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glassman
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OK so another private enterprise failed. that's business as usual. Bu the Govt gave them a loan garantee of 500 million$ which is now a political football, right? weyell maybe it shouldn't be after all- looky here:

Mississippi, Land of Green Jobs?

SustainableBusiness.com News

Thin-film solar startup Stion announced the grand opening of its first large-scale factory in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Where? Mississippi?

Stion is joined by a handful of green manufacturers locating to the state because of its low taxes, low labor rates and generous government subsidies.

Other companies opening factories there:

Calisolar: makes polysilicon for solar cells ($75 million)
Kior: a biofuels company ($75 million)
Twin Creeks Technologies: makes thin wafers for solar cells ($54 million in state assistance);
Soladigm: makes energy efficient windows ($44 million)

Those companies are mostly based in California, but GreenTech Automotive is headquartered in Mississippi and plans to manufacture electric cars there too.

Mississippi may not be thrilled with using renewable energy but it likes the jobs it creates. Thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of manufacturing jobs will be created by these companies.

Because of that, the state is dishing out $323 million in subsidies to lure green manufacturers. Mississippi's top corporate tax rate is just 5% and offers tax holidays and low interest loans.

Calisolar's $75 million incentive package includes grants, workplace training and a $59.5 million low-interest loan, says the New York Times.

Plus, the state has low labor costs. The average manufacturing salary is $33,000.

South Carolina is also getting into the act. Its incentives lured California-based AQT Solar to build a plant that will produce a gigawatt of solar panels a year by 2014.

The deep South has shown little interest in using renewable energy. None of the states have a Renewable Energy Standard and strongly resisted a National Renewable Energy Standard when energy policy was under consideration in the last Congress.

Yet, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, is the driving force behind efforts, says the NY Times.

Stion and Calisolar have both committed to paying higher than average salaries - about $45,000 plus benefits.

They can pay higher salaries because their advanced manufacturing processes require fewer employees. Stion says it can manufacture 100 megawatts (MW) of solar cells with only 200 employees - a similar plant in China might need 1,000 people. And Stion plans to source the majority of its components from US vendors.

Stion recently demonstrated the world's most efficient production-scale thin-film circuit, which was verified at 14.1% by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL).

But, if not for Mississippi, that might not be enough for a solar company to survive these days given the competition from China - especially for a young start-up.

US green manufacturers are having a tough time competing with low cost Chinese competitors, which are backed by strong goverment policy and financial support. Over the last six weeks, three solar companies declared bankruptcy - Solyndra, SpectraWatt and Evergreen Solar.

Stion's 100 megawatt (MW) thin-film solar plant is expected to create 200 solar jobs over the next 15 months during phase one. The full build-out to 500 MW will create about 1,000 jobs over the next six years and cost roughly $500 million.

Stion has a strategic partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor, the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry. India's Moser Baer is one of its high profile investors.



and generous government subsidies from Conservative Republicans? How much did they give them to come here? a 75 million$ MS tapxpayer based loan....

OH, and BTW? MS still has no net-metering laws which means MY service provdier Entergy will NOT allow me to hook up a solar systme to MY shop. period. LOL.... yep this all makes perfect sense...

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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T e x
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The hurdles for solar remain firmly in place.

As a recent thread mentions, "Anybody remember GTEL?"

Highly doubtful *anyone* could tie whomever that president was to the scam that GTEL turned out to be.

The truth is, had we started building solar into the building code back in the 1970s? We'd be way ahead of the game, now.

Same thing for water, nowadays. In my part of the country--and the Southwest in general--rainwater harvesting systems should be part n' parcel with the building code.

I s'pose ya'll seen the Texas wildfire reports...

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Nashoba Holba Chepulechi
Adventures in microcapitalism...

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CashCowMoo
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They need to invest in more 24 hour fitness franchises in MS.

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It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.

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CashCowMoo
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An elite Obama fundraiser hired to help oversee the administration's energy loan program pushed and prodded career Department of Energy officials to move faster in approving a loan guarantee for Solyndra, even as his wife's law firm was representing the California solar company, even as his wife's law firm was representing the California solar company, according to internal emails made public late Friday.


Gee, you dont say? Well that sounds a LOT like what Obama campaigned AGAINST. Right? I mean, not too long ago we had to hear it about Dick Cheneys energy meetings behind closed doors. Now this? That whole stimulus bill is infested with slime and pork. Now we need another one.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/obama-fundraiser-pushed-solyndra-deal-inside/story ?id=14691618

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It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.

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glassman
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i'm not going to defend solyndra cash, but i have heard of at least a dozen (corn based) ethanol startups that were part of the push to get 20% of our oil imports replaced with ethanol fail too..
they been getting huge subsidies and the whole program is red state GOPers...

if these guys took the money knowing they're were goin' BK? they need to go to jail.. it happened pretty quick, but from everything i've read of the past twenty years? it's more common for startups to fail than it is for them to succeed by about 4 to 1...

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CashCowMoo
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ethanol is not worth it. 1 barrel of ethanol fuel takes I believe 3 barrels of oil to produce throughout the process they figured.

Its one of those things to make you feel good I guess.

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It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.

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glassman
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the idea was that we would develop an ethanol infrastructure using corn based... then since the infrastructure was built, special pipes, rail cars and other transport stuff? the ethanol producers would swithc from corn to non-food based ethanol like cellulosic (from grass)...

they still haven't done a darn thing to switch from food...

IMO Bush did it to benefit his voters, who were midwest based farmers and other business people.

the govt has spent alot of money and food prices have risen dramatically. the problem is that we need a way to break cellulose down to sugar more efficiently and we aren't finding it...

panda bears eat bamboo and digest cellulose but slowly, termites, and a few other insects also digest wood, but again it's slow... sorghum produces sugars in the stalks and seeds in the flower tops, but it's being ignored...

we "only" need to produce 2 million barrels of ethanol per day to cut out mideast oil imports entirely... i beleive that would even make US net exporters...

that would make mideast oil cheaper and more available to China [Wink]


this article is interesting:

Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Record U.S. exports of gasoline and other refined oil products are poised to eliminate a glut of ships hauling the fuels next year, driving freight rates to a three-year high.


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-04/record-u-s-gasoline-cargoes-drive-17 -gain-in-tankers-freight.html

we ship gasoline overseas? [Roll Eyes]

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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jordanreed
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hemp seed oil, dammit!!

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jordan

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buckstalker
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I gotta say...I'm with Jordan on this one!!

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***********************

It's all in the timing...

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CashCowMoo
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quote:
Originally posted by buckstalker:
I gotta say...I'm with Jordan on this one!!

I wish we grew massive amounts of hemp for numerous products.

On a serious note, this is a big scandal. This is politics and business as usual that Obama swore he would fend off. why is the same style of politics under bush being done under Obama? Why does Obama keep gettting a pass with all these scandals?

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glassman
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Why does Obama keep gettting a pass with all these scandals?

cash, i see no "free pass" being given.

what other scandals did he get a free pass on?

admit it, you hate Obama and everything he does is wrong in your opinion...

i'm trying to remember how much trouble Bush or Clinton got into over Enron... dang, none. what's new?

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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raybond
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Bill Clinton On Claims That Solyndra Means All Green Energy Is Bad: ‘Don’t Insult My Intelligence’

By Brad Johnson on Sep 27, 2011 at 5:32 pm


Republicans and other conservatives have argued that the Solyndra bankruptcy means that all clean-energy investment is disastrous. The Heritage Foundation claimed Solyndra “ends the green jobs myth.” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said the bankruptcy is “Exhibit A in the case for why the president’s economic policies have failed.” “A green jobs fueled recovery is a theory, and is yet unproven,” argued Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) at a hearing on Solyndra.

Last week, former president Bill Clinton met with a small group of bloggers on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting in New York City and blasted these right-wing attacks on technology innovation. Asked by ThinkProgress Green about how to fight the corrupting influence of climate deniers, Clinton said that people need to defend the facts about the green economy as vigorously as the opponents of the clean economy promote lies:


They can take nothing like Solyndra and say that proves all green energy is bad. Why? Because those of us on the other side don’t say: Whatever the truth is, here’s the mega truth. We can’t burn up the planet. We’ve got to find an economically sustainable way to save it. Green energy jobs have grown at twice the rate of overall economy jobs in the last decade, they pay 20 to 30 percent more, they’re directly responsible for a $60 billion trade surplus.

Do whatever you want about Solyndra, but do not insult my intelligence by trying to say that the big oil compaires are right and the green tech people are wrong.

Clinton was citing the analysis by the Brookings Institution of the clean energy economy, which found that employment in the clean-tech sector, which includes companies like Solyndra, grew at 8.3 percent from 2003 to 2010, twice as fast the overall economy.

Many of the Republicans attacking clean-energy jobs seem to just be seeking to score political points against a Democratic administration, especially those who helped put the clean-tech loan program in place. Other conservatives, as Clinton noted, are attacking technological innovation as a way of defending the continued dominance of fossil interests.

Later in the roundtable, Clinton offered some thoughtful analysis of why the government is “picking winners and losers,” as some have described the loan guarantee program that supported Solyndra. He explained that the understanding that corporations have a responsibility to all stakeholders has been lost to the idea that they only answer to shareholders. The role of government in setting market fundamentals has been attacked relentlessly. So government policies that define the market — like clean energy standards, cap and trade, or carbon taxes — can’t get passed, even though those are the most efficient at supporting economic innovation.

People need to understand that the government should play a role in making markets, Clinton said, and “part of the market making should be designed be create a mentality of shared value rather than just shareholder value.”

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Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.

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