CIGS startup Solyndra has raised over $79 million, but that’s not helping the company keep some of its original engineering talent.

Three key members of the technical side of the company have left the company in the last several months, according to press releases and other sources. Last year, Benny Buller, one of the company’s founding members and the former vice president of engineering and technology at Solyndra, took off to become director of device improvement at First Solar.

In February 2008, Ratson Morad hit the road to join DayStar Technologies as President and COO. Morad also served as a vice president of engineering and technology and was part of Solyndra’s founding team, according to a press release from DayStar.

Jonathan Michael, one of the founders and former CTO of Solyndra, is no longer with the company. This occurred recently.

“I am no longer with Solyndra," read the automated response to an email I sent him today. I’ve called Solyndra’s corporate number to get a more full explanation but the corporate phone number listed on the web site goes to an individual phone mail box with no name attached. (Solyndra, like chip startup Montalvo Systems, is big on secrecy. Not a lot of releases, email addresses or public information. Montalvo burned through millions before getting gobbled up by Sun Microsystems earlier this year.)

Solyndra right now is in the midst of raising more money, according to sources, and has reportedly argued that it is worth $1 billilon. (Read this masterpiece of erudition I wrote at my former job on Solyndra's valuation here.)

The departures can be interpreted in a number of ways and we’re trying to get in touch with everyone involved. On one hand, you could say the shifts are the result of good opportunities. Everyone seems to want to work at fast-growing First Solar, so good move, Ben. Morad got an opportunity to jump from being a VP to serving as a president of a company. DayStar, however, has had to delay mass production like many other CIGS companies. (CIGS, by the way, stands for copper-indium-gallium-selenide. CIGS solar cells aren’t as efficient as regular silicon solar cells but proponents say they will be cheaper.) We don’t know where Michael is at the moment, but we will try to find out. Solyndra is also actively recruiting.

On the other hand, CIGS isn’t the easiest material to work with. So far, only Global Solar and Nanosolar have moved into commercial production. Recently, HelioVolt said it had achieved over 12 percent efficiency on some of its cells but it is not selling them commercially yet. Engineers started leaving Miasole, another CIGS makers, as problems started to arise. Again, this is speculation, but it’s a possibility. These were three high-level people too.

What if you took all the factory capacity in the world to make solar cells and harnessed it to produce renewable energy systems for China. How long would the total output last?

A little over five weeks. Globally, there will be approximately 10.25 gigawatts worth of solar panel manufacturing capacity in the world in 2008, according to the Prometheus Institute. The figure includes both thin film and traditional silicon panels.

China meanwhile dedicates 2GW worth of power plants a week. 10.25 divided by two gives you 36 days. If you could make all the panels and start shipping January 1, it would get you to February 5, give or take a few hours depending on what happens on Groundhog Day.

Not all of the capacity can or will be utilized. The world had 6.175 megawatts worth of solar panel manufacturing capacity in 2007 and only 3.7 megawatts actually made it out the factory door. Thus, this year’s China Solar Equality Day (my own term) was January 22. In 2010, manufacturing capacity will be in the 12GW to 15GW range, or between Valentine’s Day and President’s Day.

The figures are either depressing or hopeful, depending on your point of view. For the depressing side, it’s clear that coal and gas are here to stay for a while. Although China has begun to take action on emissions, the country will not likely drastically put the brakes on the current growth of its power infrastructure, which fuels the country's economic growth. And you can’t just blame them. India, the U.S. and Europe will continue to expand consumption of fossil fuels. (People outraged by this should feel free to move to the woods and raise yams.) If you compared total solar output with energy demand worldwide, the crossover point would probably occur sometime between the Sugar Bowl and the Rose Parade.

On the other hand, look at the opportunity. Solar panels, wind and solar thermal combined produce less than 0.005 percent of the energy consumed globally every year, according to Ripudaman Malhotra, who oversees research on fossil fuels at SRI International. (Click the link for an overview of Malhotra's analysis on energy consumption, a prelude to a book he's writing later this year.) There’s plenty of room to grow. The solar figures will also grow in the next five years as those large 300MW to 500MW solar thermal plants start going up. China doesn’t sit in a zone that’s optimal for solar thermal, but good conditions exist in India, Northern Africa, Australia and the American Southwest.

Automaker Nissan will announce plans today to launch an electric vehicle in the U.S. and Japan by 2010. In doing so, Nissan will be the first major automaker to bring an EV to the U.S. market. It will expand the line globally by 2012. Nissan is also working with corporate partner Renault on developing an EV for Shai Agassi's Project Better Place, an electric vehicle startup with operations in Silicon Vally and Tel Aviv, and possibly soon Copenhagen. The partnership combines Nissan's research on lithium-ion batteries with Renault vehicles. Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault and Nissan, said recently his companies would spend between $500 million and $1 billion in the next three years developing a market-ready EV. It is uncertain, though highly likely, the EV designed for Project Better Place will be the same one offered for sale in the U.S. and Japan. The announcement, planned for later today, comes just one day after Ghosn and Agassi unveiled PBP's EV prototype in Tel Aviv. The prototype is already capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 MPH in eight seconds and traveling up to 125 miles on a single charge.

John McCain: Maverick, POW, environmentalist, old man. Which of these is not like the other? It's actually unimportant, because the best thing about John McCain's environmental policy blitz through Oregon are the zingers that Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, keeps sending his way. Yesterday Carl had us rolling in the aisles with this gem:

"He's certainly better than Bush, and ... the average Republican senator," but "dramatically worse than the average Republican governor.

And today he makes fun of McCain for being old:

"The science on global warming has changed dramatically over the last five years and Senator McCain's previous bill and current proposals are outdated and fail to provide the big changes Americans are demanding."

But before you start thinking Ole Carl has been hitting the haterade pretty hard these days, let's take a look at some of McCain's more daring proposals. First, McCain's come out in favor of a cap-and-trade in the vein of the early EU ETS, i.e., McCain wants to give away carbon dioxide permits instead of requiring companies to buy them. This is tricky, because when you give something away for free, it typically isn't worth anything. Good thing we have "the purchasing power of the United States government," which right now is about the same as the purchasing power of Canada. McCain also came in in favor of nuclear power - at least he pronounces it like someone who wasn't dropped on their head as a child - arguing that "it doesn't take a leap in logic" to think nuclear power will make us as cool as Belgium. But, with nuclear power plant costs doubling or quadrupling in the past eight months to a record $12 billion, even the generous subsidies lopped onto nuclear plants won't be able to guarantee a price-competitive electricity rate. But enough about McCain, what does Carl Pope have to say?

"it's a bit hard to reconcile the profile McCain hopes to project with McCain's statement last week that the federal government ought to bribe states like California and Florida to open up their coastal waters to the oil industry by offering them richer royalty payments."

Zing!