The investigation into the Solyndra debacle took an embarrassing turn for the White House after emails show Biden staff . . . well . . . passionate over the prospects of funding the company with more than a half billion dollars in government loans awarded to Solyndra. Not only do emails shows a powerful donor did heavily lobby the White House, but one email says “They about had an orgasm in Biden’s office when we mentioned Solyndra.”
The email is from Ken Levit, executive director of the foundation, to Steve Mitchell, who served on Solyndra’s board. It is dated Feb. 27, 2010.
Obama Administration officials ignored warnings from experts that the company was in a highly precarious position and could implode.
Of course, who among us does not lose a bit of control when discussing cylindrical panels of CIGS thin-film solar cells? After all, this in 2010, making it a type of mid-term crisis. A young company with great assets meets an Administration looking for stimulus . . .
This appears to be the actual tape from the Biden meeting:
Source: Washington Times
The hidden truth is American solar manufacturers are screwed. China is heavily subsidizing their solar industry. They produce an inferior type but at such a low cost that better panels can not compete on a dollar per watt basis. Meanwhile they are “developing”* these better technologies themselves. The industry will be defunct elsewhere by the time these are brought to market. China has done this with several basic industries so that simple components are unavailable from anywhere but China today.
* – much of this “development” is being done by employees of the Chinese Army who know nothing of chemistry, physics or solar power but a great deal about computers and accessing them without notice.
I am not that sure thin-film solar is a viable industry anyway; it is not a specialty of mine but my understanding thus far is that it relies on rare earth elements, and if we mined and used every known deposit of those elements on the planet, and made panels out of all of them, we could use those panels to provide less than 1% of the world’s energy needs. And energy needs are growing exponentially with every decade, and the deposits of rare earth elements grow linearly if at all (technically they are a fixed amount, but new discoveries “grow” them).
The best use of thin-film solar is in very limited scientific and military applications that have nothing to do with regular consumers; such as powering spacecraft and satellites, automatic rovers, drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), manned remote terrain vehicles (to avoid gasoline transportation) and military encampment power, military robotics, etc (also to make them independent of fuel supply lines). Of course we could use them for small things like recharging cell phones or iPads, but they aren’t going to supply our homes and run the A/C.
The most viable consumer solar power in my view is thermal solar, using aluminum mirrors to focus the sun on a metal plate, that heat melts a salt that stores the heat for days, and can be used to run good ol’ steam turbines day or night. It is all just a modernization of century-old technology and engineering.
It is really just a construction project with very common materials, nothing special is required at all, and we could blanket our wastelands with it (New Mexico, I’m lookin’ at you!) (plus parts of California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, etc). The mirrors can be literally stamped out in any shape, both polished aluminum and glass are cheap as hell, work fine when they are thin, and maintenance is negligible. Cleaning can be automatized. The “machine” is resilient, it continues working even if ten or twenty percent of the mirrors are broken or mis-aimed. I am not sure what percentage of power that could supply, but I have read of projects in Spain and elsewhere that are powering full blown cities with it, 100%.
I suspect our American administration is more interested in supplying the military with what they want under the false promise of an alternative energy source that cannot really scale to solve our energy problems.
Tony C,
Informative post, thank you.
Solar energy is a field we, in the general population, need to understand a little better so that we can appreciate what actually needs to be done in order to develop the industry.
A lifelong friend of mine is a dense matter physicist. He has observed to me repeatedly that every single one of the so-called alternative energy sources proposed thus far are destructive to the environment in one way or another. Most have problems that offset any benefit that might accrue. By just kicking the can further down the road, we are not solving the problem but postponing a day of reckoning.
There will come a day when the population explosion will collide with declining food and energy resources. I fear for our species and our planet.
I would recommend the site: “Science Friday” for some discussions of alternative energy. There are many very good sources of energy that do not destroy the environment. There are even some new solar sources that do not use rare earth elements.
As to Solyndra–that is just a business deal for buddies of our lizard overlords. If you check into this further you will see that Solyndra has BFFs in the administration and the Koch brothers. Take note of the interlocking directorate!
I defer to my son on energy matters. He is a green energy consultant. I am giving a plug to the book he co-authored. The book’s name is the same as the video.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/03/koch-brothers-solyndra-obama-advertisement Koch brothers made an ad against Obama and Solyndra.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee/
Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era
I’ll take How to Rip the Government Off….for 532 Million….Alex…
anon nurse, That is it.
Can’t find a link to the scene, darn it, but there’s a scene in “You Can’t Take It With You” in which Jimmy Stewart rhapsodizes about developing solar energy. That show was at least 50 years ahead of its time.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcndLke9PZU&w=420&h=315%5D
Who the hell does Biden think he is . . . Rick Perry?
Woosty,
Now that is my kind of power generator!!
For a brief, shining moment, Spain was the best solar market in the world.
Unlike in cloudy Germany, the sun bakes Spain’s southwestern provinces — the brown, hard-packed Extremadura and Andalusía — on the Mediterranean coast. And the Spanish government, eager to fulfill its commitments to renewable energy, guaranteed generous subsidies for any company that met its aggressive deadlines.
“[The crash] was an inevitable consequence of a policy that was not … a long-term sustainable market design,” said Julie Blunden, vice president of public policy at U.S.-based SunPower Corp. “Whenever you’ve got something that’s unsustainable, eventually it gives. And lo and behold, that happened.”
By PAUL VOOSEN of Greenwire
Published: August 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/08/18/18greenwire-spains-solar-market-crash-offers-a-cautionary-88308.html?pagewanted=all
Over the last two years, DOE Secretary Steven Chu has awarded Spain-based Abengoa — a sprawling, multi-national industrial firm operating in 70 countries — loan guarantees worth a staggering $2.78 billion for solar and ethanol plants.
Abengoa is a Madrid-based conglomerate that operates throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. It is not starved for cash: according to its 2009 annual report, the firm was valued at $25.5 billion, enjoying a cash flow of $4 billion and a net profit of $288 million. It is traded on the Madrid and Barcelona stock exchanges and employs more than 25,000 workers.
At first glance, Abengoa does not appear to require U.S. government-backed loan guarantees. In 2010 it qualified for private bank loans in 11 countries worth $161 million. In July 2009 alone, Abengoa issued convertible bonds in Europe worth $688 million.
Overall, the Energy Department has awarded Abengoa three separate loan guarantees.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/another-doe-loan-scandal-abengoa/?singlepage=true
As White House Threatens to Defy Subpoena, New Emails Offer Glimpse of Close Ties Between Solyndra Investor & West Wing
Sampling of Emails Directly Contradicts Public Comments by White House – Committee Leaders Seek White House Cooperation with Subpoena
November 9, 2011
http://energycommerce.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=9077
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/10/keystone-xl-pipeline-state-department_n_1086319.html Pipeline delayed.
White House Misses Deadline for Solyndra Subpoena
The White House on Thursday missed the noon deadline for responding to the Republican-approved subpoena issued last week demanding the White House turn over “all documents” pertaining to the Solyndra loan guarantee.
But while White House aides earlier told Fox News there are no plans to produce more documents on the bankrupt solar panel firm until Republicans agree to narrow the scope of their request, House Republicans issued a statement saying they expect some response from the White House by the end of the day.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/10/white-house-misses-deadline-for-solyndra-subpoena/#ixzz1dL3NsFOt
“They about had an orgasm in Biden’s office when we mentioned Solyndra”
That is a statement by a person who is not currently having good orgasms.
“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” – Mark Twain