Posted on 01/14/2011 10:30:23 PM PST by pissant
BEIJING — Aided by at least $43 million in assistance from the government of Massachusetts and an innovative solar energy technology, Evergreen Solar emerged in the last three years as the third-largest maker of solar panels in the United States.
But now the company is closing its main American factory, laying off the 800 workers by the end of March and shifting production to a joint venture with a Chinese company in central China. Evergreen cited the much higher government support available in China.
The factory closing in Devens, Mass., which Evergreen announced earlier this week, has set off political recriminations and finger-pointing in Massachusetts. And it comes just as President Hu Jintao of China is scheduled for a state visit next week to Washington, where the agenda is likely to include tensions between the United States and China over trade and energy policy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
5.50 an hour in China and a buck 75 in India. It’s real.
The ‘Green Economy’ strikes again.
They ought to be sued and made to pay back all of the money they got from any government institution that helped their growth and survival.
We need a Tea Party gang on steroids to grow enough clout to beat the other two gangs senseless.
How’s that “free trade” thing working out, America?
Forty-three MILLION dollars and eight hundred lost jobs to prove that Solar is a sham.
People should remember this, ever time some greenie idiot goes into a rapture over solar power, every time congress gives away more of our money for “green” nonsense.
The only real beneficiaries will be China, as they will get the bulk of the funds.
No matter how cheap solar gets, it will still never amount to more than a percent or two of our energy needs.
DRILL, drill here, drill NOW!
Add those to the oil and coal job losses. Solar is not a viable form of energy.
Pray for America
It’s not a sham.
We just lost more American jobs to China.
It’s happening every day.
Accurate summary
Not from the government, from the US taxpayers.
1). Destroy the Nazi oil refining and coal mining industries...
2). Target all manufacturing industries for destruction...
3). Bomb them back into the stone age.
4). Kill what's left.
5). Any questions?
That more or less describes what we’re doing to our own manufacturing capabilities.
"Evergreen has lost more than $685 million since its founding in 1994, including $54 million through the first nine months of 2010, and plans to take a $340 million in charge to write off the value of Devens.Investors remain skeptical about the firm’s future. The company’s stock closed yesterday at $3.07, down from a peak of $113.10 in 2007 (after adjusting for stock splits)."
They're losing money hand over fist, and have been struggling from the very beginning. I would be curious what percentage of those cells manufactured in that plant are actually sold overseas and exported from that plant.
It would be interesting to hear the company management’s side to this story.
So Wrong, Suckas!
Uh, tell that to the Chinese. The Chinese are the largest manufacturers of solar panels in the world.
The company, Evergreen, had their own plant in China already. From a cost standpoint, this plant could no longer compete not only with the other Chinese manufactures, but with their own plant in China.
If you read their annual report, Evergreen didn't have a problem with sales, they had a problem with cost. They sold every single panel that they made last year, with a backlog of orders remaining. Sales are great, costs in the US are exorbitant.
“Adios amigo!” - Barack Hussein Obama
Here's a copy of the company's latest Annual Report. It's huge, so it takes a while to load.
It's all in there though - it's a cost problem, not a sales problem. As I mentioned in a prior post, they lost $54M+ through the first 9-months of last year, while selling every single panel they had to sell. It doesn't take a CPA to figure out the problem.
65K a year for basic assembly work is pretty good wages.
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