The scandal of Solyndra, a California based solar panal manufacturer came about when this company declared bankruptcy even after a $528 million in federal loan grants, laid off 1,100 workers, and was suspected of fraud by the FBI.  This scandal caused, according to the New York Times, “a highly partisan debate in Washington over the benefits or failings of Mr. Obama’s stimulus program and the wisdom of clean energy subsidies in general.”

The failure of Solyndra can be based off of a plethora of issues.  Although the design of the solar panels sought to cut cost with new cylindrical design that, while being innovative, also reduced the labor that was required for installation, the capital costs for manufacturing was still high along with the product and its success looking much better in the beginning design stages rather than when it hit the market.

What bothered the public most of all in the midst of this scandal was the governments involvement in it.  The loan guarantee of $535 million was the Obama administration’s first loan guarantee. “The administration, seeking to forge a “clean energy” economy and provide jobs in the face of a growing recession, picked the project partly because it was what government officials were then fond of calling “shovel ready” according to the New York Times.  Due to this blind faith in Solyndra the government allowed them to borrow from the Federal Financing Bank which is part of the Treasury Department.  So Solyndra was actually getting money directly from the government, which they collected $528 million of the $535 million promised before filing bankruptcy.

Although the end result for Solyndra was bad and damaged the public’s opinion of clean energy subsidies, it shouldn’t completely shift the public opinion of clean energy subsidies, not all are doomed to failure. As we have learned in extensive research we do need to find new forms of renewable energy for our world to last but since we are finding them that means that there will be “challenges of scaling up new technologies in tumultuous, unforgiving global markets,” according to the Huffington Post. As Mark Muro reported “it would be a serious mistake to over interpret regarding the Solyndra crack up, whether to generalize about the solar industry and cleantech or to broadly indict particular technology and development policies.”

Although pressure should be on the government to fully research and develop a plan with the company in question before giving out loans, our economy needs to be considered in these times as well, we should not forget the strides that have been made in clean energy thanks to subsidies from the government.  According to The Washington Post, “solar, wind, plug in vehicles- they’ve all benefited from billions of dollars in subsidies from Congress…as a result, many industries, like solar, have taken lengthy strides.” We cannot give up on funding clean energy altogether, perhaps we just need a better plan.

But according to a report from April 2012, clean energy subsidies are disappearing, possibly due to significant and public failures such as Solyndra.  By 2014 the subsides will shrink to $11.1 billion instead of the $44.3 billion they received in 2009, showing that clean energy subsidies are at a serious risk of disappearing almost all together. But thankfully people are not giving up on clean energy altogether and instead are looking for ways to fund them that don’t present such a potential damage to the economy, such as “feed in tariffs”, as seen in Germany’s green energy policy, in which the money given decreases over time which forces technology to keep improving in order to stay profitable.

Sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/clean-energy-subsidies-are-vanishing-what-should-replace-them/2012/04/18/gIQApCUYQT_blog.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-muro/solyndra-solar-bankruptcy-solar-power-_b_947046.html

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/solyndra/index.html