FBI and DOE investigating Solyndra

A joint investigation by the FBI and the Department of Energy is ongoing on Solyndra. No details as to what they are looking into, but it seems Solyndra is suspected of misuse of the federal loan.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fbi-raids-connected-energy-firm-solyndra/story?id=14473051" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As this story unfolds the folly of government subsidizing "green technology" becomes more apparent. I'm careful with the risks I take with my money but care little about what happens with your money.

If we're going to keep doing this it has to involve personal accountability, with criminal penalties, but that's a really hard thing to do, costing the taxpayer even more money in the process. The opportunity for fraud is huge all the way down to money laundering campaign contributions.

It is also becoming clear that there was a lot of misrepresentation and perhaps outright fraud at Solyndra... Unfortunately, this will likely negatively impact a number of alternative energy endeavors in the future...

LTLFTcomposite said:

As this story unfolds the folly of government subsidizing "green technology" becomes more apparent. I'm careful with the risks I take with my money but care little about what happens with your money.

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Almost every start-up uses VC money ("not my money"), and almost every start-up fails. believe me on that
While in this case it may very well be a case of criminal activity (which the DOE and the FBI are in fact looking into), investing in start-up means that in most cases the money will be lost.

LTLFTcomposite said:

As this story unfolds the folly of government subsidizing "green technology" becomes more apparent. I'm careful with the risks I take with my money but care little about what happens with your money.

If we're going to keep doing this it has to involve personal accountability, with criminal penalties, but that's a really hard thing to do, costing the taxpayer even more money in the process. The opportunity for fraud is huge all the way down to money laundering campaign contributions.

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This whole thing does sicken me and illustrates the limits of public funding and I certainly believe any wrong doing should be pursued. That said, it needs to be kept in perspective. It's one start up. And compared to the crony capitalism of the previous administration, it's peanuts.

It also illustrates what happens when our country fails to get ahead in key technologies and gets beat to the punch by China flooding the market with cheap solar panels. The world is changing fast, if America is going to be competitive, we need to get cracking in the realms of electric vehicles and renewable energy!

All I am seeing discussed is like a soap opra without dialog - As the world turns. What information exists or is it just speculation still?

The takeaway for me is that when those in high places in Government fail to listen to advice that is contrary to what they want to hear, something bad invariably happens (9/11 terrorists learning to fly, for example). That there was a report from 2009 indicating that Solyndra would run out of money in Sept. 2011 is probably the most shocking revelation so far, in my mind. :shock: That said, I am a Liberal who wants effective Government in our lives (via agencies like the EPA and FAA, for example), but I do feel that Government has to be smart. I mean, Jebus!

This is being blown WAY out of proportion.

It's a start-up. It's in a highly competitive market where price is king. There's bound to be failures.

We're not going to get all our money back on every single DOE loan. I'm OK with that. There's a reason why the govt chose to step in and fund these DOE loans where the private sector has not.

Even if we lose the entire $500M (we may get some of it back) - as a percentage of DOE loans funded so far - is it significant? No - it represents about 1% of total funds loaned so far. The biggest loan? $8.3 billion for a nuclear plant in Georgia.

Who were the biggest supporters of this loan when it was funded over 2 years ago? Republicans. Now who's it's biggest opponent? Hmm....


My question: Why isn't a bigger stink being raised about the $60+ BILLION lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan?!?!? That is an order of magnitude larger - yet much more noise is being made about this "piddly" $500M.

The hypocrisy in this country never fails to amaze me.

A couple decent articles about Solyndra:

Five myths about the Solyndra collapse
Why We Can't Let Solyndra Failure Kill Support for Solar

GaslessInSeattle said:

...And compared to the crony capitalism of the previous administration, it's peanuts.

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A veiled reference to the Whitewater land deal?

LTLFTcomposite said:

GaslessInSeattle said:

...And compared to the crony capitalism of the previous administration, it's peanuts.

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A veiled reference to the Whitewater land deal?

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no, drees nailed it:

drees said:

... $60+ BILLION lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan?!?!? That is an order of magnitude larger - yet much more noise is being made about this "piddly" $500M.
...[/url]

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So, Gasless, the takeaway is that it's OK for me to rip off the American taxpayer because someone else allegedly already ripped them off for a larger amount?

drees said:

A couple decent articles about Solyndra:

Five myths about the Solyndra collapse
Why We Can't Let Solyndra Failure Kill Support for Solar

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Thanks, what I get out of these articles is that we have to support chinese manufacturing of solar cells if we want our companies to prosper?.. how about if we require our subsidized solar installations to use locally manufacturer panels if they want to see any state or federal money?. Its probably against trade law somehow but other countries do it so there must a be a loop hole somewhere.

I prefer to subsidize a $10 billion nuclear plant vs several thousand solar projects that use foreign made solar cells.

LTLFTcomposite said:

So, Gasless, the takeaway is that it's OK for me to rip off the American taxpayer because someone else allegedly already ripped them off for a larger amount?

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No - the takeaway is that we should spend our efforts trying to figure out why we've effectively burned at least 120x more money overseas with no benefit. But hey - it all benefited military contractors in the name of freedom. Instead, politicians are making a lot of noise about Solyndra because it's convenient as it fits their political narrative.

As a taxpayer, I very much would prefer the govt spend the the same effort figuring out why $60+ billion was lost before the $500 million.

Herm said:

Thanks, what I get out of these articles is that we have to support chinese manufacturing of solar cells if we want our companies to prosper?.. how about if we require our subsidized solar installations to use locally manufacturer panels if they want to see any state or federal money?. Its probably against trade law somehow but other countries do it so there must a be a loop hole somewhere.

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Isn't that what the $500M loan for Solyndra was supposed to help with? Supporting local manufacturing?

BTW - the military is able to enforce a "buy domestic" policy with their projects - so all their big installs that are going in are using USA made panels.

Did you also know - that the US is a net-exporter of PV tech? We ship a ton of processed silicon to China to be put into solar panels.

There are also many efforts being made to encourage PV manufacturing domestically and to increase it's competitiveness with China - unfortunately it takes large investments to reach the economies of scale to match and not all those investments will be successful.

LTLFTcomposite said:

So, Gasless, the takeaway is that it's OK for me to rip off the American taxpayer because someone else allegedly already ripped them off for a larger amount?

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I think you missed the first sentence of my first post:

GaslessInSeattle said:

This whole thing does sicken me and illustrates the limits of public funding and I certainly believe any wrong doing should be pursued. ...

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and I appreciate what drees said above as well.

A few more comments on Solyndra's demise:

Another way to look at it is that Solyndra going under is actually a result of the success of the industry as a whole.

PV prices have absolutely plummeted in the last 18 months. 17% in 2010 and 11% the first half of 2011. Record decreases! Solyndra wasn't able to reduce their costs of production fast enough to remain competitive - then the investors bailed.

One can get a system installed for under $5/watt these days before incentives. Not long ago it was $7+.

The price of utility scale PV has dropped below the Market Price Referent in California - meaning that it will produce power for less than a combined cycle gas turbine. As a result - there is currently over 8 GW of solar in the pipeline in CA.

All these cost reductions mean that we are now getting more bang for our buck with PV incentives.

Lots of good reports from the LBL here: http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/re-pubs.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Solyndra is not unique, here in Massachusetts the well known "Evergreen Solar" moved their entire production to China, after the state gave them a massive low interest loan. Over 1,000 jobs where lost. In the MA solar rebate program, you get an extra .50 per watt if you use locally produced components (panels and inverters), except I don't think we have any mfr's left in MA

mitch672 said:

Solyndra is not unique, here in Massachusetts the well known "Evergreen Solar" moved their entire production to China, after the state gave them a massive low interest loan. Over 1,000 jobs where lost. In the MA solar rebate program, you get an extra .50 per watt if you use locally produced components (panels and inverters), except I don't think we have any mfr's left in MA

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I bought 36 Evergreen 215 watt panels in June, in preparation for my utility company's rebate. A few weeks later I spec'd them for 2 more installations, only to find out that Evergreen had emptied their warehouse and moved to China. I ended up using Suntechs instead. Last I checked though, Sun Electronics here in Miami had ~4000 Evergreen 210 watt panels in stock at ~1.54/watt. If you have any friends in MA looking for Evergreen panels you might want to tip them off.

drees said:

As a taxpayer, I very much would prefer the govt spend the the same effort figuring out why $60+ billion was lost before the $500 million.

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Maybe we should go back and investigate WWII while we're at it.

The $60B was spent fighting a war. When you consider the economic impacts of 9/11 I'd say it was money well spent.

Making taxpayers unwilling investors in a dubious startup that may well have been hijacked to enrich insiders and launder campaign financing is wrong. They have no right to take my money and spend it that way.

If we want more jobs in this country, green or any other color, we need to remove the disincentives to doing business (in particular manufacturing) here. The medicine is killing the patient.

LTLFTcomposite said:

The $60B was spent fighting a war. When you consider the economic impacts of 9/11 I'd say it was money well spent.

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The $60B wasn't "well-spent," it was the portion that was stolen and wasted of the over $1T we have spent on the wars, all of it deficit-funded.

TT

LTLFTcomposite said:

Maybe we should go back and investigate WWII while we're at it.

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Nice red herring you've got there.

LTLFTcomposite said:

The $60B was spent fighting a war.

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Thank you ttweed for responding to this already.

LTLFTcomposite said:

When you consider the economic impacts of 9/11 I'd say it was money well spent.

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The $1 trillion in un-funded spending on the "war on terror" has been well spent? It's been burned away, never to be seen again, with nothing productive gained as a result!

Never mind the countless freedoms we've had taken away from us in knee-jerk response (Patriot act for example) or the puppet show that is the TSA which only gives the illusion of security while making air travel more inconvenient than ever. Defense spending since 9/11 has increased 50%. None of it paid for. And what do we have to show for it?

LTLFTcomposite said:

Making taxpayers unwilling investors in a dubious startup that may well have been hijacked to enrich insiders and launder campaign financing is wrong. They have no right to take my money and spend it that way.

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I'll let you make that argument once we get back to pre-9/11 defense spending levels - you know - spending which was funded by unwilling taxpayers which largely benefited a company the vice president at the time had significant financial ties to. They have no right to take my money and spend it that way.

I would much rather it be spent on additional DOE loans instead of killing people and burning huge amounts of energy patrolling the middle east.

LTLFTcomposite said:

If we want more jobs in this country, green or any other color, we need to remove the disincentives to doing business (in particular manufacturing) here. The medicine is killing the patient.

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China is the PV module manufacturing king because of huge govt subsidies (aka the result of removing disincentives) - massive govt guaranteed loans and free land to build factories.