Solar start-up Solyndra LLC, succumbing to pressure from lower-cost Chinese rivals, said it has suspended operations and plans to file for bankruptcy, 15 months after President Barack Obama visited a company factory that was to be expanded with the help of a federal loan guarantee.
The Chapter 11 filing, expected next week, will make Solyndra the third U.S. solar company to seek bankruptcy protection in the last month. Former Wall Street high flyer Evergreen Solar Inc filed for Chapter 11 two weeks ago, followed four days later by SpectraWatt Inc, a private company that was backed by Intel Corp.
Representative Henry Waxman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce said the bankruptcies "are unfortunate warnings that the United States is in danger of losing its leadership position in the clean energy economy of the future ... We should be doing everything possible to ensure the United States does not cede the renewable energy market to China and other countries."
Our usual friends on the right are cheering these lost solar jobs, because they don't really care how many people get hurt as long as they get ammunition to attack the President. They scream about "half a billion dollars in crony capitalism" when oil companies are on the take for 80 times that amount of taxpayer largesse every single year, some $40 billion. Republicans have no problem with "crony capitalism" when it comes to protecting big oil as the GOP killed the Democrats' effort to end actual crony capitalism.
But facts don't matter much, especially the fact that the US is a net exporter of solar technology, over $5 billion last year alone. China's trying to lowball us on the market, and the Republicans are screaming themselves hoarse for the Chinese to win this fight, as today proves. But hating on green energy and the President is all that matters to them.
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