://www.usdebtclock.org/
China is subsidizing their solar panel industry so that when solar finally gets traction, they will be in the driver's seat. Of course, it helps that they're less concerned about dumping waste and paying western-level wages.
It sounds, though, that this particular process was doomed to failure from the beginning, since the manufacturing process turned out not to be "scalable".
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Looks like this was a "shovel ready" project. Get the shovels out and bury the company.
One of the major investors in this company was bundler of campaign contributions for Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign and a significant contributor himself. Additionally, the Energy Department failed to follow proper procedure before anouncing that this company was getting loan guarantees.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
How's that hole in your foot? Painful?
This company, at the time the government made the loan, was a leader. Now, after a couple of years of other companies being helped by government loans and other subsidies, it's no longer a leader.
Private investment wasn't going anywhere near solar back then. All the money was being dumped into oil companies, which is where the profits are.
Because of government investment in multiple facets of solar technology, this one type of solar technology was found not to be the best. The others are doing better.
>What we saw here was corporate welfare, not a research grant.
So you'll be calling your representatives and telling them to end tax breaks for rich people and corporations, and subsidies for agribusiness?
Go for it.
We know where the sun is -- the prospecting costs are zero!
Yet solar still can't compete without enormous subsidies.
And to the end users of oil, the subsidies are negated by taxes. Yet solar demands subsidy at both production/capital costs (as in this case) and in production (in the form of feed-through tariffs).
Try again.
Dog is my co-pilot.
It's too bad that Good Thoughts won't help these companies out.
They don't need 'Good Thoughts', they need a viable business plan.
Of course that's not actually possible with 'green technology' because very little of it makes any financial sense.
What do you mean, they had an awesome business plan. Talk big, attract the interest of the government who offers to guarantee your loans, max out that new credit line and transfer the funds to your board, executives, and "supplier" cronies.
On a more serious note, it seems to me that with an emerging technology like this it would make more sense for the government to put in steady orders rather than directly subsidize the company. If $500 million of guaranteed orders over a couple of years aren't enough to keep them stable and/or growing, then not much is. Plus, that would at least leave the government with the useful (if probably overpriced) products at the end, rather than having nothing (well, they may have a share of whatever equity is left in the company after creditors are paid off - which I somehow think will be very little, see baseless accusations above).
Reminds me of Medhi Ali and Irving Gould. They wrote a book called how to turn a Billion dollar company into nothing in less than 5 years.
Well... DocBob said to ask any "reputable Chiropractor". I imagine the people on Quackwatch are not.
Trolling is a art,
Yea, too low. Before being crazy enough to say that you could at least research and report what portion of that half billion bucks the owners paid themselves in wages and bonuses and perks. Of course, by your way of thinking you could argue that they were going to steal half a billion bucks anyway, so we should have given them a billion or more to make sure they did something useful with a portion of it while living it up on the first half billion.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Don't ever change, Bob.
[Text goes here]
Ask
I lol'd
[Text goes here]
These guys and Evergreen Solar both had viable advanced products, good ideas, and solid business practices and a eagerness to hire local/american workers to do a job that desperately needs doing. The folded because of 'free trade' competition with China who is more than willing to dump silicon tetrachloride in people's backyards (rather than recycling it as is required here) and pay people nigh-on slave wages in the process. You can't compete with that. If you want high quality jobs here in the states... if you want progressive, good-intentioned, future-forging entrepreneurship... then exit free trade and renegotiate in fair trade deals... or reinstate rational tariffs.
if they were a "solar" company - maybe the commute to the sun hurt their profits
( ... muffled ... whispers ... )
I have just been informed that they were guilty of having very good lobbyists and no one thought this solar power thing would really work anyway. Maybe some of those 1,100 ex-employees will consider starting a business selling a product or service that people want/need and for which they are willing/able to pay.
If they are lucky they will burn through 0.5 billion dollars before going bankrupt
(/tongue in cheek)
It is also worth pointing out that a great marketing plan for a terrible product is also a great way to quickly kill the product (Ford Edsel). You can't lose a little money on every transaction and stay in business (dot.com bust). AND a society based on repressing a large part of their population cannot last (I'm looking at you China).
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
I do appreciate that short term financial gain is more important to us than long term survival.
Made out like a bandit.
There's a rich man or two, after this "Solyndra" scam was used by insiders to funnel 500Mil. Mark my words.
You live in a Kleptocracy. The "foreign competitiveness" front sound very plausible. That's why the whole "green technology boondoggle/buble exists. Not that it might not be needed - but any affair involving billionaires will be used for private extraction. We live in the "post-economic" era, where the pretense of an economy is used to commit outrageous crimes.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The trouble is that corp wellfare only works in this country alone. Unless you're suggesting that we also subsidies energy in other countries too.
The best argument I've ever heard against subsidies for Green technology was from a VC in Silicon Valley and the interview was in Scientific American a few months ago - and I can't find the damn article.
In a nutshell, a green energy source must be economically feasible without subsidies because the places where they have the greatest chance of being adopted are in developing countries - countries that cannot afford to subsidize energy. The same goes for in developed countries - for political reasons.
The argument that with enough subsides eventually it will become economically feasible doesn't cut it and it's not true. The subsidies have a habit of never going away - see Oil Industry.
Make a "green" energy source economically feasibly without subsidies and it will take the World by storm - there will be no need for laws to force people to use it or tax incentives or any other political trickery.
A superior technology will win and has always won.
First:A $535 Million loan guarantee is not the same as a subsidy....so.....maybe these articles need to be vetted a little better. Second: “Solyndra could not achieve full-scale operations rapidly enough to compete in the near term with the resources of larger foreign manufacturers,” - DUH!! And this will continue happening as long as the US is not China.... ....so instead....we should CREATE NEW TECHNOLOGY and license it for manufacture to other countries....welcome to International Business 101
Individuals must choose, decide their "essential" nature rather than having it given from some transcendent source.
Oh how I wish I had mod points. Creating demand is way more effective than handing out cash. If only the GOP would recognize that and get off their tax cut crack pipe.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I think you brig out a good point here: "Providing a huge protected market mainly through the defense department"
I'm much more comfortable with paying for technology to be developed to meet a demand by a customer (in this case the military) then I am with a bunch of subsidies being paid to a company and saying "Good Luck finding customers!". In one case there's a shit load of guys with guns with very strict needs that are going to hold the company accountable to research and produce something of value for them. Once they do, it gets proven in the field and it's easier to bring civilian customers on board. In the other case it seems like we're just shoveling money off on a company and hoping a market develops and a demand comes up on it's own and at the end of the day we don't even get any sort of product out of it.
Just so everyone is clear, the article says that the Feds backstopped $535MM of the company's borrowings, which isn't the same as giving $535MM in subsidies. In BK, the company's assets will be liquidated to pay off creditors, with the Feds only covering the shortfall (because it's just a guarantee)... and it sounds like the company has a salable facility and marginal patent/IP rights. I'm not saying there won't be a sizable loss, but I don't think "US LOSES $535MM ON GREEN ENERGY SUBSIDIES" is fair to say either.
The company has borrowed $527 million of the $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee, Damien LaVera, the agency’s press secretary, said today in an e-mail.
Solyndra plans to include the Energy Department loan guarantee in its bankruptcy filing.
How much is the difference? Can you calculate?
That plenty of Green Businesses here in the Bay Area are doing very well, primarily Petersen Dean, though others include SunWize, RPS Solar and REC Solar to name a few. Of course they are all private sector businesses that our current government wouldn't concern themselves with because they only want to give handouts to corporate america and green start-ups that have no legitimate plan for growth or success.
Ave Molech Setting
> Of course that's not actually possible with 'green technology' because very little of it makes any financial sense.
This is by design. Alternative energy is like alternative music, the second it becomes popular it isn't alternative anymore. With energy the second it shows signs of being economically viable the same nutballs who wanted it subsidised and were heaping praise on it suddenly realize why it is evil.
Because when an energy source is only used small scale it is easy to ignore things, scale it up to production and suddenly the problems, which were there all along, become more obvious. Also because most greens do not actually want alternative energy, they want the world to adapt to LESS energy. Many won't believe me, but try this thought experiment. Imagine an energy source that was actually perfectly 'green.' Limitless power with no ecological side effects from it's production. How many greens do you know who would rejoice at the news? No, they would bemoan this miracle for the fact it would allow us in the 1st world to continue to consume other non-energy resources.
But lets go down the list.
1. Solar? Great when a yuppie gets his subsidy check to put panels on his roof and preen about how concerned for the environment he is. Cover deserts with arrays to generate commercial scale power and no, there are lizards out there ya know.
2. Wind? Great idea to a green. Until you put up enough that the piles of dead birds become too big to ignore. And so long as they don't go where rich environmentally aware types can actually see them.
3. Hydro? Nah, that was the green miracle tech of yesteryear. It actually produces energy at marketable prices so it kills fish and makes for 'unnatural rivers.'
4. Tidal power? They like it now, but wait for some dead fish to end that if it ever does become viable.
5. Geothermal? Causes earthquakes when you do in on a commercial scale. Another one that works great on test scale but doesn't scale up.
6. Hydrogen? Idiocy, hydrogen is just a storage medium for energy generated some other way. If we had huge fusion plants it might be worth cracking hydrogen to let cars carry that bountiful energy around.
The energy problem is actually pretty simple. Unless you like handing Sagans of cash to people who want to kill us we have to get off oil. Yes we could 'Drill Baby Drill" here and get more, but probably not enough. We do however have a lot of natural gas. So run our cars on that while we look for something better. And build the crap out of modern safer nuke plants, if for no other reason that that without replacements the existing stock of nuke plants will stay online... and they ain't nearly as safe as a modern one. But that solution goes nowhere because it only solves the stated problem. The unstated problem is always how to make America live more in harmony with nature, i..e poorer, when stating that openly is a career limiting decision for an elected official.
Democrat delenda est
As long as both nuclear, coal and oil are allowed to release CO2 without paying the costs of it, yes green tech won't compete.
However, as we're seeing the ever increasing costs of fossil fuel continue skyward there will come a time when green will be cheaper. (Just as the tar sands up in Canada were once so expensive they weren't viable, now, because if $4/gallon gas they are becoming viable)
Sure you can just wait till then, but what if the damage to the environment is beyond repair at that point? It is actually better and much much cheaper to plan your conversion to sustainable energy rather than have it forced down your throats by external forces. And no, the government isn't forcing things down your throat when they try and plan ahead for change.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
from TFA
Well, misguided yes, but not only because government has a lower success rate with business investment than does private venture capital, or because of the corruption intrinsic in the corporate welfare scam of the taxpayer bearing the risk of investment and the private business owner receiving the profits.
Beyond those reasons, the "Green Jobs" initiative was farcical propaganda because, to the degree the "green" energy replaced conventional sources, green jobs would supplant jobs in conventional energy sector; The people working in the coal-fired plant are not going to keep working there after its shut down and replaced by a solar plant. New Jobs Gained in Solar Plant - Old Jobs Lost in Coal Plan = Zero Net Employment Gain.
His green jobs promise is one instance of a pervasive class of conceptual errors committed by this President: His unceasing failure to comprehend tradeoffs. "Green Jobs" trade one type of employment for another, they do not increase net employment. High-efficiency vehicle mandates trade increased embodied energy costs for decreased fuel consumption, but do not decrease the total energy consumed over the lifetime of the vehicle. Corn ethanol mandates and subsidies trade consumption of fossil fuel by passenger vehicles for consumption of fossil fuel in the production of corn ethanol. Cash-for-clunkers trades car sales during the program for future car sales; people just move their purchase forward to take advantage of the program during the eligibility period.
Obama has made fundamental conceptual errors in devising public policy then invented preposterous explanations for the failed outcomes of those policies. As the opinion poles suggest, blaming ATMs and corporate jet owners for the failure of the green jobs fairy to rescue the economy will probably not win him elections.
As I have pointed out previously, genuine green energy investments by those with a record of success at that kind of thing is good.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
You are exactly right about that.
Just give this little article a look. . . . http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/01/bankrupt-solar-company-with-fed-backing-has-cozy-ties-to-obama-admin/
"Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a key Obama backer who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the presidentâ(TM)s election campaign, is one of Solyndraâ(TM)s primary investors. Kaiser himself donated $53,500 to Obamaâ(TM)s 2008 election campaign, split between the DSCC and Obama For America. Kaiser also made several visits to the White House and appeared at some White House events next to Obama officials.
Campaign finance records show Kaiser and Solyndra executives and board members donated $87,050 total to Obamaâ(TM)s election campaign.
And now, just two years after securing a half-billion-dollar federal loan, Solyndra has said that it will declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy."
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
What is a troll anyway? I probably disagree with all his posts, but he doesn't seem abusive. Even though all of his posts seem to get minus one, it could be 'just' that he really thinks all that stuff about dangerous chemicals, health, radiation etc. to be true. Heck if someone's going to believe any one of those things, it's going to be make sense to throw in the rest as well. He may be so engrossed that that kind of topic is all he wants to discuss, hence no higher rated posts.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
This place sucked rocks long before Junis was arrested by the Taliban.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So China is wasting countless amounts of money on solar and you'd like us to do the same?
No thank you.
If the US lacked the know how or technology to bring up a solar plant or wasn't doing research, that would be one thing.
Yet, the US is capable of ramping up production if it wants. There is plenty of research going on in the US at the university and private company level. If/when solar does become viable, the US will not be at much of a disadvantage.
"if it weren't for massive government subsidies - paying for R&D costs directly, and providing a huge protected market mainly through the defense department - then the computer revolution which drove the 1990s boom WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED."
Let's assume this is true for a minute. I don't think it is. Free people seem to have a history of invention. Edison for example worked as a clerk and then funded his experiments. Tesla teamed up with JP Morgan. You'd wonder how anything got done before the US invented the military industrial complex.
But none the less, let us assume it is true. That at least the US got an advanced lead due to military protection of its industry.
Has it been a net benefit for the US to spend billions and billions, perhaps trillions on the military... all to get a lead on high tech?
Advancing technology is not the only goal in the minds of people. Most people just want to live their life. In the grand scheme of things would it have been so tragic if the computer boom happened in 2010 instead of the 1990s?
And quite frankly, if China wants to spend billions in subsidies that means a few things for me.
1. We shouldn't have open market agreements with them as they are not playing by the same rules. We shouldn't pretend to have free trade when we don't. I'm much more in favor of stopping trade with countries that don't follow the same rules as us, than I am in some huge central planning government initiative.
2. Patents only last 20 years or so. If china wants to spend billions on research for us to reap their technology when it's right, more power to them. China is subsidizing the rest of the world. It's not gaining any advantage. I'm from Africa and we had decades of politicians trying to build our own industry and it just results in more poverty and government corruption (central administration tends to do that). Today, we just buy things cheap from China and life is better for it.
I'll make this point again... if in 10 years solar is king and china is the leader, it will be us who have benefited from their research... not them. They will have invested all that money that we can just use.
Their advantage will be the same one they've had... the cost advantage. That is little to do with our R&D.
It also proves that the government does a lousy job of picking economic winners and losers. That is a game the government should stay out of.
Everybody does a lousy job of picking winners and losers. Some VCs try to make sure they pick winners, other VCs spread there money out more trying to pic a winner. I worked at a company that was funded by the same VC that funded Blackboard, Inc. We took $6 million and failed. A lot of companies in their portfolio took similar ammounts and failed. Blackboard IPO'd for $billion or something. When that strategy works, it still averages out to a good yield when you lump the winners with the losers. Also, most losers aren't 100%. If you can take a 30% loss on 10 companies and a 100 fold return on no. 11, you're golden.
Now that that's out of the way, the 2nd part of your statement becomes a question of whether or not the government should act as a VC. That's a separate issue. It's open to debate. If the government doesn't fund startups, then should it do anything else to help business? If you want to be a purist on this you need to strip out *all* the incentives, not just assistance for startups.
Bob is a troll.
Really? I never would have guessed...
On a serious note, the article seems to be pretty clear on the cause of it's failure - it's a small company caught in the economic downturn, and they're getting out while they still have some assets to sell. Normal business.
And someone needs to remind the politicians that all those banks and car manufacturers that you paid money to is no different. You just kept giving them more money until they dug themselves out.
Bad analogy, where is the solar boom? They've had many years of subsidies now.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
Glassdoor.com rating for solyndra was only a 2.6, which is pretty bad considering the exciting tech they work with. Most of the posts (most recent was in May) are by Engineers who basically say "the tech is cool, but management is terrible and top heavy."
So, really not that surprising how it went down...
Have any of the nuclear power plants failed to pay back their guaranteed loans?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Ah, yes. We can make 'green technology' profitable by simply... taking more money from taxpayers and giving it to them.
That'll work.
The only "green" in these jobs are the dollars being flushed down the toilet.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
so yes, we can make green technology profitable by simply (and I'm going to edit your post a little) devoting more resources to them.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Are you questioning the value of mutual coercion in society?
Do you only believe in private property if other people are FORCED to respect it too? Or would you dutifully subsist on only those things which you "owned" if you lived in a society which observed no such conventions and everyone else considered it their right to whatever "possessions" you couldn't successfully defend from them?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
"The market will, in the VAST majority of cases, choose options that do both: 'support what is good for society' AND 'what is profitable'."
Ah, faith-based economics... People ARE the market, the people elect the government, government 'interference' as you blithely call it IS the market reacting.
Pay attention yourself.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
The reason nuclear needs loans guarantees is not because the technology might not work out. It is because at any point during the construction some environuts can sue and shut down construction or operation due to stupid laws. It is the laws and regulations that are the problem. If they could be guaranteed that except for actual technical construction reasons they could not be shut down you wouldn't need the laws.
But it this way. Imagine you bought a piece of property to build a house but your neighbors had the right to shut down your construction with only a lawsuit and not a ruling. Would you try to build there?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Well shit, the government wasted all that money. All $500 million. Down the toilet.
I say we add it to the $6.851 Billion that's waste... err, well used by more important entities. (not to mention it might not have even been $500 million if they were loan guarantees)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
I think I can shorten your argument. The folks pushing alternative energy want "green" energy. The current options for "green" energy are simply "greenER" energy.
Every form of alternative energy has some negative impact. We can get very close to zero impact, but we will always have some impact on the environment if we extract energy from it. Its important to be honest about that. If you aren't honest about it, most people will catch on and you'll turn them off because they feel lied to. If you are honest about it, you can make genuine progress. Nuclear isn't perfect, but its a damn sight better than coal. Solar has some drawbacks too, but its got some benefits that are pretty good.
"Dr." Bob also believes that global warming is caused by subluxation.
So China is wasting countless amounts of money on solar and you'd like us to do the same?
What the fuck are you talking about, "wasting"? China's strategy of undercutting the prices of our solar panel producers is working brilliantly. Not a single dollar wasted there.
You'd wonder how anything got done before the US invented the military industrial complex.
You know what wouldn't have gotten done?
The internet.
You think there'd be a PC in every other home without that?
1. We shouldn't have open market agreements with them as they are not playing by the same rules. We shouldn't pretend to have free trade when we don't. I'm much more in favor of stopping trade with countries that don't follow the same rules as us, than I am in some huge central planning government initiative.
Great. and while you spend the next twenty years dicking around with treaty negotiations, all our solar panel manufacturing goes tits-up.
2. Patents only last 20 years or so. If china wants to spend billions on research for us to reap their technology when it's right, more power to them. China is subsidizing the rest of the world. It's not gaining any advantage.
China doesn't give a shit about patents, and they're not subsidizing research. They're subsidizing production. They want to become the world's go-to source for solar panels, and they intend to do so by strangling our ability to produce them.
Incidentally, what are your thoughts on oil subsidies?
To me, that says that companies building solar products today are far better off aiming at small, niche use cases than they are a general market. That said, though, there's still far more of a market in solar technology today than there was when I was a kid in the '70s. Much more choice, cheaper prices, better availability, you name it.
And no, I don't think it's all due to government subsidies. Some of it is aimed at the kind of use case that I'm thinking of. Think about warning signs near construction sites, for example. Remember those huge diesel generators that used to be mounted on the trailer as the sign? I don't see those very often these days.
If Kurzweil is right about the exponential improvement in technology, I think solar companies should be spending at least some R&D today to build more general use products starting in the next 8-10 years. They should be aiming at much more general use products in 12-16 years. Otherwise they risk getting run over by more nimble competitors.
A bad investment is one that is not viable on its own, such as existing green tech that is not profitable.
A good investment is one that helps develop tech that is financially viable on its own. In other words, research. We should support those looking for new inventions that would support themselves once developed. Once developed, let the open market reap the benefits.
There is a lot of armchair quarterbacking on this. I used to work for a company that made gear for solar production (including the CIGS type that Solyndra uses). Fascinating industry, with some odd dynamics.
If you harken back to 2008, Solar PV was taking the world by storm. Europe had very generous feed in tariffs making the deployment very attractive. This drove demand through the roof.
This drove electronic grade silicon prices from mid $20 per kg to close to $500 a kg.
The market being what it is, looked for more efficient use of materials. This spawned thin film PV's to become more attractive. Whether it was amorphous Si based, or CdTe based (the technology employed by First Solar), or the latest (at the time) CIGS (CuInGaSe2) based devices. This technology had (and still has) the best efficiency potential of any of the thin film types. It is just really hard to do in a production volume setting. Companies that manufacture it today are Solibro, Global Solar, and others.
Fast forward to today. The Si shortage is gone. Electronic grade silicon is back to $20 a kg range. There is oversupply of silicon. China has invested metric buttloads into their industry, driving traditional silicon based PV panels remarkably close to $1 a watt. CdTe is has pretty much won the think film race (Applied Materials shut down their Amorphous Si think film equipment group and took a huge writeoff for it earlier in the year. Most deployments today are panels made in China, of silicon wafer based PV.
All the CIGS makers are struggling, but the double whammy of Solyndra, hard to make films + unique topography makes for bankruptcy. I would have bet on Nanosolar being the first to go belly up in the Silicon Valley.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
This event once again proves the truth of my pre-conceived ideology.
*sigh*
Regardless of why, this particular example of government action didn't work. Let's try something else.
Your neighbors do have that right. I know of people sued because their construction ruined the view of an adjoining property. Why should nuclear power plants get even more protection?
They already have the government limiting their liability for them.
"This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate." Solyndra chief executive Brian Harrison said in a statement. "Regulatory and policy uncertainties" made it impossible to raise capital to quickly rescue the operation, he said. The same environmental and labor groups that champion the cause of green energy have created so much regulation that even a half-billion-dollar-subsidized, presidential-pet, green-energy company can't make it. * The title credit goes to Glenn Reynolds, but I thought it was appropriate.
"You know what wouldn't have gotten done?
The internet."
You're pretty dim if you think the internet wouldn't have been done without the military. Networks would have been developed. It might not have been IP. It might have been some other technology. But we'd be able to communicate digitally.
"China doesn't give a shit about patents, and they're not subsidizing research. They're subsidizing production. They want to become the world's go-to source for solar panels, and they intend to do so by strangling our ability to produce them."
So, if China doesn't give a shit about patents, then it's even better for the rest of the world. When they come up with good solar tech, then we just copy them.
Okay, so they subsidize production. So China wants to make its products cheaper for the world. This is China subsidizing us. We get cheaper solar panels. How is this not a win for us?
"Incidentally, what are your thoughts on oil subsidies?"
Depends what you mean by subsidy. If you mean the government actually giving them money... I'm against it. If you mean, they just get a tax break, I have no issue with that.
These kind of subsidy schemes rarely work out for the benefit of the nation. It generally benefits a few in the 'industry of choice', but it doesn't benefit the country as a whole.
Case in point would be the US military. The US has basically been subsidizing the rest of the world's military. Allowing other nations to spend less on national security that they otherwise would. This has been a huge expense on the US budget.
In the big picture... outside of the military industrial complex, this has been a net loss for the USA.
Just like the solar situation.
In the big picture... outside of the solar industry, these huge solar subsidies are a net loss for China.
You know... there was a time people didn't want to work. They actually colonized countries to make those people work. They actually enslaved other people to make them work.
Work is not a goal of mine.
Getting the things we want/need is a goal of mine.
If China wants to be our 'workers'... let them. I have no desire to manufacture solar panels.
I said it in my original post and I'll say it again, the only time this should be a concern is if we begin to lack the ability to produce things at all. Then to get back up and running is a pain. China spent the past few decades building up its know how.
I used to live in a place like that. One of the unintended consequence was the death of affordable housing. Since the cost/time of lawsuits had to be factored in, it was only financially viable to develop luxury condos, mcmansions, or other high price, high profit housing.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
What's kind of surprising is the outright hostility to the idea of alternative fuels. You guys have 401(k)s heavily invested in oil or something? Good chunk of this thread just doesn't seem to WANT this to work.
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
This sounds like a Mel Brooks comedy...
1: Get hundreds of millions in government loans.
1a: Hire sexy secretary.
2: Declare bankruptcy.
3: PROFIT!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wow what state do you live in?
As for liability see this http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/21/nuclear-risk-insurance/
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
The facts do not agree with that article for one no punitive damages are allowed.
Sure Price-Anderson cuts both ways, but if a real accident ever does happen the US taxpayer will be on the hook. No other industry gets that sort of treatment.
If this is part of the stimulus, I wonder if the negative 1100 jobs counts toward the total jobs created by all our money. It would be kind of funny and kind of sad if we spent a trillion dollars to create jobs and the total job creation from that spending ended up being negative.
There are reputable ones. They limit themselves to skeletal/muscular problems and work in conjunction with physiotherapists, massage therapists, and orthopedic surgeons as needed.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
http://www.borsaitaliana.it/borsa/notizie/mf-dow-jones/internazionali-dettaglio.html?newsId=893539&lang=en
In short, solar manufacturers around the world are taking a hit due to an oversupply of panels. America actually exports more solar technology than it imports, to a tune of $2 billion a year (study funded by solar industry so take it with a grain of salt).
A lot of the discussion around here seems to focus on individuals purchasing solar panels. That thinking is too small. The real solar projects in America are happening on larger scales with companies like Southern California Edison, PG&E and other utilities. They are bringing hundreds of megawatts online every year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
In another article I read recently, solar companies struggling to survive are integrating vertically and offering consulting and design services on larger projects. The margins are too slim on the manufacturing side.
From the article,
"While solar-panel manufacturing is likely to continue migrating to China and other Asian countries, U.S. companies do supply many of the Chinese manufacturing giants. U.S.-based MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (WFR) and Hemlock Semiconductor supply the raw silicon needed to make solar wafers, while Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT) makes solar-product manufacturing equipment. "
We have a couple of years until these Chinese manage to reverse engineer the equipment that Applied Materials is selling them.
Once again it comes down to the labor advantage that the Chinese have. American companies are making the equipment that the Chinese are using to crank out the product. They are able to produce the product for less because they have lower overhead and can pay their people less.
In the end, are we really losing here? We develop the technology. The Chinese make it for us for less than we would have to spend to make it ourselves. We buy it from them and then use it in projects designed by Americans and built by American companies. I'm pretty sure that these projects were not built by Chinese contractors.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/siting/solar/index.html
On the other hand, we are getting screwed on the R&D front.
http://blog.appliedmaterials.com/worlds-most-advanced-solar-rd-center
http://theenergycollective.com/breakthroughinstitut/51021/china-rd-investment-grow-faster-us
It might be time to start removing any economic subsidies or benefits we provide to companies who decide to offshore their R&D.
I've seen this guy around. He's supposedly a chiropractor who believes that 3D movies cause subluxations in the spine. I'm not kidding. He's also barfed up some conspiratorial crap about some mystic force only allowing him to post on /. twice a day.
The guy is either a troll or an absolutely certifiable lunatic. I'm betting on the former.
Your post solidifies my resolve that, as LehiNephi eloquently explained, production of goods should never be subsidized: Solyndra failed in spite of the extraordinarily hard work put in by its employees.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
But see, this is Slashdot, aka "News for Nerds" and we eat dangerous chemicals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Let's face it: For Slashdot readers, if an energy source doesn't involve dangerous radiation, it's a non-starter. That "Caution: Dangerous Radiation" trefoil symbol is a badge of honor for this crowd. Show of hands: how many have either a t-shirts, a lunch pail or a laptop that sports the well-known trefoil radiation hazard symbol? Come on, I know you've got one. The potential for nuclear accidents causing genetic mutations and rendering parts of the planet uninhabitable is not a bug, it's a feature. Better to cos-play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Hell, without a nuclear accident, how we supposed to get superpowers?
"Green" and "Renewable" are for sissies, and let no one doubt that Slashdot readers are all He-Men (even the female ones). Just ask 'em.
Naw, it's Nukes-or-Nothin' around here, pal. You wanna talk that green, renewable shit, you're gonna hit -1 Troll faster than a retiree queue-ing up for a free buffet.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The problem with nukes is the NIMBYs which have pretty much frozen the tech at 1950s levels. if we would allow the small thorium design we could have plants the size of a shipping container that one could bury and then finish covering up when its lifecycle is finished, we could also reprocess and end up with a hell of a lot less waste but we have too many NIMBYs and "ZOMG reprocessing may make stuff somebody could make a bomb with ZOMG!" while ignoring the fact it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper just to buy old Soviet era stuff from bumfuckistan.
This is why we need national importance stuff run by scientists and not politicians, who only care about feeding voter fears long enough to get elected so they can enjoy the kickbacks. As someone else wrote those solar guys probably made out like bandits and no doubt there were plenty of kickbacks...errr campaign contributions to make sure nobody said boo.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Lol, that made me laugh. I think something we can both agree on though is more funding for researching both 'green' and nuclear energy sources (which can still be very green potentially).
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
There are several solar technologies and you can lose by betting on the wrong one, which it appears was a factor here. A lot of companies with advanced technology have low profit margins (or no profits). The tech may be good, but it doesn't guarantee you a profit when others can sell an equivalent at a better price/performance ratio.
Solar companies have also been affected by the withdrawal of subsidies for installation of solar, especially in Europe. If your business model is based on assuming a level of subsidy on the consumption side, you are in trouble if that changes.
Agreed. I can't think of an area that research doesn't help.
You are welcome on my lawn.
NONE of the costs of which are factored into the price of coal? That's A-OK?...One way is to subsidize green tech.
In theory, internalizing the costs is a good idea. In practice, it is very hard to do correctly and government is no better at it than the multinationals. Just because a venture has "solar" in the prospectus does not mean that the idea is feasible, will ever be economical, or even is particularly "green". Subsidizing one alternative technology does not just run the risk of wasting taxpayer money (which is the bread and butter of Congress anyway), but of foreclosing better alternatives, such as squiggly light bulbs with mercury versus domestic LEDs or improvements on incandescents or ... something we haven't thought of yet. Similarly, taxing coal might drive people to use more solar, or it might drive them to use something even worse which doesn't happen to be taxed. IPP laws in the US seem to have driven the market for natural gas turbines rather than the renewable energies the law was intended to promote.
So, any effort at internalizing external costs has to be approached very carefully, and for the most part, they are not. Instead we make bad decisions for political gain and thereby encourage more bad decisions for economic gain.
I consider Evergreen to be a great loss. As my wife just reminded me, they came up with innovative ways to cut silicon wafers with less energy and waste. They also developed a strategy for producing solar panels using renewables in their own process. They seemed to be energetic, innovative, and relatively responsible. But your point is taken: instead of subsidizing failing businesses, we need to change the politico-economic climate which is causing them to fail, most of which is self-inflicted.
This product is a really interesting take on the problem of presenting a semiconductor junction electricity generating device to the sun.
I urge you to go to the solyndra.com website and look at the product description.
The design places the solar electric generator in something that looks like a 4 foot long fluorescent lamp tube.
Look at the end cap of the tube, It is a spline that locks the tube against rotation. It looks like the generating unit is a 4 foot tube that snaps into a frame, and the ends of the tube are the electrical output terminals.
I built solar energy collector devices in 1973 and there are a lot of things about the Solyndra design that I like.
The first thing I did in my projects was put the active collector in a tube, and experiment with reflector designs. One reflector was a trough made of Ultracal sculpture plaster with an aluminium foil lining. I modelled parabolas and circles for their focal effectiveness. A second reflector was a Fresnel reflector, the prototype was machined out of aluminium. The ideal would be a sheet of 1 1/2" thick Celotex roof insulation with a reflective aluminium Fresnel reflector embossed in the top layer or attached with a hot wax or melted plastic membrane. That means you are looking at insulated 100 year roof lifetimes where individual panels can be replaced without having to do the entire roof.
The design point I would make is: the common flat plastic and glass solar electric generator panels are clumsy, they are not easy to replace, they can not be opened and repaired, and they are going to be a bear to deal with when they get old, start failing and have to be disturbed to re-roof the house underneath.
The beauty of the tube type solar electric generator is you can replace them individually, They can be disassembled, rebuilt, reloaded with the latest generation of thin film generator, and you can operate your device in an inert gas environment.
An earlier post that the man who started this design, Dr. Chris Gronet, "has transitioned to the role of advisor and consultant." indicates that the current bankruptcy is for wresting ownership of the design into the hands of new investment money.
Another thing that is visible from the product information pages at Solyndra is the company has been trying to both build a semiconductor device, and deliver a proprietary mounting, shipping and installation system around the device and then sell into the very limited market of flat roof industrial buildings.
Notice that the literature says "lightweight and self-ballasting." and it also says rated for hail and 130 mile per hour wind. These phrases indicate a little too much optimism about the realities of mounting stuff on a roof for 25 years.
Besides wresting control, perhaps this bankruptcy is in anticipation of a product replacement request following the hurricane of last week.
Here is a thought: The tube type solar electricity generator needs to become a generic product in it's own right. A long lasting re-roofing solution needs to become a product in it's own right, You buy a thick 100 year rated insulating surface for your existing roof with the thickness and configuration depending on your climate and roof slope. Finally, you get the focusing surface of the new insulating roof moulded or tuned based on your longitude and roof orientation. Then the solar installer screws the tube mounting frames to the roof according to moulded dimples in the custom reflector surface. The generator tubes snap into place and the installation is ready to deliver 600 volts DC.
So what is the point of having a generic tubular solar electricity generator. Note the Solendra product has a liquid filling called an "optical coupling agent". Hey, suppose this liquid (I guess it is kerosene!) is replaced with an optical energy storage fluid? Something that will make the tube generate electricity after the sun goes down. Now you can see some more elegant advantages to a tubular solar energy generating device?
Yes... a proper silicon fab plant costs billions to build. Ask Intel, Foundery, TSMC or the others involved. Therefore any solar company will be limited by the silicon they can acquire without the ability to experiment, tool and retool thee plants. Given the outrageous cost of this type of business, it either needs to be government run or whoever is running it will have one chance at most to get it right.
That being said... your point is utter rubbish in this context since anyone with a clue should have realized this long before ever getting this business running. When the crooks running this company started taking the money, they should have made it perfectly clear to the idiot politicians they begged for money that this company would likely leak like a wooden ship hit by a cruise missile. Additionally, it would be likely that this company would be so heavily in debt by the time it folded that the company's value was not the eventual possibility to turn a profit, but instead was to provide a tremendous amount of research in solar energy to the world after it has gone defunct, allowing future companies to startup using a niche of their research and turn a profit based on it.
Based on that, I'm convinced that some people got VERY VERY fat on this. I'd even guess that there are some politicians involved in the funding process who did quite well on this. This stinks of either criminal stupidity or outright corruption. Giving more money to these people would have been a curse.
Guess what the largest nuclear reactor in the solar system is. I'll give you a hint: it emits more radiation than your microwave*, to every square meter of half the planet, all day long.
*assuming you own a consumer-grade, 1400 watt microwave
The whole population can't scrap the entire housing infrastructure and rebuild their entire lives out of totally new-design housing. Tighter insulation means less air circulation. That means an unhealthy habitat.
It means tighter control over the airflow of that habitat. There is nothing preventing someone from opening a window selectively. That's most of how we cool during the summer: close the house up during the day to keep it from heating up and open it up at night to cool it down. Wallah! Airflow and energy savings.
You're burning wood and calling it a green energy source? Really????
Yup. You know it even looks green? (While on the tree anyway.) We get wood from our own wood lot which replenishes itself every year pulling the CO2 we emit right back out of the air. We burn dead-fall and cullings from managing the wood lot. Our stove is most efficient with small bits of wood, so we burn mostly sticks and twigs. Given that, we very seldom have to use the chainsaw and expend fossil fuel. We have probably between 1/3 and 1/2 of our season's wood put up right now and have not used the chainsaw once. The only time we even fired it up this year is when we went to help with Joplin's disaster relief.
You know what would happen if we did not burn it? It would sit on the ground and rot or build up until there was a wildfire and the same gases would get released anyway. We use the heat of the wood stove to cook in the cold months and reuse the ash first to leech for potash for soap making (and leavening) and then as soil amendment in the garden. We're in the middle of building a wood-fired mass oven in the backyard to do a lot of baking efficiently, with renewable energy, and outside the house in the warm months so the heat does not contribute to cooling costs. So, yes, wood is a "a green energy source". Perhaps not for everyone or the way everyone does it, but it just goes to show that people have options for doing things effectively if they don't get caught up in irrational dogma about what's "green" or "not green". Green energy is in the process and the life-cycle, not the choice of technology.
As long as both nuclear, coal and oil are allowed to release CO2 without paying the costs of it, yes green tech won't compete.
How much CO2 does nuclear emit?
Indeed :) I conflated the emissions of the sources in my typing.
Nuclear does not release CO2 obviously. It does however have significant waste issues in that are not reflected in the costs of the electricity. The Government picks up the tab for that, as well as the loan guarantee's that get the plants build in the first place. The costs associated with keeping waste safe for 1000 years aren't exactly cheap.
Then there's the failure issue with nuclear. Nothing else has the potential to render 100s of square miles uninhabitable for decades when it fails. As Fukushima showed us, 'safe' is a very relative term.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
... is that in our present age - it is not economically viable. These recent bankrupts just further reinforce my view.
Solar energy doesn't stand a chance against competitors like oil and coal. The only major reason it's still alive - is because of the global warming. We are forced to look for alternative sources of energy. It's not as if we had found this charming new technology, that sweeps out the old ones, because it's cheaper, more efficient or whatever. No. It's because if we don't sweep them old ones out - they will sweep us from the surface of this planet.
The cost of being forced to use this energy is the one which drags it down.
Mind you - I'm not against using solar panels. Or better put this way - I'm against global warming. I don't care what energy source one uses, as long as they' don't have any serious negative side-effects.
My ideal would be that, some time in the future, we create artificial photosynthesis on a global scale. This would solve a lot of problems - green-house effect (and global warming by extension), CO2 levels, de-forestation of the planet, and the energy problem. But I don't think we'll get there any time soon. For the time being we're stuck with electrical cars and solar panels.
So who gets their cool (hot?) cylindrical tech? It would be a shame if nothing came of it as it seems much more efficient than flat panels without the need for tracking.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
It's not the that the subsidy is too low, it's that the subsidy for carbon based energy production is way too high.
It's the whole field that is disreputable.