When those loans do pay off and research pans out into something you can buy/use, was it worth it? I personally would not have given them a loan but I am not the one who did. I know full well the materials they're using are not common enough to allow that to work.

If you want to bitch about money there's a long list that took considerably more for negative personal gain that the government does. Like funding wars in shit holes of which we rebuild after we blowing it up. Bailing out the banks happened. We paid for fiber to copper upgrade fro ALL of our telecommunication infrastructure (fiber to the home) and did not get any of it.

From wikipedia:

Solyndra received a $535 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee, the first recipient of a loan guarantee under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.[16] By 2014 the loan program had wiped out its losses, including a $528 million loss from Solyndra, and was operating in the black.[17] Additionally, Solyndra received a $25.1 million tax break from California's Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority.[18]

Based on a population of 315,000,000 people for approximately around that time you lost a whole $1.70 (rounded up). If I assume only 1/3 of that number pay taxes then you "lost" $5.10. I'm pretty sure inflation eating at your paycheck took more.

So bring up THAT fuckitry and not solendra. If it were so important you would have some information instead of parroting that solendra bullshit as the problem. Hell I even mentioned where the other problems with solar installations are before we even get to the infrastructure.

Interesting. I'd not heard that was a problem.

Welcome to the USA. Make a corporation and apply for money, just like the majority of them do without bothering to pay it back.

Also, saying you don't need to know what solendra does but know that it took loans and didn't pay them back is the very definition of dumb fuck. Your argument is OH LOOK SOLAR BAD BECAUSE THIS COMPANY DEFAULTED ON GOVERNMENT MONEY.

If I see another dumb fuck mention solendra without knowing what that company was even working on, death is the only option for the stupid fuck. That company was thinking CGIS would become cheaper than silicon during a time when silicon was expensive due to a manufacturing shortage that never stayed a shortage. Yes someone got loans for their company and defaulted and failed (IT'S FUCKING GONE). THIS HAPPENS IN A LOT OF INDUSTRY.

Solar panels are generally very cheap to produce. Installing them tends to be where it gets expensive. Inverter technology also has to catch up.

Oil is important for food production (tractors, fertilizers, trucks) and transportation (trucks, cars, buses, ships). You can't replace that with solar.

Truth: there is probably going to be a conflict in the middle east that disrupts supply chains so they have been drilling and capping as many wells as they can in USA and CA.

Only half of the oil is used for energy. The other half is used in plastics, and other industrial uses. So even if we were able to circumvent the need for oil as an energy source, those other uses for oil still need substitutes.

solar pannels can pay for themselves when purchased. Oil doesnt. Its a 1 time use and its gone and u need it again, it will always gross more especially when they control its price too.

Can I tell my funny solar story? My sisterrible lives in Awstoonz, TX, and is a bigwig democrat. She spent a fortune putting solar cells on her house and garage. The garage was shaded by a dead oak tree she planned to cut down. Then she had a year long battle with the official city arborist, who argued the tree was not dead, just resting, pining for the fjords...

Because solar isn't cheaper, hurts our health more, and you don't know anything about this topic.

Solar is definitely not cheap and it gets a huge free ride on the back of fossil fuels and pre-existing grid infrastructure right now. You can't exceed 50% market saturation with solar and wind unless you want massive spikes in energy costs.

What people don't seem to understand is that every solar/wind park is backed by coal, NG, or nuclear. Because these already exist, all installations of solar/wind get a free ride on this backing infrastructure. Once you exceed existing infrastructure, the free ride disappears. Then, solar/wind capital costs are solar/wind + coal/ng/nuclear + grid infrastructure. Except now, you're demanding the coal/ng/nuclear portion remain mostly idle. Which means it's impossible for a 10-15 ROI. Which in turn means it now costs more than pre-existing, cheap, coal/ng/nuclear. And you now have to pay off the new solar/wind and grid for two energy technologies, whereby only one can ever hope to be profitable. Meaning, after 50% saturation, you're now talking about the world's most expensive energy. As such, it's unusable this point.

Solar n wind kill birds.

What about health issues? Certainly more toxic than the sun!