Sanyo to close solar factory in California (subsidies have run out)

forbes.com ^ | 02/03/12 | Ucilla Wang,Todd Woody

[MamaDearest]

Snips from excerpt website: Japanese solar company Sanyo plans to lay off about 140 employees in California, or about 40 percent of its manufacturing workforce in the United States, as it shifts its strategy in order to compete with large rivals, particularly those from China.

The company, which is part of Panasonic, is buiding a large factory in Malaysia that will make wafers and turn them into solar cells and then panels. Panasonic plans to invest 45 billion yen (about $580 million) in the new factory. A fellow manufacturer in Japan, Sumco, announced Friday it would get out of the business of making silicon wafers all together.

[MamaDearest]

Link to article: Sanyo to close solar factory in California

[GeronL]

more wasted taxpayer dollars

[bigbob]

well, not if you’re Malaysia..../sarc

[MamaDearest]

More correctly, subsidies are running out..... but the cause and effect are the same!!!!!! The pockets of the Obama/Pelosi/Biden/Gores and their "solar/green" allies are, in fact, having a much better personal "economy." Even the companies closing here seem to have money to invest elsewhere. Why aren't they being called to reimburse America for the taxpayer money they were handed on a silver platter?

[LibertarianLiz]

Yes, the wasted tax dollars in these green-energy boondoggles is bad; but, another key to this article would be the word, "California".

Sanyo is just one more, of an increasing stream, of companies leaving the "golden" state because of the taxes and reglations California imposes on its citizens and businesses.

California is a microcosm of the model that Zero wants for the entire U.S.

[GeronL]

taxes? They paid taxes ont the federal funding, not exactly losing anything/

[null and void]

SOLARGREEN IS PEOPLE!

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

The odd way of describing the wafer plants (so many megawatts), is a clue that your analysis is spot on. These plants consume a large amount of electricity to produce the silicon crystals. In that sense, they're like bauxite-reduction plants (AKA aluminum smelters). These tend to go where the electricity is cheapest. Cheap electricity doesn't flow from restrictive regulations.

[Rannug]

Yeah, one of the extremely few times owe bama has been right. The supposed “green energy” is creating jobs. Overseas. Dumbass.

[BfloGuy]

Without government subsidies, solar panels would be a consumer product for peoples' rooftops to save a few bucks when the sun is out. Let the Chinese invest billions in them. It will turn out to have been wasted just as much as the money put into all those ghost cities.

[Puckster]

Actually, it was Spain's green economy that Obama quoted as needing to follow......when that failed, California became the model.

I believe in solar, just not subsidized nor as a primary for the power-grid.

It has it's uses, but man, as a total replacement?

Environmentalists do believe there are too many people on the planet and they're trying to kill them off.

[RedMDer]

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