Don't miss this: Washington Post editorial: "the government 'is a crappy vc'...all solar-energy ventures are risky. Fossil fuel technologies are more cost-effective for the vast majority of uses"

Solyndra: A bad bet Obama should regret - The Washington Post

When a profit-making venture blows half a billion taxpayer dollars, the president should be more upset about it. Much of the criticism Mr. Obama is taking over Solyndra is political. But not all of it.

The important lesson is that the government “is a crappy vc” — venture capitalist — as then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers put it in an internal e-mail.
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The Obama administration has noted that private-sector biggies such as Richard Branson also bet on Solyndra. We concede that government officials are no less susceptible to irrational exuberance than capitalists. The problem is that bureaucrats are more likely to bet wrong because they are generally not full-time investment experts and have no skin in the game themselves.

Solyndra was risky in the sense that all solar-energy ventures are risky. Fossil fuel technologies are more cost-effective for the vast majority of uses.
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Savvy market players saw it coming. The silicon glut — compounded by a global credit crunch — explains why Solyndra was finding private capital harder to raise before the Energy Department stepped in.
...The lost $527 million, as well as the private capital drawn to the firm by the federal seal of approval, is money that now cannot be used for any good objective. Instead, the country just has a bigger pile of debt to pay back, with interest.