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Company makes cheaper solar wafers, wins $150M loan from DOE
- aaronblohowiak 15y agoI want to root for companies like this in the way that other people like to root for sports teams.
- socialmediaking 15y agoI for one, am in favor of the DOE accelerating innovative companies in breakout industries.
- barney54 15y agoIf they are truly breakout industries, do they need taxpayers' money? If they are promising, where are the VCs?
- loire280 15y agoHere and Now (NPR) just did a story on how the military is using solar power, right now, to provide electricity for remote bases and soldiers on the field. The military's adoption of solar power is providing the scale that solar companies need to improve manufacturing needs and drive additional R&D. The initial motivation is that it reduces the stress on their energy (read: oil) supply chain, but they've found that adopting solar is also cutting down on the number of batteries each soldier has to carry to power the gadgets that have become part of modern warfare. http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/06/06/military-solar-power http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/06/06/military-solar-power (the meat of the story is actually in the audio, the text is just a brief summary)
- yumraj 15y agoNow, I just hope that they too won't move their production base to China after taking the DOE grant like Evergreen Solar had done after taking the $43million grant from MA. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/business/energy-environment/15solar.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/business/energy-environmen...
- icefox 15y agoBit of a flame bate comment. China's gov wanted to be #1 in solar and their factories were undercutting Evergreen solar so it was either move the factory or go bankrupt. My uncle worked at the factory and while he doesn't like it (he lost his job) he agrees with the reasons.