Alternative Energy HQ solar power for homes, wind energy, and bio fuel issues
Sometimes you just have to scratch your head and wonder. We currently have a politico climate where there is great debate over the Solyndra bankruptcy and the money they got from the US in support of the solar energy products they were developing. While I am not one to sneeze at $500 million it just seems like we have gone overboard here by focusing so heavily on this one company and not on the big picture. If the media and politicians would step back and reveal how much support and subsidy the oil and nuclear power companies have gotten over the years the public would be much more concerned than this one company going under. Everyone acts as though the whole solar power industry is going down the toilet, which of course is far far from the truth. Solyndra was on the wrong track with their products. Plain and simple, but other solar companies are not and they will thrive.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu was in Hawaii on Sunday, holding forth on energy efficiency and appliance standards before President Obama and the leaders of China, Japan, and 18 other Pacific Rim countries.
On Thursday, Chu will become the piñata in a pitched proxy battle over the future of clean energy development when he goes before a House subcommittee investigating the collapse of solar panel maker Solyndra.
Such are the swings of fortune these days for Chu, the embattled Nobel Prize winner in the eye of the politically charged storm over Solyndra.
Since the company went bankrupt two months ago, putting $535 million of taxpayer loan guarantees at risk, Solyndra has become the flashpoint for a larger debate over the role of public investment in wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy.
Another good post on this issue:
Sometimes, in the desire to own a story or the yearning to advance the narrative, it’s easy for reporters to forget about context.
Unfortunately, that’s what seems to be happening in the press coverage of clean energy, much to the detriment of Americans trying to weed through the political rhetoric and fossil fuel industry hyperbole.
In the lead-up to Thursday’s anticipated testimony of Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu at yet another GOP-led House hearing into Solyndra, both the New York Times and the Washington Post published stories over the weekend that paint the government attempts to jump-start the clean energy economy in America as a waste of taxpayer money.
If you only listen to critics trying to turn Solyndra into a political scandal for President Obama, that’s easy to believe.
But it’s not quite true.
Nevermind that Solyndra is just one of more than 5,500 solar companies now doing business in America, altogether employing more than 100,000 Americans. If you follow the coverage, you’d think Solyndra was the only solar company in America. You probably wouldn’t know that in just the past 90 days alone, nine other U.S. solar manufacturing plants have announced plans to create some 3,350 new jobs over the next four years.
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