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Fun fact: Solyndra was the 1st firm to get a renewable loan because it was #1 on Bush DOE’s list. (Also: The loan portfolio is profitable.)
Screw it, let’s do this. Bush’s DOE ranked Solyndra #1 out of 143 applicants. Richard Branson’s fund ranked it #1 of 117 applicants. 2
Did you know Solyndra raised $1B in private capital? It was the toast of the Valley. Its tech was revolutionary. 3
Did you know Solyndra’s revenues soared from $6M in 2008 to $140M in 2010? It was an innovative company selling a new kind of solar panel. 4
So what happened? Cheap solar happened. Solyndra’s business model assumed expensive solar; its cool tech turned out to be unnecessary. 5
So Solyndra failed. But the Fox News take that solar failed was 100% wrong; solar installations have increased 40-fold. 6
The failure rate of Obama’s clean energy loan portfolio is only 3%. In my opinion that’s too low. They should’ve financed riskier stuff. 7
But the point of the $90B for clean energy in the Obama stimulus was to launch a clean energy revolution in the US. And it worked. 8
Solyndra and A123 failed. So did the biorefineries and carbon capture projects. But solar, wind, LEDs and batteries took off. 9
They weren’t “picking winners and losers.” They picked the game of clean energy, and let the market sort out winners and losers. 10
Solyndra lost. That was a shame, but it was not a scandal. None of the million investigations found wrongdoing. 11
But it will be hard to make the investments needed to fix the climate, because all we remember about the last investments is Solyndra. END
I should’ve mentioned that all these fun facts and so many others were in a fun book: amazon.com/New-Deal-Hidde… END FOR REAL
