MINA KIM, host: The failed Fremont-based solar company Solyndra is suing China's three largest solar manufacturers for alleged anti-trust violations. Solyndra's lawyers say the Chinese companies conspired to put Solyndra out of business by flooding the U.S. market with cheap solar panels.  

 

Solyndra is the Silicon Valley start-up that famously went bankrupt last year after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee. Its demise has been a black eye on the Obama administration. 

 

Dan Kammen directs the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley. 

 

And Professor Kammen, the lawsuit accuses companies Suntech, Trina and YingLi of price fixing, conspiring to monopolize the market. Do you think Solyndra's arguments hold water?  

 

DANIEL KAMMEN: It's certainly the case that Chinese companies have been aggressively pricing solar panels at as low of a cost as possible given the differences in wages between the U.S. and China, and a clear Chinese mission to become a major player in the clean tech industry. Whether it was an effort to drive specific companies out of business or not is going to be a hard one to prove. 

 

KIM: Some of the Chinese company officials have fired back saying Solyndra is seeking scapegoats for its own demise. Do you think Solyndra should have been able to foresee some of these changes in the market?

 

KAMMEN: Well, it's hard for one company to do that. Normally the way the innovation process works is a number of technologies are tried out, and given the price point, the ability to install in different markets, different ones succeed and different ones fail. So, their product was aimed a little bit for a market at an earlier stage; it came at a point where after a decade of slow behavior, now it was really time to race for low costs.  And they weren't a good competitor in that brave new world.     

 

KIM: The Solyndra lawsuit comes at a time of rising trade tensions between the US and China. The U.S. Commerce Department last week raised tariffs on solar panels from China citing illegal subsidies from the Chinese government. Could this have any impact on the case?

 

KAMMEN: It certainly could have an impact. Part of the back and forth has been that the U.S. has raised tariffs many industry analysts think that a very large fraction of all current solar companies may not survive this current shake-out, both in the U.S. and overseas. This is very much likely to be a lynch pin case, even though Solyndra did not get to the point of being a really large producer, as some of the companies that are in trouble are in that category already. 

 

KIM: That is my next question, I was curious what affect the case's outcome could have on the growth of the U.S. solar industry? You know, it's been booming over the last few years and I imagine that some companies are concerned about what might happen here, both the feds action and the case.

 

KAMMEN: Well, I think we're all concerned. In particular, even if you take Solyndra out of the equation, I am very concerned because we're seeing a number of other very innovative companies that are also in potential trouble. There are some in Silicon Valley that may not make it. And part of the situation is that early on, companies need some clear and stable environment to sell their products. If the U.S. had a more aggressive deployment plan for solar, meaning one that was gonna be sustained, it makes it much easier for new companies to get in. China sees their deployment market as the whole world, and with lower-cost inputs they are able to be a leader in that area more quickly.

 

KIM: Are other sectors in renewable energy facing similar competition?

 

KAMMEN: This is not unique to solar. There are similar worries in wind, where China also is a major leader. And the same story is true for batteries for electric vehicles; again, China is the leader. So this is not a one-trick issue just around solar.    

 

KIM: Professor Kammen, I wonder what else you might find interesting about this case, or if there's anything else you want to say about why people should pay attention to it. 

 

KAMMEN: I am very concerned that we take this story on from all aspects -- from the climate aspects, from the job-creation aspects -- and not just see it as a question of international trade with China. It's much more fundamental to what are we going to build as the economy of the 21st century.