Why the Government Should Stay Out of Green Energy

[Geee]

Human Events:

Why the Government Should Stay Out of Green Energy
by Brian Sussman
11/22/2010

In the realm of solar power, there has never been more fanfare for a startup than in the case of Solyndra. Founded in 2005, the company’s rooftop-mounted solar panels were immediately touted as “the next big thing” in alternative energy.

Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Solyndra has been a magnet for venture capital cash from the Silicon Valley.
However, just before Solyndra’s promising glow of success began to fade, the last big investor stepped into the boardroom: The Obama Administration. And man, did the American taxpayer get played.


As a local I watched Solyndra successfully raise nearly a billion dollars in private equity financing between 2005 and 2009. Simultaneously, I witnessed the company go on a wild infrastructure spending spree, throwing hundreds of millions into an over-the-top, designer-rich, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility—which is not inexpensive to do in the Bay Area. Real estate prices remain the highest in the country there, and construction costs are exorbitant too. Simply constructing a shell to house a manufacturing plant costs at least $300 per square foot (Solyndra’s was likely much more); and that figure doesn’t include the specialized manufacturing equipment needed to build Solyndra’s proprietary solar panels. By locating the plant next door in Nevada they could have reduced their construction costs by at least 50 percent.