Well said B4.

The problem with that theory is that Obama's own advisors indicated that the company was headed for failure. But he threw them a half billion dollars of our (my) money, because he wanted to reward his supporters.

Thank God he'll be gone after January.

Solyndra first came into the picture during the Bush administration, when it was one of just 16 firms found eligible for several billion dollars available in the Energy Policy Act of 2005's guaranteed loan program. What's more, the Energy Policy Act, which the Bush administration used to promote Solyndra, was passed by the same committee under the leadership of Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) that now demands to know how half a billion taxpayer dollars were squandered.

"Because one of the Solyndra investors, Argonaut Venture Capital, is funded by George Kaiser — a man who donated money to the Obama campaign — the loan guarantee has been attacked as being political in nature. What critics don’t mention is that one of the earliest and largest investors, Madrone Capital Partners, is funded by the family that started Wal-Mart, the Waltons. The Waltons have donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates over the years."
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee/

The scandal of Solyndra is that the administration figures in charge of the program signed papers to put the US taxpayer at the last priority to be repaid if the company went bust.  That had nothing to do with casting a wide net, and everything to do with funnelling money to chosen winners.

Solyndra is peanuts compared to the money invested in far greater boondoggles like hot fusion - 60 years, $200 BILLION - not one useable watt of energy for the taxpayer.

The alternatives supported by the Administration have been in large part successful and getting more so. We see good progress in cellulosic, batteries, solar and wind. The President is to be congratulated for having vision to pursue these alternatives. However we are less than enthusiastic about restarting fission reactor permitting. Fukishima is proving to be a far greater disaster than generally acknowledged:

"Last April levels of radioactive iodine-131 were found to be 5 million times the legal limit in seawater near the plant, while levels of cesium-137 were detected 1.1 million times the legal level, in a report by Yale’s e360, which noted that both these elements “can be absorbed by phytoplankton, zooplankton, kelp, and other marine life and then be transmitted up the food chain, to fish, marine mammals, and humans.”

http://inhabitat.com/reactor-at-fukushima-confirmed-to-have-fatally-high-levels-of-radiation/

http://bit.ly/IefZEg

The full extent of damage and danger is vastly underplayed at this stage. Not a healthy or pragmatic approach to the energy issue.

What Reel doesn't tell you is that I-131 has a half-life of 8 days.  A year later, roughly 46 half-lives have passed and the amount of I-131 is now 1/2^46 (roughly one seventy-trillionth) what it was then.  That's before dilution.

Cs-137 hasn't decayed nearly as far, but it is still diluted.  The levels will fall below concern relatively shortly, probably by the time waterfronts are rebuilt.

A year later, roughly 46 half-lives have passed and the amount of I-131 is now 1/2^46 (roughly one seventy-trillionth) what it was then. That's before dilution.

Question: What about the food chain? Could it counter dilution and half-life by concentrating what remains?

The 2010 report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Ionising Radiation (UNSCEAR) concluded that

“the current balance of available evidence tends to favour a non-threshold response for the mutational component of radiation associated cancer induction at low doses and low dose rates.”

As scientific understanding of the effects of ionising
radiation has advanced, permitted dose limits have been
dramatically reduced. For workers, the permitted annual
dose has decreased from 500 millisieverts (mSv) in 1934
to 20 mSv in 1991.

Pretending Fukushima is anything but a major disaster and threat to the safety of millions - is merely a narrow conclusion in support of the nuclear agenda.

Another question: Do we know if the Fukushima reactors have stopped releasing I-131, Cs-137? Have they plugged the leaks yet?

And our good South of the Border neighbors refused to buy our low cost very clean hydro power because it is supposedly not clean enough. We had to install 2000+ high cost wind turbines to make our clean hydro power more acceptable. Guess where all those foolish objections came from? Who had and still have an agenda or had financial revenues/profits to protect? The South of the Border coal producers association was and still is one of the main road block.

There is something wrong in the land of the free, when higher cost dirty coal fired power plants are chosen over cheaper very clean hydro e-power?

(of course, if you were inside the reactor when it was operating, or even the upper containment, the heat would kill you before the radiation could.)

EP - your continued defense of the nuclear industry and refusal to acknowledge the clear dangers - makes your posts present and future decidedly "ungreen."