Blame-China Chorus Grows as Solyndra Falls

[dkf]

The collapse of Solyndra LLC has renewed demands from U.S. lawmakers and union leaders that the Obama administration pursue unfair-trade complaints against China for out-sized subsidies to its clean-energy companies.

“The American solar industry is facing unparalleled challenges, and without the leadership of your administration this industry may disappear,” Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said in a Sept. 8 letter urging President Barack Obama to file a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization.

Wyden wrote two days after Solyndra, which received $535 million in loan guarantees from the Energy Department, filed for bankruptcy protection. China provided $30 billion in credit to its biggest solar manufacturers last year, about 20 times the U.S. effort, Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department’s loan program, told a congressional panel Sept. 14.

China “frequently provides both zero-cost financing, occasionally free land and other kinds of incentives and subsidies” to its wind and solar companies, Silver said. Silver called for the U.S. “to take on this challenge” for a global market that will be “worth trillions of dollars.” He didn’t join critics such as Wyden and the United Steelworkers union who say China’s subsidies should be challenged as unfair.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-23/blame-china-chorus-grows-as-solyndra-fails-amid-cheap-imports.html

[xchrom]

1. Unrec

[Vincardog]

2. Mexico and all of Latin America say the same thing about OUR Corn subsidies.

[dkf]

3. The corn subsidies which bastardize the rest of our food supply.

We need to stop that.

[vets74]

4. China put $30-billion to building new chrystalline-sheet technology solar PV panels.

Photovoltaic....

Solyndra was a good bet to hit the $2/watt price level. That needed to see production efficiencies as they figured out the new plant.

But MiaSole and First Solar are looking at $0.85 to $1/watt. Sputter technology from the microchip industry, which will wipe out the Solyndra technology as well.

The Solyndra design has advantages.

MiaSole's solar PV shingles, too. Shingles are a great idea if this works.

Btw: the Chinese $30-billion investment ??? Glad that's not my money.