Discuss the legal and ethical issues surrounding Solyndra, the Essay

Discuss the legal and ethical issues surrounding Solyndra, the California based solar panel manufacturer - Essay Example Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer, was formed in the Silicon Valley in 2005. The company focused on designing and manufacturing solar photovoltaic equipments mainly for commercial and public utility purposes. The client base constituted of commercial firms, government agencies, energy companies and other roofing firms. The company was established by Dr. Christian Gronet in 2005 as Gronet Technologies Inc (Hargreaves, 2012). At a later stage, the company was renamed as Solyndra that pioneered in the development of greener energy. The company aimed to create a breakthrough to reflect ways in which the government and business organizations would function in a cleaner energy environment (Brewer, Kinsey & Mendenhall, 2012). The saga of Solyndra venturing in the creation of greener technology is observed to encounter a severe downfall owing to the potential mismanagement of funds by the US government. Solyndra focused on gaining a competitive advantage such that it aimed to develop solar panels without the use of polysilicon, which was considerably expensive in the energy market. Though the production cost of solar panels created by Solyndra was high in nature, yet its installation was found to be considerably cheaper. During 2009, a huge loan amount of around $535 million was sanctioned by the US Government in order to enhance production and distribution operations of the company. The legal and ethical issues that rocked the company started with the declaration and receipt of this huge loan amount, which was observed to fail in achieving the required objective owing to fall in the value of polysilicon and also organizational inability to sustain the cheap installation costs (Wang, 2011). Similarly, wit h fall in the prices of natural gas and rising competition for the entry of Chinese firms, demand for the solar photovoltaic equipments produced by Solyndra faced a major setback. The