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General discussion

Solar Power, Obama, Solyndra, Economic News

Sep 7, 2015 11:16PM PDT
First the economic news about solar power.

"Rising to the top of the solar industry is the easy part. Staying there has proven more of a challenge.

No one illustrates that better these days than Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., which was until last year the world’s biggest panel company by shipments. It’s lost two-thirds of its market value in 2015 and in May acknowledged “substantial doubt” about whether it can stay afloat amid a pile of debt. The Baoding, China-based manufacturer will report second-quarter results Tuesday and analysts are expecting a 16th straight loss.

It’s a familiar story in the solar business. Yingli followed Suntech Power Holdings Co., another Chinese panelmaker that held, and lost the top spot in the industry. Before that, Germany’s Q-Cells SE held the No. 1 position. Both went bankrupt, felled by debt and high costs in an industry where prices have plunged....
Yingli was among dozens of Chinese companies that flooded into the solar business over the past decade. The influx helped push panel prices down more than two-thirds since 2010. It also led to a global oversupply that pushed at least 30 companies in bankruptcy....
With debt far exceeding the company’s market capitalization, “what value do you have?” he asked. “Relatively speaking, nothing. The company is owned by the debt holders, pretty much. At some point, they will have to decide what to do with it.”"


We saw this already with Solyndra, Obama's pick of solar panel companies.

"Solyndra was a manufacturer of cylindrical panels of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells based in Fremont, California. Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with conventional solar panels made of crystalline silicon.[1] The company filed for bankruptcy on September 1, 2011."

It didn't even last till Obama was out of office.

"Solyndra received a $536 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee, the first recipient of a loan guarantee under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. [21] Additionally, Solyndra received a $25.1 million tax break from California's Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority.[22]

Following the bankruptcy, the government was expected to recoup $27 million under the Solyndra restructuring plan, but no money was ever recovered."


So, Obama took a sawbuck from every working person's wallet for that fiasco of his. Just think, I could have had a McDonald's meal for that, and helped provide income to a low income wage earner instead. At least I'd have gotten a meal out of it. Obama got us nothing from it.

Discussion is locked

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Jon Stewart on Obama and Solyndra
Sep 7, 2015 11:24PM PDT
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Psssst! Did anyone tell Obama?
Sep 7, 2015 11:42PM PDT

He's still at it. Maybe he still believes Solyndra is still operating. Did anyone tell him they bankrupted, or just kept him in the dark? He's still going on about how many jobs it will create. Hmm, I can remember how many jobs they promised last time that are not there. Isn't he tired of failures yet? He should just sit down in the Oval Office, hope nothing earth moving happens, and wait for the end of his administration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/us/obama-solar-power-renewable-energy.html?_r=0

" President Obama flew west into the blistering sun of this desert oasis on Monday not so much to issue a dour warning about the dangers of climate change — moralizing does not become this freewheeling city — but to speak with great hope about solar and other renewable forms of energy.

“We’re here today because we believe that no challenge poses a greater threat to our future than climate change,” Mr. Obama said. “But we’re also here because we hold another belief, and that is, we are deeply optimistic about American ingenuity.”

While promoting the benefits of all renewable energy, including wind power, the president focused largely on solar energy, part of an increasingly intense effort to counter global warming by instituting policies to reshape the nation’s energy industry.

“I noticed you got a lot of sun around here,” he said in the speech, and he noted that the “solar industry now employs twice as many Americans as mining coal.”"


Of course it MAY employ more NOW, probably not the "twice as much" as he claims, but that's because of Obama's "War on Coal" for the preceeding years and he's put more out of work in the coal industry than solar energy has yet managed to provide jobs. He's also succeeded in having our coal mines sold off to China.

That's like these coupon clippers who talk about how much they saved at the store, but fail to tell how much they had to spend to accomplish it, if it was something they really needed, and if what they bought was their preferred brand or even of the same quality, and if they could have gotten similar at same price or cheaper of another brand. He is still the Liar in Chief, and will never change. It seems to be a part of his inborn basic nature.