Talk:Solyndra

Layout
When comparing the layout/format of the Solyndra wiki entry to the Enron wiki entry, I notice that there is room for improvement. Solyndra entry ought to have a right sidebar listing for: logo, founding date, fate, key people, revenue, number of employees, and the like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by User: (talk • contribs)

Solyndra's ties to the Obama administration should be mentioned in the article.
It is well documented and reliably sourced that Solyndra executives gave large donations to Obama's election campaign, spent large sums of money on lobbying, and had many meetings with White House officials. This information should be included in the article. In addition, a new article called Solyndra scandal should probably eventually be created, much like Enron scandal.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, New York Times, ABC News, Wall St. Journal, Politico, Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Atlantic Wire, National Review, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald

74.98.42.34 (talk) 23:20, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's the site for the wiki "Solyndra scandal" article, which covers some of what you mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra_scandal

DonL (talk) 07:37, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it is appropriate, indeed necessary, to link this article to the Solyndra scandal / Solyndra loan controversy article, and I accordingly just added a sentence doing so in the "Government support" section. My addition said only that a Federal investigation had begun by September 2011. Such a statement seems noncontroversial. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

This page should focus on Solyndra and not the presidential election. Edited the debate to one-line references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bf2002 (talk • contribs) 23:31, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

None of the references given by the first commenter say anything about Solyndra executives contributing large amounts to Obama's campaign. They do discuss the fact that Solydra hired lobbyists, which is neither unusual nor illegal. One Obama fundraiser, Steve Spinner, was "linked" to Solyndra, but he did not work there and was not involved in the loan process.

Yes, Solyndra plied for the loan, and yes, they pressured the administration to approve it quickly. Pressuring the government to do things is also not illegal. It's not clear to me that this rises to the level of scandal.OliverHeaviside (talk) 21:09, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Solyndra Loan Controversy
The separate article on "Solyndra loan controversy" was allegedly "merged" into this article. However, I see no mention of the controversy in the current text, which suggests that the "controversy" article was deleted, not merged. Worse, I see the opposite: To me, the most important fact in that is the roughly half million dollars in campaign contributions that were made to the Obama for President campaign in 2008. My modest one-line addition of a reference on to that in January was recently deleted. I don't understand why. DavidMCEddy (talk) 05:04, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

resource
Reports of the death of solar power are greatly exaggerated; US solar company Solyndra's bankruptcy filing was a result of a drop in the cost of silicon, not scandal and impropriety by Adam Browning for Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 September 2011 09.41 EDT 97.87.29.188 (talk) 23:26, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Question about the efficiency calculation in Technology section
The Solyndra specification sheet (Reference 11) shows the Solyndra Model SL200-210 produces 210 watts STC. The dimensions are shown as 2.28 x 1.09 meters.


 * Power Out = 210 W
 * Area = 2.28 m x 1.09 m = 2.485 mm
 * Power In = 1000 W/mm (STC conditions) x 2.485 mm = 2485 W
 * Efficiency = Power Out/Power In = 210/2485 = 8%

8% would be valid with flat collectors. But the spec sheet picture shows 40 x 1-inch diameter tubes on a 90-inch-long frame. The footprint is thus less than half the 2.485 mm displacement.

Then there's added production from the cool-roof reflections, greater temperature immunity, and a longer-duration effective average solar "window."

Is this how Solyndra was able to claim 11-14%?

Going the other way, the 1-inch outer tubes would unfurl to a linear dimension of 3.14 inches each. Would that bring the efficiency to lower than 8%? The active tubes are the inner ones with the smaller diameters.

What's the valid way of assessing efficiency if the test condition only specifies a standardized 1 kW solar power into two-dimensional rectangles measured in square meters?

Aren't manufacturers looking for megawatts of electricity per ton of silicon?

DonL (talk) 07:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

It's an interesting question, and the answer depends on the reason why you are measuring efficiency.

In one sense, efficiency does not matter AT ALL because sunlight is free. If gasoline were free would you care about MPG? (At least in dollar terms....) No.

Scientists who are developing new PV materials are interested in the "intrinsic" efficiency of the material itself. However, if you are interested in actually producing kilowatt-hours of electricity, what you care about is kWh per dollar. Period.

I was deeply associated with Solyndra's product development and marketing, from early 2008. One of the questions we often got (and it is a stupid question, really) is what was the panel efficiency? Folks, it don't matter if you are talking about grid-scale power production - all you care about is the amount of electricity per dollar.

If Solyndra's CIGS material had TWICE the intrinsic efficiency that it actually had, the company probably would still not have been viable, tho it would have been close. Solyndra's gamble was that it could uses materials that were relatively cheap (and the raw cost of the C,I,G, and S are indeed quite low) in a panel design that was cheap to install (which it really was, actually) and make a product that would have a very low cost per kilowatt-hour. It turned out that the cost of applying the materials was too high, and there did not seem to be a path to reducing it anytime soon.... oh well.

To answer your question, yes, Solyndra based its 11-14% number on the idea of the portion of the nominal 1000W/sq m that the panel made into juice. From a real-wolrd perspective, I thing they were right in this one.

Sorry - forgot to sign. This is Oliver. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OliverHeaviside (talk • contribs) 15:53, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

NYT resource
E-Mails Reveal Early White House Worries Over Solyndra by Eric Lipton and Matthew L. Wald, published October 3, 2011 in The New York Times. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:03, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Was Solyndra federally funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, as mentioned on Talk:Climate change policy of the United States as related to Talk:Politics of global warming? 99.119.128.249 (talk) 00:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

USA Today resources
The Republican lawmaker leading the charge against an Obama administration loan guarantee program for clean-energy companies wasn't always so skeptical of government attempts to boost the green economy. However, the information regarding any due diligence behind these loans and the 'clean energy' industry in general was obviously not transparent to the taxpayers or the minority party of Congress. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 19:36, 9 October 2011 (UTC) 97.87.29.188 (talk) 19:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Critic of Obama clean-energy loans lobbied Energy Department by Aamer Madhani Updated 9/27/2011; ...
 * Obama defends clean-energy loan by Aamer Madhani in USA TODAY page 5A October 7, 2011
 * Obama energy official resigns amid Solyndra flap by David Jackson, USA TODAY Oct 06, 2011

resource
Kimberley Strassel October 14, 2011 in WSK: The GOP's Solyndra Problem; Republicans have their own green baggage  99.190.85.250 (talk) 23:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

global resource
U.S. Solar Panel Makers Say China Violated Trade Rules by KEITH BRADSHER published October 19, 2011 in The New York Times. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 23:22, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Dead links' amendments
For some time I've tried in a low-tech fashion to remove dead links from articles like this one, as I have here today. If there's a better way, please inform or revert. One of my goals has been to remove the article from the "dead links" listing. Another: Just to "accept defeat". These links don't look likely to be revived but the raw material of "formerly accessible source" seems worth saving. Swliv (talk) 18:30, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed the dead links with current links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bf2002 (talk • contribs) 05:24, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Thnks much. Swliv (talk) 20:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Major clean up to be done.
The result of the deletion discussion of the "controversy" fork article was to merge it here. But that process involved a wholesale dumping of all the terrible POV material added by the Grundle 2600 sock. I'm going to go through and start removing it. It somebody feels there is something which Grundle added which should be in the article after all (albeit, written in a more neutral manner) please discuss it here. thanks! --Loonymonkey (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I cleaned up the "Shutdown and investigation section. I removed the ranty POV stuff by the sock, and took out the bits that didn't actually haven anything to do with the shutdown or investigation. Also, neutralized some language or corrected text to match cite (it doesn't look like Grundle actually read the articles he was citing).  --Loonymonkey (talk) 16:30, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I've restored one sentence that was actually a perfectly reasonable summary of some of the reporting. William Jockusch (talk) 22:12, 24 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I would recommend restoring the article to the Pre "Loonymonkey" edits of June 24 2012. The whole of his edits removed a great deal of useful and accurate information motivated by an agenda.Mantion (talk) 06:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Typical of Wikipedia
I really wish Wikipedia wasn't dominated by liberals. So sad. Well the whole artile is full of errors and distortions. Much of the article have little to do with the company.

Example

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited the empty Solyndra factory in mid-2012 as his campaign shifted from the primaries toward the convention and the general election. He criticized the bankruptcy and President Obama's previous support.[31] Soon after Romney's visit to Solyndra another solar energy company, Konarka, declared bankruptcy. Like Solyndra, Konarka had received federal financial support. But Konarka also had received 2002 financial support from then-Massachusetts Governor Romney's administration. As such Konarka became something of a counterpoint to Solyndra in the political exchange with the Democratic president.[32][33]

Much of the above has little or nothing to do with Solyndra. Its also interesting to note that "received 2002 financial support from then-Massachusetts Governor Romney's administration." Strangely enough Mitt Romney did not take office until 2003. Is liberal collective that is Wikipedia suggesting that Romney is so powerful that he can approve loans and grant money BEFORE he takes office?Mantion (talk) 05:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * > I really wish Wikipedia wasn't dominated by liberals.


 * While you seem correct about your Example NPOV, your own NPOV comment about "dominated by liberals" does disservice to your comment. 74.71.44.17 (talk) 21:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

How much did the government lose?
This article didn't clarify a question that I haven't seen an answer to: How much money, exactly, did the US lose in its loan guarantees to Solyndra? It says that the DOE "will receive nearly nothing" from the bankruptcy, but unless I'm really misunderstanding something the DOE would never have gotten any money even if Solyndra had been very profitable. The point of loan guarantees is that the DOE backstops the debt so the company can borrow at a lower rate, right? So if the company went bankrupt did the DOE lose the whole $535 million, part of it, or none of it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.164.134.99 (talk) 01:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Removed "Cost taxpayers $500 million" Line
I removed this as it's completely incorrect. There was never a cite for it anyway, but now it appears that the loan program is actually turning a profit. See this Reuters article for example. --Loonymonkey (talk) 23:47, 14 November 2014 (UTC)


 * There are a couple of cites for it and the Reuters article you mention also confirms it. The overall program outside of Solyndra is doing well, but over 500 million was lost on the Solyndra deal. Fdr2001 (talk) 01:55, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The losses did not come from taxpayer funds, as the cites make clear. The claim that it "cost taxpayers $500 million" is both incorrect and uncited. --Loonymonkey (talk) 16:04, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * No, the losses were taxpayer funds making good the loans. ~500 million was lost.  The overall program did better, but the portion for Solyndra did not.  The cite you give even says, "The government has not recovered any funds from Solyndra. It's $528 million loan makes up most of the program's losses."   Please stop conflating the two.  Fdr2001 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 23:52, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * that's a rather slight of hand position you have there. Yes, the loans weren't tax payer funds, but tax payers backed those loans, so when solar prices fell (as was projected by literally everyone except Solyndra) and Solyndra folded the tax payer backed program had to pay those loans, and $500 million dollars that would have otherwise been returned to the general fund (where tax moneys are kept) was given out to Solyndra's creditors. --107.77.214.154 (talk) 06:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Rocket company
There is a one-sentence paragraph about a company called Rocket Renewables. I can find no connection in the text to this company and Solyndra. Is this a re-naming of the company, a take-over, or what? If it is related, that should be made explicit; if not, the sentence should be removed. Kdammers (talk) 19:41, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Appearance?
The article cites an unusual design (cylindrical) to Solyndra's panels. A picture would be nice. Unschool 21:48, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Proper form for citing an opinion column in a newspaper?
I have changed ref 4 (in case of future renumberings, it is the one from the end of the first paragraph ("with the help of former president Barack Obama's White House") to the 18 September 2011 Chicago Tribune opinion column by John Kass). I changed it to a cite news, so it at least identifies the author and source (it was formerly a cite web and did not). And seeing the name of the author and source, anyone familiar with the Tribune and John Kass's career there will recognize that it is an opinion column. But should there not be some more explicit way to distinguish news articles from columns? Maybe department= would be the right attribute, but I don't happen to know whether Kass's regular column there was identified by a department name.

I notice that first paragraph last sentence ("with the help of former president Barack Obama's White House") appears to be contradictory of later statements under the "shutdown and investigation" heading appearing to show that multiple Obama administration officials raised concerns. I do not know which of those apparently-contradictory positions is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.19.31.139 (talk) 21:52, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The source does not even say what it was cited for (Cass insinuates that something untoward may have happened, but stops short of outright claiming it, and definitely does not say that investigators found anything actionable; he can't, since they did not.) The other source is similar (it has "at best...  at worst..." framing and the article stated the "at worst" as fact.)  Both of them are undue for the lead, especially given that they're also outdated (the second source speculates about things that we now know went nowhere, per the more up-to-date sources in the body) and especially given how the body is far more cautious and states, using far better sources, that investigators found no wrongdoing. --Aquillion (talk) 07:00, 2 February 2022 (UTC)