Not many Republicans in Congress can say that liberal comedian Jon Stewart has complimented them on The Daily Show. Rep. Brian Bilbray (R., Calif.) is one of the few. The seven-term congressman was praised on the show for his well-informed grilling of a Department of Energy executive at last week’s House committee hearing into the Solyndra loan fiasco. “I have no idea what the f**k that congressman from California was talking about,” Stewart said. “But here’s the thing — he does.”
Indeed, Bilbray served up some of the most compelling lines of questioning to Jonathan Silver, executive director of the DOE loans program office. To start, why did the government choose to invest in Solyndra’s “thin-film” solar-panel technology in the first place, when it has historically proven to be one of the most complex, and therefore riskiest, forms of solar technology? Silver, as he did throughout the hearing, ducked and dodged, saying, “I’m not a solar technical analyst.” Neither is Bilbray, but when it comes to solar panels, he knows what he’s talking about.
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“Not all solar technology is created equal,” Bilbray tells National Review Online as we chat in his Capitol Hill office. “They started off with a technological choice that was high-risk to begin with.” Modern solar-panel technology, he explains, is based almost entirely on either monocrystalline or polycrystalline silicone cells. So-called “thin-film” technology is much rarer and still in the early stages of development, making it a far riskier investment. But that didn’t stop administration officials from putting taxpayer dollars on the line. “Part of the selling of this was: We have figured out all of the shortfalls of this technology that has always had problems,” Bilbray says. But clearly that wasn’t the case.
Silver and Democrats at last week’s hearing repeatedly argued that the United States needs to invest more in solar energy in order to “keep up with China,” a country that subsidizes its own solar industry at a rate of about $30 billion per year. But almost none of that Chinese funding goes to thin-film technology, Bilbray pointed out. Rather, China is “betting the farm” on the polycrystalline variety, which is not as efficient as thin-film but is less risky and vastly cheaper to produce. In other words, a far safer bet, especially if taxpayer dollars are at stake.
Then there is the question of location. As a native Californian, Bilbray knows a thing or two about Solyndra’s backyard — in particular, the subpar business climate (12 percent unemployment) and onerous regulatory regime in which the company proposed to build a brand-new manufacturing facility, paid for by a $535 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan. Bilbray expounds on the litany of reasons why the decision was ill-advised. For one, electricity costs in California, at 22 cents per kilowatt-hour, are twice as high as in Midwestern states like Ohio, and nearly four times as expensive as in China.
On top of that, California has some of the strictest state and local regulatory regimes in the country in regard to air quality, water quality, storm runoff, occupational safety, hazardous-waste generation, and so on. Regardless, Solyndra proposed to build on 30 acres of virgin farmland in Fremont, Calif. (in the Bay area), on a site that was classified by the EPA as a “non-attainment zone,” meaning that air quality did not meet certain federal standards. That would require Solyndra to present and enact a plan to meet those standards or risk losing some forms of federal assistance.
“What scares me is, how many other projects are being pushed by a political perception that it is good for politics and that it will always work out?”
Indeed, that is a really good question. I would wager that about 80% of the money that flows out of government is for good politics and it will not work out. However, when the project fails, politics can always be assumed to save the day. I'm still waiting for adequate auditing of Fannie and Freddie.
Great- compliments for Congressman Bilbray for being an expert. My question is for you reporters, why don't you go find experts who can comment intelligently on the science of the day instead of swallowing the group think propagated by the university elite. I am one of many frustrated at the GOP and convervative media who don't do some leg work and find people like me who can intelligently eviscerate the left's 'science monopoly'; GOP candidates, stop getting beaten by the same old science arguments
The Green Scientific Method:
Ask an attractive question
Back in concurring research
Construct an hypothetical grant
Test the grant with a tame politico
Analyze data and draw funding
Communicate positive results in the Times, negative results in a tame journal
I'm beginning to think that it's the lack of personal accountability that is the crux of the problem.
Taxpayer money is taxpayer time and life. The time I or you spend earning the money that goes to the Government is irreplaceable. Being entrusted with the administration of this revenue is nothing less than a sacred responsibility. Or it should be.
Instead, both the temporal and the unaccountable nature of elected office make it an easy, consequence-free game to play roulette with tax money, while always demanding more. Not to mention the wholly insulated bureaucracies--faceless, nameless drones who hide behind layers of unelected hierarchies to freely spend, impose, restrict and regulate.
I therefore think that deals like Solyndra are not, as our author semi-jokingly says, "Felony dumb." They are felonies, and should be treated as such--on a par with embezzlement or even treason.
There should be mass firings, resignations and even handcuffs for a few of those involved. Until we start demanding this as a matter of national culture, we are ever closer to the lip of the waterfall.
Our "pals" on the other side seem to believe that we are born to serve The State, and that only through its munificence are we allowed to keep ANY of the fruits of our industry.
". . . Approaching science as if it were theology."
An apt line. Jonah Goldberg has underlined in the past, the vulgarist of pragmatic justifications used by the administration in so many ways. The fact is, this case violates the essential criteria for legitimately risking belief in a hypothesis without sufficient evidence that the pragmatist William James outlines in his famous essay "The Will to Believe". Specifically, investing in this was not a forced option. We were free to suspend judgement.
So it's ironic that opponents are being accused of being "anti-science" on an issue that even James would side with the error-phobic on.
The most interesting question to be answered is who gets the Solyndra facility after all the smoke clears ?
You really have to wonder if that was the ultimate goal.
Between this article and Andrew McCarthy's article this weekend, it is becoming increasingly clear that something bordering on a felony has occurred. What frustrates me to no end is that, even if a "smoking gun" cache of evidence emerged proving a felony occurred, I have no doubt this administration will see no punishment whatsoever. And I say that not only because this White House routinely ignores the law but also because Congress has no teeth and no cajones to do anything about it.
And, given the media's fawning attention to their chosen savior, there will be zero scrutiny in the press.
Thought experiment - what if Dick Cheney had approved sweetheart loans to oil exploration companies that then went bust but yet his friends got to avoid a haircut in bankruptcy court...would the press have been similarly disinterested in the pursuing the truth?
Minor quibble that annoys me whenever I hear folks talking about this story: semiconductors are made of silicon, not silicone. Silicone is something else entirely.
What would be really funny is if the Chinese offered to buy the company out of bankruptcy in a 363 sale or take the company over in a Chapter 11 restructuring.
The Solyndra facility reminds me of all those fancy offices of those internet startups in the 1990's. You know the ones, the ones that burned through millions of investors money when they never made a dime in profit.
I can tell you of many times of visiting these offices with their cherry and mahogany wood furniture, awesome game rooms for employees, expensive computers & equipment etc, only to discover they had never made any money. Most of these companies don't exist anymore. Duh!
My guess that Solyndra offices are/were pretty posh too (the outside does). I don't get why these places think they have to have fancy offices, new custom built buildings etc, when they haven't even made a profit yet! I know of successful profitable firms that are in lousy old buildings. What is wrong with being in a old warehouse until you are profitable?
New buildings are for profitable companies, not a wanna be firm.
Not an expert on bankruptcy law but couldn't the late investors who stand ahead of taxpayers bid in any liquidation and pick up hundreds of millions of dollars of Solyndra assets at bargain prices with taxpayers taking the hit? Of course this is the traditional method of ending up with viable entities: the asset is bid down thru successive bankruptcies until the asset can finally make a profit!
Solyndra is currently in C11, so it's a reorganization. It will fail, and be converted to a C13 liquidation. That's when the priorities will kick in. And yes, the restructuring that the administration agreed to on the $535M public loan does benefit George Kaiser; after about $100M is repaid to the government his $125M is repaid, and then we get whatever is left which will probably amount to nothing. Aside from the cronyism involved, this arrangement was probably illegal.
On Hannity tonight, one of his regular useful idiots, Tamara Whatsername, gave this brilliant analysis of the Solyndra scandal: "Nuh Uh", "Everyone does it", "That's not the point" (usual Lefty stuff), and finally "It's the government's job to invest in companies like this!" Case closed.
Andrew - great article on this specific boondoggle, however you and everyone else in the media is missing the essential point on the whole "green energy" thing.
The key point is that there is no such thing as practical green energy. It simply is not efficient enough to be a worthwhile alternative to fossil fuels. As you know, God made fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are better than 90% efficient. Solar is in the range of something less than 20% efficient. Wind power is even less.
So, any money spent on any "green energy" project is simply money wasted. This subject is not a matter of argument - it is simply a science and engineering fact of life in the current state of the art.
There will have to be several major leaps of technological advancements in the science before a viable and practical solar panel will come to be. This will not occur in your lifetime and likely not in the lifespan of your children.
Say hello to your grandchildren for me - they might be lucky enough to live in a time of practical "green energy". Until then, learn to like your ethanol.
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