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Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
No company has done greater damage to the image of the American solar industry than Solyndra. It was therefore a source of great delight to me last week as I drove along Interstate 880 through Fremont, CA for what I didn’t see. The signs on the old factory were gone. Those persistent thorns in the side of American solar, had finally vanished, closing (more…)
Posted in North America, Solar | 3 Comments »
Friday, September 21st, 2012
Here’s the main reason I couldn’t get within a million miles of an elected position in the US: I wouldn’t vote for the political grandstanding represented by legislation like the “No More Solyndras” Act. I wouldn’t be a part of obscuring from the American people that energy sector loan guarantees from the federal government have resulted in a huge number (more…)
Posted in Legislation, North America, Renewables | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 17th, 2012
The US solar industry is undergoing some serious growing pains, with bankruptcies and mergers a necessary part of that process; meanwhile, competition from Chinese solar panels has many believing that American solar simply cannot compete. Not so.
Solar’s track record is certainly not inspiring: The (more…)
Posted in North America, Solar | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
This month’s issue of Wired magazine includes a long feature, written by Washington Post national environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin, headlined “Why the Clean Tech Boom Went Bust.” (Disclosure: I’m a contributing editor at Wired, and Eilperin is an acquaintance.) The story, which joins a lengthening list of obits for the cleantech industries, has a certain (more…)
Posted in Finance, Renewables | No Comments »
Monday, February 6th, 2012
Amid all the negative publicity that Solyndra’s failure has brought to the Administration’s cleantech efforts, one cleantech program has received broad bipartisan support: DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-e). In 2012, ARPA-e will receive $275 million, a 53% increase from the prior year with both the House and the Senate supporting significant (more…)
Posted in Finance, North America, Renewables | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
How do we know when solar becomes a mainstream energy source?
One tipoff: when mainstream energy companies get serious about solar.
For example, take NRG, a Fortune 250 wholesale energy generator with about 26 GW of capacity in its (more…)
Posted in North America, Solar | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
We spend our days advocating for smart solar policy because we believe that harnessing the sun for more of our power is the better path forward. Turns out plenty of our fellow Americans feel the same way.
Polling released yesterday by SEIA and Schott shows that an impressive 9 out of 10 Americans think it’s (more…)
Posted in North America, Solar | No Comments »
Monday, October 31st, 2011
The cleantech industry as a whole, and the electric vehicle industry in particular, have been in the news nearly every day since Solyndra went bust, and not in a good way. The media and blogosphere are repeatedly asking the question, Which company will be the next recipient of money from the Department (more…)
Posted in Electric Vehicles, North America | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
The Solyndra debacle is no surprise to this cleantech venture capitalist. The inherent conflict between trying to get money out of the U.S. Treasury as quickly as possible to stimulate the economy and, at the same time, have government agencies that are ill-suited at making business decisions do just that was nothing other than a recipe for disaster. (more…)
Posted in Finance, Legislation, North America | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
For those of you who, like me, watch very little commercial news television, here’s a sample of reporting to consumers on the energy industry. This happens to concern Solyndra – a debacle that’s thrown a cold swimming pool of water on the already floundering US renewable energy industry. (more…)
Posted in Finance, North America | 3 Comments »
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