The Solyndra Scandal consists of a political controversy involving Obama’s administration and its decision to authorize a loan of $535 million in order to guarantee the Solyndra Corporation in 2009 as a part of an environmental program to spur alternative energy growth.
Solyndra is a corporation founded to provide an alternative to silicon-based solar panels amidst a worldwide shortage. According to their website, their solar power solutions offer strong return on investment and make great business sense. Their technology was designed for the rooftop and offers the benefit of lightweight, low cause and the fastest, easiest installation of any solar technology.
Now, back to the scandal. In August of 2009, the Office of Management and Budget was asked about the status of the loan to the solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra. In September of 2011 the company filed for bankruptcy and a few days later the FBI raided their offices yet refused to discuss an details of the investigation.
The loan was granted by the Department of Energy (DoE) under the green-infrastructure provisions of President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill, and OMB officials privately said they felt pressured to approve the loan prematurely.
The Washington Post reported these facts after obtaining internal administration emails. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Republican Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), held a hearing on the Solyndra loan and the emails on Wednesday, where officials from OMB and DOE testified.
Now, the controversy here is that House Republicans allege that the White House pressured OMB to approve the loan prematurely and ignored Solyndra’s financial problems and background and that they did this for political reasons – the administration was rushing to show and promote their action to promote “green”.
The Washington Post says there are 5 myths on the Scandal:
1) This scandal is no big deal
2) Solyndra proves that energy-loan guarantees are a flop.
3) The government should leave energy R&D to the private sector
4) Solar is a doomed industry.
5) It’s all China’s fault
If you want to read more about these myths: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/five-myths-about-the-solyndra-collapse/2011/09/14/gIQAfkyvRK_blog.html
Now, in order to understand more clearly what happened, I found that this video helps a lot. In it Allen Barton, Terry Jones and Tim Cavanaugh discuss the Solyndra solar energy scandal. The refer to questions such as, will there be criminal charges? Do we need more sunshine on this green energy debacle? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94OPLs3bNuA&feature=fvst
Other perspectives believe that the real problem are their energy subsides.
Energy subsidies are measures that keep prices for consumers below market levels or for producers above market levels, or reduce costs for consumers and producers.
There are some types of subsidies:
This video is really good at talking about this, but most importantly, fitting it in the Solyndra scandal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb3hjjLbmsk&feature=fvst
Bloomberg sums up this matter very well; I choose to quote them because not only are they very clear, but I agree with their opinion and perspective:
“Since 2009, the Department of Energy has awarded or conditionally committed more than $30 billion in guarantees to support construction of 42 alternative-energy projects. About $9 billion of proposed guarantees are awaiting final approval by Sept. 30. But in this build-out phase, private-sector financing works far better than government backing.
Energy-related loan guarantees arose from the stimulus legislation of 2009. Policy makers thought a huge infusion of low-cost loans would create many thousands of jobs at solar- panel factories, alternative-energy power plants and the like. There was an implicit assumption that most of these ventures would succeed.
Barring fraud, Solyndra’s failure reflects the company’s bet on an inadequate technology. Its tubes, coated with an unusual four-metal compound, were supposed to cut power costs more than 20 percent. That wasn’t nearly enough. Production costs fell much faster for a rival technology, conventional flat silicon panels, and Solyndra couldn’t compete.”
Unfortunately, in today’s society, most of what is done by the government is done with political intentions and most importantly, intentions that lead to financial victory or power instead of the genuine intention of focusing on the cause and consequences. To me, this scandal is a purely political and makes me question the motivation behind and execution of the government’s green stimulus spending
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra_loan_controversy
http://www.xconomy.com/national/2011/12/12/energy-subsidies-a-historical-perspective/2/
SOLAR CELL LAB
Our Solar Cell lab worked with the of understanding the relationship between light intensity and the voltage output of the solar cell, as well as the relationship between the wavelength of the light and the voltage output of the solar cell.
Our lab was quiet simple, we began by setting up our solar cell and probe to our NXT and we were ready to begin. We plugged it into the computer and ran the program.
To being with we used our materials to conduct two types of trials. One type, which consisted of 4 trials, measured the intensity of light in different distances. Along with my partner, we measured the light intensity from 5cm, 10 cm, 18 cm and 30 cm. The point of this set of trials was to compare Photovoltaic Voltage in relation to distance.
Photovoltaics employ solar panels composed of solar cells with photovoltaic material in order to generate constant electricity power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity.
Our results were the following:
Although the experiment seemed to be going ok and we followed all the instructions, our results came out a little weird. I believe this happened because of where the flashlight was flashed on the solar cell. In other words, in 2 of the trials it was pointed directly at it and during others it wasn’t. There could be other explanations, but the results don’t make a lot of sense.
Our second set of 4 trials maintained the same distance, but change the color filter of the light. Our results consisted of the following:
These results made sense, the darker the filter, the less light went through and therefore it resulted in a low number of photovoltaic voltage.