Essay On Soyndra

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Background on Solyndra The Solyndra Company, founded in 2005 by Christian Gronet, designed, manufactured, and sold a unique type of solar panels. They were termed “solar photovoltaic (PV) systems” and were designed for large, flat to low sloped commercial building roofs. The panels were designed to have the best performance when mounted horizontally and to be installed very close together so that they covered a much higher percentage of the roof top thus producing more electricity than the typical flat panel solar panels by comparison. This was created through the production by absorbing light from all directions including indirect and reflected light as well as direct sunlight when combined with a white roof. This was due to the design of having rolled its copper indium gallium selenite or CIGS into a cylindrical shape. Each tube had 40 of them in each 1-meter-by-2-meter panel (Solyndra, 2008). The cylinders were approximately one inch in diameter and were made of two tubes. The company used proprietary equipment it developed to deposit CIGS along the outside of the inner tube amounting to around 200 CIGS cells. Atop of the cells there was an additional "optical coupling agent", which was used to concentrate the sunlight through the outer tube, and then the inner tube was inserted, then the whole thing was filled with a silicone oil then sealed with a glass and metal cap (insideclimatenew.org). Solyndra, of course, believed that their product was the best on the market and had plans to be the top manufacturer of solar energy roofs, especially in their home state of California. At the time Solyndra was being developed, California was in the process of instating new building requirements. These requirements went into effect in Janu... ... middle of paper ... ...gy.” (Stephens, 2011) The administration claims that they reached the decisions due to the fact that they were concerned for the laid off Solyndra employees. The decision were made so that those Solyndra employees could qualify for aid under another program for employees that have been displaced from their employment by foreign competition. So one question was should the DOE have backed Solyndra in the first place? Well in hindsight the answer certainly appears to be a resounding no! But the bigger question is should the government be financing companies to such an extreme extend as it did with Solyndra? For if the company fails, then who should be held responsible for paying back the loan. The money given was from the American tax payers, and it surly seems a crime to demand that pay for a failed business two fold due to unscrupulous lending from the government.

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