Solyndra? Solyndra! The Legacy of Government Loan Guarantees Beyond Politics

Three years after the political posturing around the Department of Energy’s clean energy loan guarantee program, some lawmakers still haven’t moved on. “What we have seen is incredible mismanagement, and it’s become the poster child for crony capitalism,” said Tennessee Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn in an interview with Bloomberg last month. Performance tells a different story. Even after a handful of early bankruptcies, the program has so far seen a 98 percent success rate. And losses from those bankruptcies are only one-fifth the cost of what Congress appropriated when establishing the program. “The facts are clear, the results are in. You can continue to deny that, but I don’t know what it gets you,” said Jonathan Silver, the former executive director of DOE’s loan programs office, speaking on the Energy Gang. In this week’s show, we’ll talk with Silver about the Solyndra bankruptcy, the political reaction in Washington and the legacy of loan guarantees. Later in the show, we’ll discuss SunPower’s investment in the home energy management company Tendril, and try to understand the global climate negotiations that just wrapped up in Peru. The Energy Gang is produced by Greentechmedia.com. The show features weekly discussion between energy futurist Jigar Shah, energy policy expert Katherine Hamilton and Greentech Media Editor Stephen Lacey.