Solyndra to Declare Bankruptcy

Yet another alternative energy company shuts its doors.

Solyndra announces it plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is suspending operations and seeks a reorganization.
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.

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. NBC Bay Area has contacted the White House asking for a statement.

Solyndra to Declare Bankruptcy | NBC Bay Area

Oops!

LesGovt said:

Yet another alternative energy company shuts its doors.
Oops!

Click to expand...

Seems like this one was not the first. Is this the beginning of a trend or just a bump in the road?

A Massachusetts corporation, Evergreen Solar, announced it would file bankruptcy in August. Another August bankruptcy announcement came from solar company SpectraWatt which shut down last year.

[video]http://news.yahoo.com/solar-company-solyndra-follows-evergreen-spectrawatt-bankruptcy-court-223500220.html[/video]

duplicate thread.

LesGovt said:

Yet another alternative energy company shuts its doors.

Solyndra announces it plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is suspending operations and seeks a reorganization.
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.

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. NBC Bay Area has contacted the White House asking for a statement.

Solyndra to Declare Bankruptcy | NBC Bay Area

Oops!

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Is this the fault of the Obama Administration or is it the fault of Congress which is divided between the Democrat-led Senate and the GOP-led House?

LesGovt said:

Seems like this one was not the first. Is this the beginning of a trend or just a bump in the road?

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Green energy is a newish industry. We'll presumably see 100s or 1,000s of green energy businesses go under as it sorts itself out. Nothing unusual about that. That's how biotech is, that's how software is, that's how all big booms work. That's how innovation works. For example, did you know that early on there were over 500 automobile manufacturers in the US? Something like 495 of them went out of business in the first couple decades.

samsmart said:

Is this the fault of the Obama Administration or is it the fault of Congress which is divided between the Democrat-led Senate and the GOP-led House?

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I doubt that the bankruptcy was the fault of the Obama Administration or Congress. It may be the case that solar energy is not ready for public consumption at this time.

LesGovt said:

I doubt that the bankruptcy was the fault of the Obama Administration or Congress. It may be the case that solar energy is not ready for public consumption at this time.

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Were Obama to come to my company and tout it publicly, I'd start immediately looking for a new job. Seems like everywhere he tours, a year later the place closes up its doors.

teamosil said:

Green energy is a newish industry. We'll presumably see 100s or 1,000s of green energy businesses go under as it sorts itself out. Nothing unusual about that. That's how biotech is, that's how software is, that's how all big booms work. That's how innovation works. For example, did you know that early on there were over 500 automobile manufacturers in the US? Something like 495 of them went out of business in the first couple decades.

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You could very well be correct and that is why I asked the question as I did. But that makes me wonder whether it is wise to give these risky businesses guaranteed loans of over half a billion dollars.

LesGovt said:

You could very well be correct and that is why I asked the question as I did. But that makes me wonder whether it is wise to give these risky businesses guaranteed loans of over half a billion dollars.

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Demand for alternatives is there, but supply is not high and prices are often non-affordable. It's because the industry is new, and without major government backing it won't take off. If the U.S. doesn't figure this out, it will lose an opportunity at a burgeoning new market. Europe and even Asia are starting to take advantage of this.

samsmart said:

Is this the fault of the Obama Administration or is it the fault of Congress which is divided between the Democrat-led Senate and the GOP-led House?

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No doubt about it, it's the fault of the GOP-led House.

LesGovt said:

I doubt that the bankruptcy was the fault of the Obama Administration or Congress. It may be the case that solar energy is not ready for public consumption at this time.

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You don't believe that **** do you? How about all those govt loans they received to prop up a business that couldn't compete with China?

LesGovt said:

You could very well be correct and that is why I asked the question as I did. But that makes me wonder whether it is wise to give these risky businesses guaranteed loans of over half a billion dollars.

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Fair question to be sure. The way I see it, they're relatively high-risk, high-reward investments. If you're more risk averse, you might think that is a bad investment, but if you're more risk tolerant you might think that is a good investment. The benefits for everybody to rapid development in the green energy sector are hard to overstate. We need to minimize the impact of global warming, we need to get on to another source of energy before oil becomes prohibitively expensive, green energy is likely to be a big boom and being out in front of that might be the only real solution to our economic troubles, etc. But, yeah, risking loans on individual startups probably isn't the best way to push us along that path. Maybe we should just be focused on buying actual green energy plants or something, I don't really know.

Temporal said:

Demand for alternatives is there, but supply is not high and prices are often non-affordable. It's because the industry is new, and without major government backing it won't take off. If the U.S. doesn't figure this out, it will lose an opportunity at a burgeoning new market. Europe and even Asia are starting to take advantage of this.

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I can understand why supply is not high since so many go bankrupt. Prior to taxpayers paying for new industries to be born, how did new industries come to be?

LesGovt said:

I can understand why supply is not high since so many go bankrupt. Prior to taxpayers paying for new industries to be born, how did new industries come to be?

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Things are a bit different now. It's a global market. If America wants to stay ahead of the curve it needs to boost innovation. This means trying more and failing more.

Otherwise we'll just trade foreign oil dependency for foreign solar panel/wind turbine/home fusion generator dependency.

Companies that make televisions, computers, and cell phones have gone bankrupt too, is that evidence that those industries are failures?

teamosil said:

Fair question to be sure. The way I see it, they're relatively high-risk, high-reward investments. If you're more risk averse, you might think that is a bad investment, but if you're more risk tolerant you might think that is a good investment. The benefits for everybody to rapid development in the green energy sector are hard to overstate. We need to minimize the impact of global warming, we need to get on to another source of energy before oil becomes prohibitively expensive, green energy is likely to be a big boom and being out in front of that might be the only real solution to our economic troubles, etc. But, yeah, risking loans on individual startups probably isn't the best way to push us along that path. Maybe we should just be focused on buying actual green energy plants or something, I don't really know.

Click to expand...

High risk? Maybe.
Benefits hard to overstate? Same can be said for drilling and refining oil.
Minimize global warming? Dubious. Does global warming exist? Most likely. Has global warming existed in the past? Yes. Were fossil fuels used at the time of the last warming? No.

Where we differ is how we get to energy independence. Apparently, you believe that alternative energy is the only path to independence. In the long run, it may be, but there are other ways to achieve independence. First, let me say that I have nothing against alternative energy nor do I have anything against fossil fuels. I think we should proceed in developing aternative energy while continuing to drill and refine petroleum products.

I don't believe any energy source should receive funds from taxpayers. The government should not be picking winners and losers. We need all sources of energy. We do not need to be spending money for energy as the best energies will rise to the top if they are indeed the best.

We have enough domestic product of fossil fuels to last us until alternative energy sources can be developed and made financially sound. Let's drill and refine which will hold down pricies until alternative energy sources are ready to provide broad coverage for a decent price.

Deuce said:

Things are a bit different now. It's a global market. If America wants to stay ahead of the curve it needs to boost innovation. This means trying more and failing more.

Otherwise we'll just trade foreign oil dependency for foreign solar panel/wind turbine/home fusion generator dependency.

Companies that make televisions, computers, and cell phones have gone bankrupt too, is that evidence that those industries are failures?

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Let them fail or succeed on their own. If alternative energy is truly the solution, investors should be flocking to invest in it so they can make even more wealth.

We don't need to depend on foreign countries for oil.

I understand that companies can and do go bankrupt in any industry. What I don't understand is why taxpayers should have their hard-earned tax dollars thrown down a rat hole. If solar is the answer to the future, let them prove it. If they can prove it and they can show that it is a financially viable product, it will make it on its own.

LesGovt said:

High risk? Maybe.
Benefits hard to overstate? Same can be said for drilling and refining oil.

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No, they aren't comparable. A big part of the reasons the benefits for green energy are hard to overstate is because oil is going to get too expensive for practical use. Countries that are ahead of the curve on green energy are going to make a bundle selling the technology to other countries and their own economies will thrive when the economies of countries that aren't ready are struggling to keep from collapsing.

LesGovt said:

Minimize global warming? Dubious. Does global warming exist? Most likely. Has global warming existed in the past? Yes. Were fossil fuels used at the time of the last warming? No.

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It's not dubious... 97% of all climatologists agree that it has been scientifically proven. The other 3% are a mix of those who think it is still an open question and deniers... 97%. That's more than the percentage of biologists that believe in evolution...

That the temperature has changed in the past has no bearing at all on AGW. That's like saying "I don't believe taking a bullet to the head can kill a person because people died long before guns were invented".

LesGovt said:

I don't believe any energy source should receive funds from taxpayers. The government should not be picking winners and losers. We need all sources of energy. We do not need to be spending money for energy as the best energies will rise to the top if they are indeed the best.

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Well, in most situations I agree with that philosophy, but there are blind spots that the free market has. One of them is that it is inherently short sighted. In order to compete companies have to focus almost exclusively on the next quarter. In some cases as far out as the next year. In some really unusual cases they focus on 5 years out. But 20 years out? No way. A company can't survive waiting 20 years for a profit, so investments that won't really pay off for 20 years get underinvested in even if they have great returns.

An interesting tidbit. Everybody who knows anything about it agrees that nanotechnology will absolutely revolutionize the way human beings live. Probably more even than electricity did. Unimaginable benefits. There really are very few, if any, scientists that disagree with that or don't think it will be possible. Ultimately it will astoundingly profitable. But nonetheless, it's a terrible investment for an individual investor right now. Even with heavy investment it is 20 years out, so investors would be smarter to invest in stocks that are escalating in value now because they are likely to make profits in the short term and then only jump on the nanotech bandwagon when it's close to fruition. So, it gets very light investment from the private sector and instead of being 20 years out it is 80 year out. In my view, investing in the long term is one of the legitimate roles of government. That's how we got the internet. That's the theory behind investing in education as well.

I think the same applies to green energy. It will be profitable, that's a certainty, but it might not be for a while to come still. Government investment gets us over that hump.

teamosil said:

Green energy is a newish industry. We'll presumably see 100s or 1,000s of green energy businesses go under as it sorts itself out. Nothing unusual about that. That's how biotech is, that's how software is, that's how all big booms work. That's how innovation works. For example, did you know that early on there were over 500 automobile manufacturers in the US? Something like 495 of them went out of business in the first couple decades.

Click to expand...

well said.

and before that, an element like those currently posting threads about how alternative energy will never go anywhere were arguing that the automobile would never replace the horse.

Helix said:

well said.

and before that, an element like those currently posting threads about how alternative energy will never go anywhere were arguing that the automobile would never replace the horse.

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Two things:

First, the people talking about the cars vs. horses were long dead before any discussion of alternative energy.
Second, I don't know why you injected your comment into this conversation. No one here has said anything about alternative energy never going anywhere.

teamosil said:

Green energy is a newish industry. We'll presumably see 100s or 1,000s of green energy businesses go under as it sorts itself out. Nothing unusual about that. That's how biotech is, that's how software is, that's how all big booms work. That's how innovation works. For example, did you know that early on there were over 500 automobile manufacturers in the US? Something like 495 of them went out of business in the first couple decades.

Click to expand...

Warning: Trying to explain basic economic and business principles to a far-rightie can be futile.

They are more obsessed with proving Al Gore wrong than really understanding how the world works.

teamosil said:

No, they aren't comparable. A big part of the reasons the benefits for green energy are hard to overstate is because oil is going to get too expensive for practical use. Countries that are ahead of the curve on green energy are going to make a bundle selling the technology to other countries and their own economies will thrive when the economies of countries that aren't ready are struggling to keep from collapsing.

Click to expand...

Yes, someday oil will probably become too expensive, but, as one of you said here, alternatives are currently too expensive. If alternative energy is as great as you state, the industry should have no problem finding plenty of private investment and we can always compete with foreign competition when we believe in what we are doing. When that happens, government financial support is not needed.

teamosil said:

It's not dubious... 97% of all climatologists agree that it has been scientifically proven. The other 3% are a mix of those who think it is still an open question and deniers... 97%. That's more than the percentage of biologists that believe in evolution...

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I already said that I believe that global warming is probable. Your comment had to do with minimizing global warming. That is what I said was dubious.

teamosil said:

That the temperature has changed in the past has no bearing at all on AGW. That's like saying "I don't believe taking a bullet to the head can kill a person because people died long before guns were invented".

Click to expand...

I already said that I believe that global warming is probable. Your comment had to do with minimizing global warming. That is what I said was dubious.

teamosil said:

Well, in most situations I agree with that philosophy, but there are blind spots that the free market has. One of them is that it is inherently short sighted. In order to compete companies have to focus almost exclusively on the next quarter. In some cases as far out as the next year. In some really unusual cases they focus on 5 years out. But 20 years out? No way. A company can't survive waiting 20 years for a profit, so investments that won't really pay off for 20 years get underinvested in even if they have great returns.

Click to expand...

Alternative energy development and the deveopment of other new industries face the same types of problems. Some new, novel industries never make it off the ground. Some, like the automobile, airplanes, television, and personal computers were developed and succeeded. Alternative energy can do the same.

teamosil said:

An interesting tidbit. Everybody who knows anything about it agrees that nanotechnology will absolutely revolutionize the way human beings live. Probably more even than electricity did. Unimaginable benefits. There really are very few, if any, scientists that disagree with that or don't think it will be possible. Ultimately it will astoundingly profitable. But nonetheless, it's a terrible investment for an individual investor right now. Even with heavy investment it is 20 years out, so investors would be smarter to invest in stocks that are escalating in value now because they are likely to make profits in the short term and then only jump on the nanotech bandwagon when it's close to fruition. So, it gets very light investment from the private sector and instead of being 20 years out it is 80 year out. In my view, investing in the long term is one of the legitimate roles of government. That's how we got the internet. That's the theory behind investing in education as well.

Click to expand...

I would think that something this revolutionary and life-changing would be ripe for lots of investors.

teamosil said:

I think the same applies to green energy. It will be profitable, that's a certainty, but it might not be for a while to come still. Government investment gets us over that hump.

Click to expand...

Did Ford get over the hump? Did Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? The need for seed money is not because the product has been proven to investors as being superior and doable, but rather it is a move to get government to pay for a solution to a problem which it may or may not solve and is done for the political reason of forcing the solution on the public, whether it is the best way or not.

hazlnut said:

Warning: Trying to explain basic economic and business principles to a far-rightie can be futile.

They are more obsessed with proving Al Gore wrong than really understanding how the world works.

Click to expand...

Thank you for attempting to help make my case. You don't need to do that. Now you have a nice evening.

LesGovt said:

I already said that I believe that global warming is probable. Your comment had to do with minimizing global warming. That is what I said was dubious.

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I'm not sure what you mean then. If you understand AGW then you know that reducing carbon emissions reduces global warming.

LesGovt said:

Alternative energy development and the deveopment of other new industries face the same types of problems. Some new, novel industries never make it off the ground. Some, like the automobile, airplanes, television, and personal computers were developed and succeeded. Alternative energy can do the same.

I would think that something this revolutionary and life-changing would be ripe for lots of investors.

Did Ford get over the hump? Did Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? The need for seed money is not because the product has been proven to investors as being superior and doable, but rather it is a move to get government to pay for a solution to a problem which it may or may not solve and is done for the political reason of forcing the solution on the public, whether it is the best way or not.

Click to expand...

A company that won't make a profit for 20+ years and which will only make one then if it gets enough investment is a terrible investment for an individual. Their money will basically just be sitting there idle for most of those 20 years when it could be invested in something making profits today.

Now, that isn't all industries. Cars, for example, were pretty rapidly profitable. Computers though, like the internet, were developed primarily by the government for decades before any of those people got involved. Computers were first invented in WWII by the military to crack enigma and the military, DARPA especially, and NASA were the primary investors in computer research for decades before it was ripe for the private sector.

Think of all the things in your day to day life that were developed, or even invented, by the government. Radio, satellites, microwaves, computers, the internet... I don't believe that the government should just go around willy nilly investing in fads or that most industries require long term government investments to get off the ground, but some do and identifying and properly funding those has always been a key to the economic success of any economic powerhouse. We need to continue setting up the booms that the US will be leading 10, 20, 50, years from now like we've always done in the past or else we're not going to be able to stay on top. Green energy is pretty clearly the next one of those up.

LesGovt said:

Two things:

First, the people talking about the cars vs. horses were long dead before any discussion of alternative energy.

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my point was that those who argued this were similarly shortsighted.

LesGovt said:

Second, I don't know why you injected your comment into this conversation. No one here has said anything about alternative energy never going anywhere.

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i commented because i notice posters who seem to rejoice over the failure of any alternative energy startup or service. however, we are only at the beginning; there will be many failures during the transition. it's to be expected.

Helix said:

my point was that those who argued this were similarly shortsighted.

i commented because i notice posters who seem to rejoice over the failure of any alternative energy startup or service. however, we are only at the beginning; there will be many failures during the transition. it's to be expected.

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I think it is shortsighted to guarantee loans to the tune of over half a billion dollars to a company that goes bankrupt. You did not see any rejoicing in this thread, so you just commented because your fingers could not help it. Is that what happened?