Time: Don’t Be Fooled By the Solyndra Bankruptcy Circus — Solar Is Booming

[flpoljunkie]

Don’t Be Fooled By the Solyndra Bankruptcy Circus — Solar Is Booming
By MICHAEL GRUNWALD
September 14, 2011

I doubt the facts are going to matter much now that Republicans have latched onto the Solyndra solar “scandal,” and even if they did matter, I’d be the wrong guy to defend the Obama administration (and some of the world’s top venture capitalists) for making the same honest mistake I made. After a few dozen Solyndra hearings like the one in the House today, nobody’s going to remember the Bush administration was just as hellbent to make this loan. Nobody’s going to care that all successful loan programs have failures, that the Solyndra venture was barely 1% of the Energy Department’s $40 billion clean-energy portfolio, that there will still be over $2 billion in reserves for busted loans no matter how Solyndra shakes out. That’s politics.

But I do want to push back against the idea that Solyndra’s failure reflects some kind of failure of the solar industry. That’s just wrong. The solar industry is on fire, thanks to the same collapse in prices that doomed Solyndra.

In just the last two months, about 7,000 megawatts of new solar projects were added to the U.S. pipeline. That’s the equivalent of seven nuclear reactors, which is seven more than we’ve built in the last three decades. And that doesn’t include residential projects, like the unprecedented “Solar Strong” effort to install photovoltaic panels on 160,000 rooftops on military housing that was just announced last week. The U.S. solar market doubled last year, and it’s expected to double again this year, even though many states are reducing their subsidies. How many other industries are growing that fast in this economy?

The collapse of Solyndra is an embarrassing bump on the road to a clean-energy future. Maybe it’s a coincidence that the politicians who are hyping Solyndra tend to be the politicians who want to close that road. But we’re getting farther down the road than people realize. And it’s taking us where we need to go.

http://swampland.time.com/2011/09/14/dont-be-fooled-by-the-solyndra-bankruptcy-circus-solar-is-booming/

[rfranklin]

1. That's great news! But will we hear over the screeching of the Republicans?

Who knows. But it does sound like solar is going gangbusters. They probably won't be able to kill it no matter how hard they try to on orders from their petroleum masters.

[tcaudilllg]

3. And the media.

I believe the corporate elites see this as an opportunity to bring down Obama.

[Supersedeas]

6. even NPR has been on a clean energy bashfest as a result of the bankruptcy

[applegrove]

2. We were driving in the countryside today and saw several rural homes with solar panels on the lawn.

[In Jest]

4. Kick'nRec!

:-)

[pnorman]

5. SOLAR, K & R!

n/t

[MH1]

7. k & r for the weekend crowd.

[former9thward]

8. Solar may be booming but jobs in the industry are not.

Solyndra collapsed because of competition from China. Solar is creating jobs in China not the U.S.