Monday, March 23, 2009
DOE Finally Issues Solar Loan Guarantee
The guarantee could help Solyndra, a solar cell company, scale-up production.
By Kevin Bullis
The Department of Energy has finally offered a renewable-energy company one of its long awaited loan guarantees. On Friday, the DOE offered Solyndra, a company that makes cylindrical solar cells for commercial rooftops, a loan guarantee of $535 million, designed to allow the company to raise money to build a factory.
Congress approved loan guarantees for energy companies in 2005 and the DOE is only now getting around to offering them. The guarantee for Solyndra is supported by this year's stimulus bill, and is part of the new Energy Secretary Steven Chu's effort to speed things up.
Many experts consider loan guarantees important for getting new technologies from the prototype and pilot stage into mass production. Especially for energy companies, which require large amounts of capital, getting the first commercial-scale production facility built can be a challenge. Few financiers are willing to hand out large amounts of money for an unproven technology, and the loan guarantees can take away that risk.
Others are concerned that the loan guarantees involve relying on the government to pick winning technologies. The government has often chosen poorly, perhaps most famously with a scheme to produce synthetic fuel after oil crises in the 1970s.
What do you think? Are the DOE loan guarantees a good move?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
lasertekk
03/23/2009
Posts:77
gp011
03/23/2009
Posts:2
cripdyke
03/23/2009
Posts:17
Kevin Bullis
03/23/2009
Posts:92
What's worse, once a group has its snout in the taxpayers pocket, they are extraordinarily difficult to terminate. They develop lobbying efforts to maintain their perk(s).
Just look at the ongoing absurdity of Ethanol from Corn.
Higher food prices
Higher gasoline prices
Higher taxes / deficits
Lower MPG
Ethanol into gasoline mandates
Tariffs on Ethanol imports
Economically indefensible.
Yet, it goes on.
Corn state Senators.
nekote
03/24/2009
Posts:138
Finally - there should also be some type of recycling service established up front so old solar systems can be recycled and new ingot materials collected for refurbishment.
mkogrady
03/25/2009
Posts:202
I recommend we give the money to home owners who install solar solutions in the next two years. To start the discussion how about a tax refund of $4 per installed, demonstrated, peak watt output installed and attached to the grid in the next 24 months claimable on your income tax with a proof of performance from an independent energy auditor or payment from the utility that accepts the electricity.
One advantage of this approach is you would get all tax payers talking about the alternatives. Another is that these home owners would employ construction workers installing all this stuff.
georgeheintz...
03/25/2009
Posts:2
Amazing that the Bush Gang managed to delay this from 2005, staving off competition with beloved Peabody Coal.
Apparently the law that you have to flunk math to be a reporter even applies to MIT-TR. If you're having trouble with Millions vs Billions, spend some time playing quiz games at Gadzillion.org.
Hint: A million is $0.003 per American. A billion is $3.33 per American. So this investment amounts to about $1.50 per American- small change for a technology that very likely will make your electricity cheaper, and substantially reduce the cost of adapting to climate change.
This will have more impact than hiring a few people- it will very likely start producing energy supply cheaper than coal-- and that get a trillion dollar market rolling. But the main savings, if we make renewables cheaper than coal, is in cities. We have lots of coastal cities left after New Orleans, but they are all at risk, and will be very expensive to replace. You don't get much infrastructure for $500 million...
cypherpunk
03/25/2009
Posts:3