re: The US Dept. of Energy has beaten Bill Gates and Elon Musk to the holy grail.

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Does Solyndra ring a bell?

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There will of course be failures with such energy loan programs

But to ignore the progress is to wallow in eternal ignorance

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There will of course be failures with such energy loan programs

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Solyndra received a $536 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. Additionally, Solyndra received a $25.1 million tax break from California's Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority.

Following the bankruptcy, the government was expected to recoup $27 million under the Solyndra restructuring plan, but no money was ever recovered.

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$536 million is a pretty big failure to just accept as par for the course.

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$536 million is a pretty big failure to just accept as par for the course.

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Right

But again, are you even aware of any of the successes? Or just solyndra?

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There's this wonderful thing called Google... search for NASA's innovations to start.

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It's too bad Obama re-tasked them to Muslim outreach.

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Are you aware any of the successes? Honest question. And don't use the OP, as there is no information in that article.

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Yes

Might want to look into the sunshot initiative

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Halfway into the decade-long SunShot Initiative, the nation is nearly 70% of the way to achieving SunShot’s affordability goal to make solar energy fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources by 2020. Solar energy is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States, and 2014 was a record breaking year for solar – deployment was up 40% over 2013, employment was up 22% year-over-year to 174,000 total solar workers, and solar represented 32% of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. There is now enough installed solar capacity in the United States to power the equivalent of four million average-sized American homes.

SunShot plays a crucial role in the growth of U.S. solar energy, partnering with more than 350 awardees to accomplish the goal of making solar cost-competitive with other forms of electricity by the end of the decade. Below are success stories from just a few of the SunShot partners. Select an awardee to learn more.

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LINK

And while the information in the OP was vague, energy storage is one of the biggest problems with solar. If the breakthrough is as impressive as they claim it could help further the success that solar energy is having worldwide.

but can it make my wifes prius go faster?

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I'm going to print this and put it in my garden. It is so much bullshite, I'll have palm trees by morning.

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Thankfully facts don't require you to believe in them

LOL.

Let me guess-you work in the industry.

The plain fact is that since the taxpayers are funding this bullshite, the panels are getting installed.

As soon as the subsidies dry up, those jobs disappear.
Without the subsidies, there isn't a business case for solar, in the typical residential world.

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LOL.

Let me guess-you work in the industry.

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Nope

Oil and gas

Yes I am aware of the successes. Tesla is a great story and has paid back their loan in full. But you also have Fisker, Beacon Power and over a billion in defaulted loans. I personally don't believe the government should be in the business of picking winners and losers. Especially when they are haphazardly loaning money to companies whose investors happen to be major donors to the administration.

When things like the below story happen, I lose all faith the FEDGOVs ability to invest taxpayer dollars in these programs.

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American Greed recounted the story of Maryland RIN fraudster Rodney Hailey—and how he exploited EPA's broken RFS system by making a fortune out of selling millions of fake RINs between March 2009 and December 2010.

The scale of the fraud was astonishing. In less than two years, Hailey sold 32 million credits representing more than 21 million gallons of—as it turned out—absolutely nothing. His company, Clean Green Fuels, raked in $9 million. If he actually had been producing fuel, Clean Green Fuels would have been the third-largest producer of biofuel in the country.Equally astonishing was the lack of EPA oversight of its own program. When Hailey set up Clean Green Fuels and registered it with EPA, he said he was converting cooking oil collected from more than 2,500 restaurants and turning it into fuel. However, EPA approved the registration without bothering to inspect inspect Hailey's facility. Hailey realized very quickly that nobody from EPA was watching.

American Greed states that when asked, EPA said that Congress did not require or fund the inspection of new facilities, and it was up to the RIN buyers themselves to verify their sellers' authenticity—even though the buyers were using the list of sellers that had registered on EPA's own website. To make matters worse, EPA fined refiners for unknowingly purchasing these fraudulent RINs, and then adding insult to injury, required refiners to go back into the market and replace the fake RINs to stay in compliance! We’re aware of no other government program that penalizes the victims of fraud in this manner.

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