The geography of DOE loans
California got a huge share of Department of Energy loan guarantees, while Republican states are underrepresented.
A sign at the entrance to the headquarters of bankrupt Solyndra LLC. Solyndra was located in California, a state that received the bulk of the DOE's guaranteed loans.
Robert Galbraith/Reuters/File
Solyndra isn't the only company the DOE placed a bet on. Here is the full list. You will see that California is over-represented on the list and it appears that Republican areas appear to be under-represented. Coincidence? Or do the Red States have few RPS standards and little renewable power potential and thus few renewables companies operate there?
A good research project would be to do an event study. For the subset of this list who are publicly traded firms, has their stock price fallen with the "new news" about Solyndra? Does the DOE now have a reputation for "picking losers"?