Ira Stoll: Government-Backed Green Energy Goes Bust

The
recent Chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidation filing of the Toledo,
Ohio-based solar-panel manufacturer Xunlight Corp. has attracted
barely any national attention. Maybe it’s gotten to the point—after
Solyndra, Evergreen, Abound, and Satcon—that the failure of another
government-backed alternative energy company is a dog-bites man
story. It’d be newsworthy if any of them actually ever
succeeded.

But as Ira Stoll explains, it’s worth pausing for an autopsy and
retrospective on Xunlight, because it’s a great (or terrible,
depending on how you look at it) example of how government at all
levels—state and federal—and in both parties—Republican and
Democrat —wastes taxpayer money by subsidizing politically
connected businesses.

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