But it has been a very different story in the Congressional hearings on the Solyndra debacle. Leading the partisan pile-on, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) accused the Obama administration of waging a “war on carbon-based energy.” Issa’s accusation is not original; it has been a right-wing talking point since at least early 2010. Issa and his allies conveniently ignore Obama’s approval of the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline for oil from Alberta’s tar sands, his opening of vast new areas to potential offshore drilling, and his decision not to enact new restrictions on ozone-causing emissions.
But they’re calling it a war, and in war, the first casualty is truth, said ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus. Why must it be a war? Why can’t we support newer, cleaner forms of energy as we continue to subsidize fossil fuels to the tune of at least $61 billion last year, according to the 2011 report from watchdog group Green Scissors, whose partners range from Friends of the Earth to the libertarian Heartland Institute.
Was Solyndra a bad bet? In retrospect, of course it was –(Golden Age Gold)and many venerable stars of venture capital, including Madrone Capital, RockPort Capital, and U.S. Venture Partners, lost a lot of money as investors in the company. If there was any malfeasance on the part of Solyndra’s management, it should absolutely be investigated and prosecuted. But let’s put things in perspective: Solyndra’s $528 million loss represents less than two percent of the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program (launched under President George W. Bush) for new energy technologies.
Despite the political firestorm, DOE to its credit did not hold back in approving a slew of clean-energy loan guarantees before the program expired at the end of last month [Sept]. In solar, the big beneficiaries were development projects rather than companies – more than $5 billion in guarantees for six projects with combined capacity of more than 2,000 MW from SunPower, Sempra, SolarReserve, First Solar, and industrial real estate manager Prologis. Financing deployment projects (particularly those with power purchase agreements in place) is generally a much lower risk than funding new technology developers like Solyndra, and deployment deserves at least as much government support as R&D, as my Clean Edge colleague Trevor Winnie wrote earlier this year.
