Solyndra as a victim of entrepreneurial history

LP note: This is what I teach my students — the business of technological advances is not all ups. It's a progression of ups and downs. Usually the end result is up, but there are the inevitable failures along the way. Look at the history just in this century: Cars, aeronautics, radio, TV, computers, internet. The evidence is clear.

In the case of Solyndra, it was external inputs that caused the company's rise and demise. Sure, U.S. taxpayers lost money. But this amount is clearly minuscule compared to the amounts lost due to the 2008 financial meltdown and the Iraq War.

And who knows? Solyndra's technology may ultimately win out in the end ... once the Chinese see it as superior and adopt it.

Why the Clean Tech Boom Went Bust

By Juliet Eilperin   January 20, 2012  |  3:21 pm  |  Wired February 2012

In 2005, Congress created a federal loan guarantee program as part of the Energy Policy Act, which initially was authorized at $4 billion. Though ostensibly set up to promote nonpolluting energy sources, it was, like most federal slush funds, created by a politician (in this case, former Republican New Mexico senator Pete Domenici) to help a specific industry (in this case, nuclear energy). But the expected nuclear renaissance never happened; the private market was unwilling to finance plants that cost billions to build, created toxic waste, and ran into all the NIMBY hurdles that come with nuclear energy. So the door was open for applications from other clean-energy sectors.

While solar projects would ultimately receive more than three-quarters of the program’s financial support, the list of recipients included everything from a wind farm in Oregon to a cellulosic ethanol plant in Kansas. But by the time Bush left office, not a penny had been distributed. Most of the applications, including one from Solyndra, were still wending their way through the approval rounds at the Department of Energy. There were only 16 employees tasked with sorting through the applications and relevant data, and the loan program was more of a theoretical construct than an engine of economic activity.

Then Obama took office, and the loan program suddenly had an administration committed to using federal dollars to stimulate what it referred to repeatedly as “the clean-energy economy.” For Democrats, the concept of clean energy hit every button there was to push: It addressed the looming problem of climate change, offered a domestic source of electricity and fuel, and promised new jobs in a shaky economy.

The Department of Energy, which for decades had focused on managing nuclear waste and weapons and doling out subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, had a new leader—Steven Chu, a renowned physicist and Nobel laureate—and a fresh mandate.

(More here.)

Watching China Run

(LP note: To the right is the world’s largest solar powered office building, located in Dezhou, northwest China. Photo: Livbit.)

By BOB HERBERT
NYT

It was primarily a symbolic gesture. Way back in 1979, in the midst of an energy crisis, Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. They were used to heat water for some White House staffers.

“A generation from now,” said Mr. Carter, “this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people, harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”

Ronald Reagan had the panels taken down.

We missed the boat then, and lord knows we’re missing it now. Two weeks ago, as I was getting ready to take off for Palo Alto, Calif., to cover a conference on the importance of energy and infrastructure for the next American economy, The Times’s Keith Bradsher was writing from Tianjin, China, about how the Chinese were sprinting past everybody else in the world, including the United States, in the race to develop clean energy.

(More here.)

For businesses, easy energy solutions pay off

Minnesota mall goes solar

By Tim Krohn, Mankato Free Press

MANKATO, MINN. — The sun is back, even though the roof is still on.

Before the downtown Mankato Place was enclosed as a mall during urban renewal in the 1970s, the sun shined down on the store fronts.

Now the largest solar collection system in southern Minnesota has been installed on Mankato Place.

Besides the more traditional solar panels that provide electricity, several of the offices and the commons area have new high-tech sky lights that provide enough light to often eliminate the need for other lighting.

“As our electric bills continue to climb, it just makes sense,” said Gordon Awsumb of Awsumb & Associates, who redeveloped the 18,000-square-foot mall as it went from a retail mall to office and entertainment center.

The skylights, 4 feet across, have an automated, mirrored reflector system that tracks the sun through out the day to capture the most sunlight and reflect light down to offices. The panels have a small solar-powered motor that move the panels.

“On sunny days, it produces all the light you need for office spaces,” Awsumb said.

If it is cloudy, or as the sun is low in the sky, the system automatically turns on electric lights in the office as needed to provide steady illumination. Ciralight, the company that makes the sky lights, said they eliminate 80 per cent of the electricity need for lighting in commercial buildings.

The skylights were installed in the commons areas of the mall as well as the new regional offices of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the public defender’s office, Sen. Norm Coleman’s local office, the Minnesota Workforce Center and the Minnesota Corrections Department office.

Awsumb also had installed solar collection panels on the roof and above the awnings of Buffalo Wild Wings that will generate electricity.

The solar panels will produce 6 per cent of all the electrical needs of the mall. In the summer, when the panels are producing the most, excess electricity will be sent out to the grid. “In the summer, the meter will be running backwards,” Awsumb said.

Al Christensen, a salesman with Innovative Power Systems, which installed the solar collector system, said most Minnesotans mistakenly believe the power of the sun is not productive here.

“Southern Minnesota has just as much solar power as parts of Texas and Florida. That surprises people,” Christensen said.

His company has been around 17 years and installed 300 systems.

“Initially, the homeowners were the driving market. Now businesses are seeing the benefits.” Part of the attraction is a 30 percent tax credit small businesses can claim for installing the alternative energy systems.

Awsumb said the combined system will provide a 23 percent savings in electricity costs. He said the payback period for the skylights will be six to seven years. “It’s a 17 percent annual return. Any business would like a return like that.”

Awsumb said the solar- collection panel will have a longer payback of about 15 years, depending on how fast electric costs increase.

Awsumb thinks the system isn’t just good business, but good for the environment and the future.

“From a national policy standpoint, we’re not building new power plants.

So the cost is going to keep going up. If every commercial building had 23 percent of its power gained like this, we wouldn’t need more coal-burning plants.”

Awsumb said he’d been thinking about the conversion for years and settled on the system after he built a solar townhome project in Minneapolis. “ The townhome project was successful and interesting, but I wanted to apply it to a large-scale commercial project.”

A Little Demonstration with a Big Message

by Leigh Pomeroy

Across the country, Saturday was "Step It Up 2007" day. Set up by a seed group led by environmentalist Bill McKibben and a half-dozen students at Middlebury College, Step it Up is a movement to increase awareness about global warming. McKibben is the author of the 1989 book, "The End of Nature," one of the first tomes to warn of the dangers of climate change.

According to Step It Up's website, there were nearly 1,400 events across the country on Saturday. Democracy Now called it "the largest-ever demonstration against global warming."

The events varied in size from 1,200 in Manhattan to 500 in Chicago to "hundreds" in St. Paul and nearly 50 in North Mankato.

While the numbers weren't huge in relation to mega-demonstrations of the past advocating for civil rights, voting rights, an end the Vietnam War and support of immigrant issues, the sheer number of activities across the country were more than ample evidence of grassroots involvement.

In Mankato the organizer was Deeba Rahman, a young computer programmer for a large local employer. By her own admission, this was her first involvement in organizing such an event, and she was more than a little nervous. But her efforts did manage to attract the attention of the local CBS affiliate and newspaper, as well as passing cars honking in support and at least one pickup driver whose comments were not as appreciative.

Issue advocacy makes strange bedfellows, and the other leader of the group was David Johnson, a 40-something-year-old radiologist at the local hospital. To look at him one might instantly think "Republican," but he drives a Chevy S-10 all-electric pickup, one of the few ever made in the country, and will happily talk about the solar-electric system that occupies the roof on his garage on his rural property near Mankato.

Global warming and carbon reduction advocacy may not attract the big numbers, but the tide is swelling for change. And it appeared from this small group in North Mankato that at least a few folks are willing to make their commitment public.