Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
lemsaplentywiththismodelofmanufacturing,andI'mnotnaïveabouttheissues—such
as labor conditions for the factory workers and environmental impacts like the pollution
causedbypoorregulation—butlet'sberealistic:Appleistravelingawell-wornpath,fol-
lowingsuchcompaniesasDellandGeneralElectric.Thatpathleadstogreatopportunity
in ancillary businesses—the benefits created by Apple in creativity, publishing, record-
ing, telephony, and sales of its various devices are legend—and the greater good, which
is the availability of Apple's amazing products.
The truth is, we should be glad that China is making solar panels cheaply—it makes
these products more affordable for Americans and the billion-plus people on the planet
whodon'tcurrentlygetelectricityandwouldotherwiseturntodirtyplanet-cookingcoal,
oil, or gas to get it. Though domestic manufacturing of solar panels and solar-panel parts
is gaining strength in America over the first decade of the twenty-first century, the real
jobs and margins right now are elsewhere in the industry—in sales, marketing, finance,
and the installation of these products. Most of the jobs are downstream.
So Solyndra went bust, which is sad for the people who worked there, but its demise
innowaymarkstheendofanentireindustry.Nevertheless manypeoplewhohadturned
a blind eye to government pork for bad ideas and bankruptcies waiting to happen, and
those who had sought federal funding for all sorts of less-worthy ventures, like a bridge
in Alaska that went nowhere, had a field day. There was a frenzy of media coverage
fed by political hearings and witch hunts that made this one company's fate one of the
biggest stories of the year. Indeed, the hysteria surrounding Solyndra's bankruptcy re-
minds me of the people who thought that the fall of the web browser Netscape marked
the end of the Internet. More column inches were devoted to the Solyndra story in most
outlets than to Japan's Fukushima nuclear-power-plant disaster, which wrote down the
Tokyo Electric Power Company's value by $13 billion and required a $9 billion bailout
by the people of Japan.
Butwhyhastheso-calleddemiseofsolarenergyandthesolarindustrybeensowidely
reported? Because the rise of solar power is a direct threat to the rich and powerful cor-
porations that create electricity through dirty, unsustainable, and harmful fossil fuel.
The Battle for America's Head and Heart
There's an epic struggle afoot for the head and the heart of America. And the fat cats
in Dirty Energy who feed off our addiction to fossil fuel have an obvious motiva-
tion—profits—to keep us in denial about our bad habit. They don't want us to dwell on
our energy addiction and the damage it does to ourselves, our planet, and our children's
future. So Dirty Energy dips into its very deep pockets to tout its brand of power in the
