Posted on 09/24/2011 12:10:24 PM PDT by Libloather
Maybe I missed it, but did the author also note that certain tax provisions for oil exploration companies are also related to risk? I would assume that he considers those loopholes instead of tax structures that encourage the exploration and development of energy resources we actually use.
What a hypocrite. The difference between Solyndra and Exxon Mobile is that Solyndra took moey from the people to fund it's garbage, Exxon only gets to deduct a part of it's expenses from the taxes it pays. I vote for Exxon as the real contributor to society...
Like ripping the contract for building MRAP's away from Stewart and Stevens (renamed BAE) of Houston, and giving it to a plant in Wisconsin, where Russ Feingold was trying to hang onto his Senate seat.
The Chicago Boys are about nothing but payoffs. They make the Grant and Harding Administrations seem positively fragrant by comparison.
The phony Solyndra scandal and the phony journalists at the New YOrk Times go together like a horse and carriage.
IMHO
Another problem is that not only Joe Nocero doesn't critically examine the facts, he is also wrong in his main premise: "... federal loan programs — especially loans for innovative energy technologies — virtually require the government to take risks the private sector won’t take." Joe doesn't want to examine why private sector wouldn't invest in certain kinds of technology or companies, or why the company had to apply for the government loan / "investment and whether company was seeking but failed to find private investment first - there should have been a strong profit motive on both sides of the deal, while DOE is just playing with Other People's Money.
Private sector has invested plenty in all kinds of solar energy projects without direct federal money "investment" or "loans" - there is no shortage of solar energy research and development within and outside the U.S. This is not anywhere near a Manhattan Project of solar energy power.
BTW, when Bill Clinton killed the funding for Texas particle accelerator (Superconducting Super Collider, a truly worthwhile scientific project that private industry couldn't and has no need to fund) did NYT or Joe Nocero write an article about the need to invest in research that private sector would not fund?
Also, everybody in the solar industry knew or understood that Solyndra's method was way to expensive, not just relative to Chinese-sunsidized solar panels but against their American and foreign competitors as well.
From Obama $8 Billion Solar ‘Betamax' Undercut as China Backs Rival Technology - BL, by Ben Sills, 2011 September 20
The Department of Energy guaranteed loans to six plants that will reflect sunlight to boil water for making electricity, aiming to kick-start commercial projects. Four of those, and a third of $26 billion pipeline encouraged by U.S. aid, may switch to standard photovoltaic panels that generate a charge directly from the sun, said Brett Prior, a solar analyst at GTM Research. The cost of generating power with panels plunged about 37 percent in the past year as Chinese factories cut prices, pushing three U.S. makers including Solyndra LLC into bankruptcy protection in the past quarter. Germany's Solar Millennium AG (S2M) walked away from a $2.1 billion U.S. loan guarantee last month and ditched thermal devices for a cheaper photovoltaic system. “If Solar Millennium, a major developer that has the technology, can't do it with a loan guarantee, then it's not clear who could," Prior said in a phone interview from Boston. ..... < snip > The U.S. government's $8 billion bet on solar energy that would pave the deserts with mirrors risks following the Betamax into the technological wilderness because of Chinese backing for a cheaper system.
From World's First Solar Building Exporting Power Shelved by Abu Dhabi's Masdar - BL, by Ayesha Daya, 2011 September 15
The Abu Dhabi state-owned company said it's evaluating a different design for its headquarters than the one selected in 2008 from Chicago-based Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture for a 100,000 square-meter (1.1 million square-foot) structure equipped with enough solar panels to cover four soccer fields. ..... < snip > Masdar shelved plans for the world's first building that makes more energy than it consumes, a year after the financial crisis forced the Abu Dhabi company to step back from setting up the first carbon-neutral city.
Not only these DOE "investments" or "loans" failed but these failures may drag down with them and set back the R&D funding from private sources which may find certain viable uses for solar and other technologies on the strength of the cost-benefit analysis.
It seems there has been plenty of money in the world in private sector devoted to developing solar energy power, and some fiscally responsible companies who plan to stay in business are walking away from guaranteed DOE loans. Solyndra had no real competitive plan to stay in business. NYT and Joe Nocero either pretend or really don't understand this and have no interest in government spending accountability (unless it's on military).
Solution? Simple. How about the same accountability which exists in the private sector? Congress can reduce DOE funding by $535M next fiscal year (and add other failed political "investments" to the "penalty box" amount) and see how much appetite they have for "investing" in other dubious projects of this kind in the future. Because in private sector this would be the money no longer available for investment.
Thanks for developing the argument and making ste distinction between basic research and venture capitalism.
Also, you point out that the industry has made the shift from thremal to photovoltaics very recently. So, with cheap product from China coupled with local siting and architecture mission accomplished. Not to say that we should stop funding NREL so they can chase strange ideas, but let the private sector develop this energy source in this incarnation.
Properly called National Socialism or abbreviated...NAZI!
Paraphrasing to get to his point:
Yep, that is the purpose of government loans, to loan out money to risky ventures that no investor in their right mind would(then tax the unwilling investor later for it when it goes bad like Fannie and Freddie) . Move on, nothing to see here. Now lets get on to the responsible business of LONG term deficit reduction, raising taxes (esp on those wealthy) AFTER the election, time to grow up .
I don't remember these libs so forgiving when all the stories came out about fraud and waste and money down the tubes under that last POTUS. Now $500M is nothing because their liberal Messiah is blowing our future.
I still think the Obama in-Justice Dept. launched this criminal investigation to get the Solyndra managers to shut up to congress until after the election, notice how this NYT lib talks as if Republicans launched it.
That is what they did, the raid was to get the evidence where no one could see it, Berger will now steal it.
This was something I thought up on my own, but the more I watch these libs defend the company, including the libs in the House, the more the DOJ investigation looks like a political scam to me.
Can the house give them immunity to testify? I know it would cause a fuss.
BINGO!
An investigation by the FBI and the Treasury Department is not needed. The New York Times has already cleared everyone involved of any wrong-doing.
In case you’ve forgotten, this is the same Joe Nocera, who in a August 2011 column on the US debt ceiling crisis compared Tea Party Republicans with terrorists, and wrote that they “have waged jihad on the American people” and suggested that they “can put aside their suicide vests”.
More fractured fairy tales from the NYT.
“and the all road off on their magic unicorns and lived happily ever after” The End (of the US).
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