18 months, $100 million, 117 workers: Solar firm going dark: "
The 3d variant of “funny,” besides “ha ha” and “peculiar,” is “pathetic.” SpectraWatt, Inc., soaked up public and private investment as if it actually possessed an idea worth developing, capable of being marketed, and likely to turn a profit.
Pimping their “CrystalBlue” solar cell, their website informs us:
SpectraWatt is a U.S. based manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar cells focused on delivering innovative products of superior quality. Our state of the art, fully-automated, cell manufacturing process along with our extensive research and development capabilities are ideally suited to meet the ever-growing needs of the solar industry.
It turns out, however, that the “ever-growing needs” are growing enough to keep the company business. From its start in April 2009, they just announced that the plant is closing and their 117 workers will be laid off in March 2011.
Predictable? Yeah. One cannot subsidize an industry into being. A lot of the start-up money came from Intel, but that was feel-good investment to appease Obama. When the training wheels are removed, and the company needs to stand on its own, reality hits. Here, the reality is that they are a private company pimping a product in the private marketplace. The private marketplace doesn’t want their product – there just aren’t enough swimming pools to heat.
Just pathetic. Throwing money after concepts is so progressive.
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