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Proterra Bankruptcy Shows Politics Trumps Economics Every Time Clean Tech Innovation Isn't Easy [1]

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Date: 2023-08-17  

Should government subsidies go to well-established technologies, industries, and companies (that make people sick and pollute the atmosphere)? Or should they be used to nurture emerging technologies, nascent industries, and fledgling companies (that protect the public from pollution)?

This shouldn't be a tough question. Public funds should be used for the public good, so if there's an issue where a new technology needs to supplant an old one, it makes sense for the government to subsidize those companies by taking on bets that are perhaps too risky or not profitable enough for the market. When it comes to a challenge as big as climate change, there are plenty of potential technological solutions out there, but it can be difficult to figure out the path from research and development across the infamous " valley of death " to widespread adoption. Yes, some companies will fail, but as long as others succeed, then overall, the technology and investments are a success.

That's exactly what happened a decade ago, when Republicans turned the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar panel startup, into an indictment of the Obama-era investments in clean energy. They of course ignored the fact that the overall loan program that Solyndra was part of went on to recoup all its costs and make a ton of money for taxpayers .

Ever since , Republicans have been searching for another example of a failed bet on clean tech.

Last week, they got it.

As Allison Fisher and the Media Matters for America crew explained yesterday, " Right-wing media tried and failed to make electric bus company Proterra 'Biden's Solyndra'" . Citing Fox and The Washington Times and Red State and Newsmax, Media Matters documents plenty of examples, but even that is just the start. MRCTV , The Washington Free Beacon , the Washington Examiner , Townhall , and of course, The Wall Street Journal also celebrated Proterra’s bankruptcy, though they stopped just shy of making the direct comparison to Solyndra.

But here’s the rub: as Canary Media columnist Michael Grunwald pointed out , the same day that Proterra declared bankruptcy, so did the trucking company Yellow — despite receiving a $700 million loan from the Trump administration. "This failed Trump loan is a WAY worse scandal than Solyndra," Grunwald said, because "Solyndra wasn't a real scandal. It was a reasonable bet on an innovative firm that the Bush DOE had put at the top of the list. It failed because solar got cheap, but the clean energy loan program made money for taxpayers. Yellow was a political scam."

Guess which bankruptcy all the supposedly budget-minded conservatives are upset about?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/17/2187836/-Proterra-Bankruptcy-Shows-Politics-Trumps-Economics-Every-Time-Clean-Tech-Innovation-Isn-t-Easy

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