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Actually, who’s counting? It seems a major solar company goes bust every other day.

Odersun – the latest German ghost town. Failed solar company lays off 260 employees.

The latest to bite the dust and add to the rapidly rising sea level of red ink is Odersun (sorry, but even their website is no longer operating) in eastern Germany, near the border to Poland.

According to Klimaretter (Climate Rescuers) website:

Frankfurt/Oder headquartered solar company must stop operations on June 1. As the dpa press agecny reports, 260 employees were laid off already last week because the company was unable to pay wages. Negotiations with Staatsholding Rusnano as an investor crumbled over the last week.”

Not even the Russians are interested in German state-subsidized industry or companies.

Odersun is just the latest in a long string of spectacular green failures sweeping across Germany, thus vaporising the fantasy of economic revitalization in the former communist East Germany.

Just months ago politicians from every party were promising high-tech jobs and heady times ahead, thanks to the green revolution they boasted to have ushered in. However, very few people expected bitter reality to replace blissful fantasy so quickly. Politicians, once falling all over themselves to be on camera standing in front of humming state-subsidized solar module production lines, are now bolting for the exits, leaving a landscape littered with shuttered factories.

A money abyss

According to the online Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten:

State of Brandenburg poured tax money to the tune of millions into solar module manufacturer Odersun. The company is now being shut down and its 260 employees will be laid off on June 1. The bankruptcy had sparked a heated debate on the politics of subsidies by the state and especially criticism of economic minister Ralf Christoffers (Left Party) . For years Odersun had been generously supported – with subsidies of more than 10 million euros, a guarantee of 8 million euros, and finally just when bankruptcy appeared inevitable, an emergency funding of 3.2 million euros approved by Christoffers.”

Count it up – well over 20 million euros!

Now that the pigs have thoroughly gorged themselves and left the trough, I wonder who is left to pick up the tab.