Yet another boon doggle made with your money!

Solyndra Employee: “Everyone Knew The Plant Wouldn’t Work”

Perspective is a wonderful study:

The Politician might ask, will this Company bring jobs to my district? Will it support the views of my Party?  The Scientist or Professor might ask, will this get our company or department a big fat government grant?

Perhaps the better question is:  Will this idea or product have a chance of surviving in the market place? At least the same chance as a snowball surviving a week in hell?

It wasn’t that long ago, that the US Government decided to give a big chunk of our money to a solar panel company who was setting up shop in Boston. The average DIYer would have quickly accessed the Product and the cost and condemned it to failure, BUT this idea was considered a hot political treasure, Green as it gets, and full of the promise of Green Economy jobs.

Meanwhile, those who make real world assessment of products got out their favorite tool for making real world assessments, more powerful than a crystal ball!  Yes, you guessed it, a pencil!

Solar Panel Distributors were quick to discover that the new technology used to build the panel in Boston Mass was 20% larger for the same energy output as competing panels, and they were just large enough where UPS and FEDEX won’t handle them! What this means is the panel can NOT compete at all in the small installations, as the cost of truck shipping the panels negates any savings one could realize….ever.

If we study the larger installations where the far more expensive truck shipping must be considered for all the other pieces, the Engineer notes the additional square footage for the same output, and realizes the added cost of installing 20% more support, the extra labor costs, and more. He also finds that in some potential installs, there’s a shortage of south facing exposure to accomodate the panels required to meet the anticipated energy production goal.

Most Business People who study this project would agree, it was ill conceived, and short sighted.  For those politicians who endorsed the idea of squandering the public treasury on the idea, it may have been a little like pulling the trigger on a loaded shot gun without noting the gun was pointed at their head! I hope the public is smart enough to understand that politicians seldom if ever make a good business decisions. Nor is their reality likely to be confused with real world reality.

Those who care to read.. will learn the same game continues. There’s plenty of ink left to print more Federal Reserve notes, and they can be handed out in return for political favors. No one in their right mind would suggest that there was any kind of acessment done to determine if these projects were viable, as the effort would be considered so shameful that those involved would likely never work again outside of fast food service jobs. We’ll skip over the question as to whether the Government should be willy nilly investing your future.. those who can follow cause and effect will have little trouble reaching an opinion that reflects reality.

Study this company, and the Politicians who took your Social Security payments out of the general fund and handed it to this company! This is a non partisan issue, where were your representatives and why weren’t they giving a warning?

Solyndra Filing for Bankruptcy

Krauthammer: Solyndra Most Expensive Photo Op In American History

Please note: It’s september 14th, Al Gore has promised to swarm the media with his message today!… “Go green” it’s all good.. “good for him” and if you take a moment to see what kind of grant money his companies have received from the public treasury you’ll be pissed.

Added note: For those who are not blinded by a thin coat of green paint. If you are taking a Journalisim class, in high school or college, you have an ideal story to cover in interviewing the 1100 workers who were given jobs at the Solyndra plant. How many financed moving their entire famlies to this location? Who bought a new car, signed a two year lease for an apartment? Bought other stuff they can no longer pay for?

GB