Evergreen Solar Flames Out

By Rachel Gotbaum
Jan 13, 2011, 3:50 PM
5 Comments

Solar panels being installed on a house (ATIS547/Flickr)

When Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration bankrolled a solar panel company with $58 million to help it build a manufacturing plant in Devons, it hoped that the state would become a hub for a booming solar energy industry. But that’s not what happened.

Instead, less than two years since it opened its doors, Evergreen Solar is closing its plant and laying off 800 workers there. The company plans to expand its operations in China.

Guests:

Curt Nickisch, WBUR’s business & technology reporter
Edward Glaeser, director, Rappaport Institute at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government

More:

Evergreen Solar Will Close Its Devens Plant

Other stories from this show:

Willy Roentgen

Good green energy jobs for Massachusetts and the U.S. Humbug! $58 mullion down the drain. With the thumb on the scales the goverment warps the economy and leads to failure.
Max

I am just a country bumpkin,livin out in the hills near Devens. So, hearin’ Professor Glaeser tell about the “cluster of brilliance” in Boston, well that were a hum-dinger! He is totally right, aint no reason someone would commute a WHOLE HOUR, better just to stay home. A shame there aint no way for folks to talk over far distances. I remember hearing ’bout how Eli Whitney invented his Cotton Gin in the bustle of New York, How the first cars were invented in the Colleges of Paris and Berlin, and Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, about the wonders of city life. I sure-do wish I could live where the folk are at, so I can be “smarter than (I) would ever be individually.”
Maybe, if I’m real lucky, I’ll get to bounce ideas off people in the dense population concentration of a state prison!
I also want to thank Professor Glaser for helping out struggling construction workers by adding another level to his Ivory Tower.
Brandon Smithwood

You know, Devens is leaving but there are LOTS of green energy companies that are growing in MA. I worked for one energy efficiency company (a national company based in MA) which had 300 employees when I joined in 2008 and nearly 700 when I recently left for grad school. The company is now moving to a much larger office that was left by IBM. Willy, I entirely disagree with you; MA policy drives leadership in a growing global industry and we’ve got companies based here because of it.
Marcel

The problem with Evergreen Solar has nothing to do with the viability of green energy. It’s purely a problem of the government playing investor, which is the proper domain of the private sector and people investing and risking their OWN money.

Anyway, at least in the short term, the real bucks are to be made in conservation and energy efficiency, and that uses a lot of IT.

BTW, Devens? No problem! Engineer it in high tech, MIT commutable Lexington and manufacture it in lower cost Ayer.
Andrew Koenigsberg

“With the thumb on the scales the goverment warps the economy and leads to failure.”

Hmm – what do you call massive tax subsidies for big oil, big coal and the billions given to agribusiness for ethanol? – Perhaps a “thumb on the scale”?

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Evergreen Solar Flames Out