Falling behind

A little more than one year after it was held up by U.S. President Barack Obama as an example of the United States' potential to lead the world in clean energy technology, solar cell maker Solyndra suspended operations and announced plans to file for bankruptcy protection. Solyndra, which reportedly raised more than $1 billion in venture capital and got a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is the third U.S.-based solar cell maker to announced plans to file for bankruptcy in the past two weeks.

The demise of Solyndra, Spectrawatt and Evergreen Solar is a gut punch to proponents of U.S.-based solar cell manufacturing. Observers cite several reasons for Solyndra's failure, but mounting evidence suggests that companies that build solar cells in the U.S. will have a difficult time competing with rivals in China, where manufacturing is cheaper and the government has poured money into crystalline panel production. As President Obama said when he toured Solyndra's fab 15 months ago, multiple nations are fighting to lead the world in the development of new energy technologies. "There are factories like this being built in China, factories like this being built in Germany," he said at the time. "Nobody is playing for second place. These countries recognize that the nation that leads the clean energy economy is likely to lead the global economy. And if we fail to recognize that same imperative, we risk falling behind."