Sunday, September 18, 2011

Do we understand the markets, or let the GOP Solyndragate this?

First off, the Bush adm. in 07 began helping and gifting to the well connected Solyndra, the solar panel builder that just went tits up in the deep end.  The GOP is pretending Solyndra's demise is another indicator of alternative energies failure.  Plus they are scrambling to make a show of the stupid mistakes of the Obama adm. recently granting a large but pin head grant in comparison to the fossil fuel industries yearly take.
That blunder aside, do we understand the market, and what happened, or do we let the GOP control what the story means?  If you give a shit you can find on line a number of stories explaining the technology jumping forward in great leaps every few months.  But the quick and dirty of it is this, it failed because the PV solar panel industry is booming, not because it is floundering.  The jumps forward are monthly, increases in watts converted from light, falling prices, new materials, increasing demands.  The velocity of the market killed Solyndra.  They were caught with a new factory prepared to build the panels of 2 years ago.  Overnight their backlog shrunk as the market shifted to competitors.

This event while appearing to say solar panels are a hippie's scam, is the opposite, the business is exploding with demand and ever better products.  Taiwan and China and Germany will fill the void if we let them, and with the GOP's help they are currently winning that race.  (Yesterday in my paper the Koch industry shill congressman Pompeo strutted the GOP and fossil fuel version of this event which was help oil and coal, see, nothing else works)  The lesson is PV panel builders must be able to make constant and  immediate changes in their product, keep up with the science.  It's like the cell phone market, suddenly blackberry is in trouble, who would have dreamed that 2 years ago.

4 comments:

  1. Remember the old Whirlpool plant in Evansville that moved to Mexico and idled 300 Hoosiers? Last week a Dutch firm that makes windmill blades announced that they are setting up operations in part of the plant along with Berry Plastics and Flanders Electric- the Dutch
    company is forcasting 450 jobs.


    Sarge

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fringe:

    I fear that the US is going to be left behind in this field. At this time, the fossil fuel industry has Congress in its hands.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sarge,

    Good deal, it's a shame that it's only foreign investors that have the vision to launch these products, our industry is setting on cash AND waiting for gov. welfare. Glad the town landed a butt load of clean energy jobs.
    Fuck Rick Perry.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Whit,

    We are falling behind. We still could snap out of it, but it's getting more difficult as the years slip past and the technology leaves us behind.

    ReplyDelete

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