For Mayor Tom Hughes and the other politicians gathered to cheer the opening of a $440 million solar panel plant in Hillsboro, Oregon, it was a moment of glory.
The arrival of SolarWorld AG promised to be a turning point for his hometown just west of Portland. “Not just because of SolarWorld itself,” Hughes recalled, “but because of the other companies it would drag along with it to create this silicon-based and solar-based manufacturing cluster in Hillsboro.”
That was in 2008 and solar was on the cusp of becoming one of the fastest-growing sources of energy in a world rattled by warnings of climate change. From the White House to statehouses, U.S. leaders promised that green jobs could not only replace those threatened in the nation’s oilfields and coal mines,
