Solyndra

[Conan71]

I wonder if Kaiser knows about this?

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/01/19/bankrupt-solyndra-caught-destroying-brand-new-parts/

Meh.  They are just recycling.

[Gaspar]

Meh.  They are just recycling.

OUTRAGE.  That's high quality recyclable material!

[heironymouspasparagus]

Lucky said he would have bought the tubes...yeah, right.  Sooooo easy to say after the fact - hindsight is perfect.  There was the potential for a whole lot of crack pipes there.  Or maybe bongs.

Here is a very good engineering explanation of some of the problems they had.  As well as their production costs - $3. per watt??  Geez... no one was paying attention to the real world.  As compared to First Solar - at about a buck per watt.

http://www.edn.com/article/520093-Solyndra_Its_technology_and_why_it_failed.php

[dbacks fan]

For sale: Brand new state of the art mfg facility near San Jose, CA. Great highway access, facility has never been used, paid for by taxpayers at a bargain basement price.

[dbacks fan]

I meant for sale at bargin basement.

[we vs us]

You're going to hate this, but.....

You win some, you lose some.

[Conan71]

The outrage seems pretty selective at "1%'ers".  Why is it there doesn't seem to be much outrage at mega-wealthy bundlers for Obama, who didn't need government-backed loans in the first place, to finance their operations basically bilked the taxpayers out of several billion on questionable business enterprises?

[Red Arrow]

The outrage seems pretty selective at "1%'ers".  Why is it there doesn't seem to be much outrage at mega-wealthy bundlers for Obama, who didn't need government-backed loans in the first place, to finance their operations basically bilked the taxpayers out of several billion on questionable business enterprises?

That should be fairly obvious.  Old money vs. new money.  Green projects at any cost.  Punish the dirty oil and coal barons that are killing earth.......

[dbacks fan]

I guess it was seeing this facility and another just south of this location that it just kind of slaps you in the face if you only have seen it in the news. I was doing some other reading and found that these two facilities were built at the cost of almost a billion including the $538m they got from the fed, and when they built them there was already almost 1 million square feet of mfg space in Freemont already available.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/28/BURG1LAO3J.DTL

"There hasn't been a factory or warehouse building built in Silicon Valley in well over 10 years," Jeff Fredericks, managing partner at Colliers International in San Jose, said in an e-mail.

The asking rate for industrial properties in Silicon Valley is the fourth-most expensive in the country, according to Jack DePuy, Bay Area research manager at CB Richard Ellis in Foster City.

About 11.4 percent, or 950,801 square feet, of industrial space was vacant in Fremont in September 2009, according to data from Colliers.

"There was available space that we talked about with them," Bob Wasserman, Fremont's mayor, said in an interview. "It was their decision that they needed a new building. Was that a good decision? It didn't turn out to be."

[Conan71]

That should be fairly obvious.  Old money vs. new money.  Green projects at any cost.  Punish the dirty oil and coal barons that are killing earth.......

The true irony with Solyndra and Kaiser is a good amount of Kaiser's billions comes from filthy oil.

[heironymouspasparagus]

The outrage seems pretty selective at "1%'ers".  Why is it there doesn't seem to be much outrage at mega-wealthy bundlers for Obama, who didn't need government-backed loans in the first place, to finance their operations basically bilked the taxpayers out of several billion on questionable business enterprises?

And if you were in charge of fighting an epidemic of body odor, while there was a pandemic of smallpox, which would you expend your energy on?

[Red Arrow]

And if you were in charge of fighting an epidemic of body odor, while there was a pandemic of smallpox, which would you expend your energy on?

Body odor.  My grandfather survived smallpox in Poland when he was a kid.  I think I could do the same.

(Just kidding, but my grandfather really did survive smallpox.)

[heironymouspasparagus]

Body odor.  My grandfather survived smallpox in Poland when he was a kid.  I think I could do the same.

(Just kidding, but my grandfather really did survive smallpox.)

The elimination of body odor is the equivalent of what we are hearing about Solyndra.


I got the smallpox shot, so I missed getting it.  Thankfully.
Same with polio - but do have some friends and a nephew who got that.

[Red Arrow]

The elimination of body odor is the equivalent of what we are hearing about Solyndra.

I knew that was where you were going.  I think Solyndra was not thoroughly vetted but I don't have a big problem with the concept that a government investment can fail.  We just need to look more carefully to see what we get for our investment.  I think research rather than production of something with an already outdated process would be in order. 

I got the smallpox shot, so I missed getting it.  Thankfully.
Same with polio - but do have some friends and a nephew who got that.

Polio was a big deal when we both were kids.  I got the shots too. My best friend's father (friend our age) died from complications of polio in the late 50s or early 60s.  The father lived in an iron lung for many years.  I also had a friend (our age) in the volunteer fire dept of my original home town that had a "mild" case of polio.  He was lucky but was concerned about what might affect him as he aged.  I haven't seen him since we were in our early 20s.

[Conan71]

And if you were in charge of fighting an epidemic of body odor, while there was a pandemic of smallpox, which would you expend your energy on?

And if I had way more than enough resources to fight small pox, I'd do it on my own, not pimp the government others for money resources I didn't need in the first place.

Face it, your outrage is selective.  If this had been Rupert Murdoch, the late Ken Lay, or someone like that, we'd never hear the end of it.