US President Obama’s Green Energy List of Failures

President Obama’s picking winners and losers have been bleeding US taxpayers. 

Here is a list complied by the conservative Heritage Foundation accounting for (so far) the 34 tax payer funded (crony) green energy companies that have lost money

From the Heritage Foundation

So far, 34 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering — either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
17. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
18. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
19. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
20. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
21. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
22. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
23. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
24. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
25. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
26. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
27. GreenVolts ($500,000)
28. Vestas ($50 million)
29. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
30. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
31. Navistar ($39 million)
32. Satcon ($3 million)*
33. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
34. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

The problem begins with the issue of government picking winners and losers in the first place. Venture capitalist firms exist for this very reason, and they choose what to invest in by looking at companies’ business models and deciding if they are worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connected to the policymakers themselves or because it sounds nice to “invest” in green energy.

The above list includes some adjustments, pls. go to the Heritage site for the updates

Another US Government Sponsored ‘Earth Hour’ Company Goes Bust

First, mainstream environmental politics tell us of the need to become energy independent

Next, mainstream environmental politics tell us that people have been mainly responsible for the deterioration of the environment [based on computer models].

Third environmental politics tell us of the need to shift to green energy, by suggesting that prices of oil should rise to facilitate such a shift.

I may add this really serves as cover to promote the interest as well as to ensure the survival of welfare state nations, whom has depended on the sustainment of lofty oil prices to bribe their citizenry for them to stay in power.

Overall, mainstream environmental politics has been about promoting the privileges of a few entrenched vested interest groups through political privileges of social control by immersing the public with indoctrination based on tomfoolery and propaganda.

So how has the business of green energy fared?

Here is Zero Hedge, (bold emphasis mine)

Solyndra was just the appetizer. Earlier today, in what will come as a surprise only to members of the administration, the company which proudly held the rights to the world's largest solar power project, the hilariously named Solar Trust of America ("STA"), filed for bankruptcy. And while one could say that the company's epic collapse is more a function of alternative energy politics in Germany, where its 70% parent Solar Millennium AG filed for bankruptcy last December, what is relevant is that last April STA was the proud recipient of a $2.1 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy, incidentally the second largest loan ever handed out by the DOE's Stephen Chu. That amount was supposed to fund the expansion of the company's 1000 MW Blythe Solar Power Project in Riverside, California. From the funding press release, "This project construction is expected to create over 1,000 direct jobs in Southern California, 7,500 indirect jobs in related industries throughout the United States, and more than 200 long-term operational jobs at the facility itself. It will play a key role in stimulating the American economy,”said Uwe T. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Solar Trust of America and Executive Chairman of project development subsidiary Solar Millennium, LLC." Instead, what Solar Trust will do is create lots of billable hours for bankruptcy attorneys (at $1,000/hour), and a good old equity extraction for the $22 million DIP lender, which just happens to be NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, another "alternative energy" company which last yearreceived a $935 million loan courtesy of the very same (and now $2.1 billion poorer) Department of Energy, which is also a subsidiary of public NextEra Energy (NEE), in the process ultimately resulting in yet another transfer of taxpayer cash to NEE's private shareholders.

As Bloomberg notes: "The company joins Energy Conversion Devices Inc., a U.S. solar manufacturer that suspended production last year; LSP Energy LP, the owner of a natural-gas-fired power plant in Mississippi; Ener1 Inc., maker of lithium-ion batteries for plug-in electric cars; solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC; and energy storage company Beacon Power Corp. (BCONQ) in bankruptcy."

And so central planning fails again, and again, and again, and again. But it sure will be better with the centrally planned monetary (and in the absence of a working Congress - also fiscal) policy. Because this time it really will be different.

US taxpayer's money down the drain again.

Politics based on social control, this time applied to environmentalism, fits very much into Ben Franklin/Albert Einstein’s description of insanity —doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to come out different. [The insanity quote may have been misattributed to Mr. Franklin and to Mr. Einstein but the essence of the message holds. ]

The unsustainable political picking of winners and losers will work only for as long as the public remains dense to reality, and for as long there remains real savings from the private sector from which would be forcibly diverted into such wasteful political enterprises.

As the great Professor Ludwig von Mises warned,

An essential point in the social philosophy of interventionism is the existence of an inexhaustible fund which can be squeezed forever. The whole system of interventionism collapses when this fountain is drained off: The Santa Claus principle liquidates itself.

Debating Climate Change Over Bed Time Stories

Here is the Thesis (Government advert implying deaths of family pets received many complaints from viewers-Protector1973)


Here is the Anti-Thesis (revised version Maggie's Farm)



Hat Tip: Russ Roberts Cafe Hayek

John Stossel: The Green Jobs Fallacy

John Stossel explains Frederic Bastiats's Broken Window Fallacy applied by governments to create so called "Green Jobs".

(HT: Heritage Blog)

7 Ways To A Dictatorship

Mr. Viv Forbes of the Carbon Sense Coalition lists 7 common traits to a dictatorship.

We quote Mr. Forbes, (bold highlights mine)

"1. Start the Scare

It can be the Yellow Horde, Inflation, Drugs, Pollution, Terrorism, Bird Flu, Peak Oil, Unemployment or Global Warming — get the people anxious and demanding protection from some terror.

2. Lay the Bait

The Utopian Vision — freedom from want, stable prices, fair trading, equality, Lebensraum, racial purity, saving the polar bears/koalas/Great Barrier Reef, balmy weather, return to a simple life, job security, world status.

3. Trumpet the Call to Arms

"Together we can beat this peril/achieve Nirvana.

4. Grab Power and Resources

"We need extra powers, more people and extra taxes to save you from this threat.

5. Spread Propaganda

Use ministerial PR offices to create "The Big Lie. Follow up with supporting half truths and subliminal messages and pictures. Use suasion and the lure of grant money to create a supportive "research industry. Then make sure the government media is well stacked with fellow travellers.

6. Divert the Masses

Arrange massive public activities that create feelings of pride, solidarity and excitement —Roman circuses, Nazi rallies, Soviet military parades, heroes, adventures, football, rock concerts and endless games and nationalistic contests. Enlist the young in exciting things like the Hitler Youth or Mao's Red Brigades.

7. Eliminate the Opposition

Start with pretending they don't exist ("we have consensus — the science is settled). If that fails, follow up with denigration, defamation, vilification, questioning of motives and intimidation. Then, for the diehards, the final solution. The hidden agenda is always the same — more power and money for central controllers and their business mates, higher taxes and less freedom and property rights for the peons."

This reminds me of F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (comic version, video)

Mr. Forbes cites historical examples,

``Let's recall the world of the 1920s:

• The League of Nations had just been set up "to prevent war.

• After years of civil war, Lenin's Bolsheviks controlled Russia and starving peasants were eating a mixture of grain, clay and twigs. When Lenin died, Stalin seized power, murdered Trotsky, turned farms into communes and announced the first of Russia's "Five Year Plans. Millions more died.

• Mussolini, leader of the National Fascists (the Black Shirts) and former editor of the Milan Socialist Party Newspaper, declared himself "Il Duce of Italy.

• Mao Tse-tung formed the Communist Party in China, and commenced setting up communes and Five Year Plans that no one believed in. Millions died in man-made famines.

• French troops occupied the Ruhr to extract reparations from Germany for World War I. The German currency and German savings were destroyed by runaway inflation caused by excessive spending financed by printing paper money.

• Adolph Hitler reorganized the National Socialist German Workers Party and his Brown Shirts attempted to seize power in Bavaria. He also published "Mein Kampf, another grand plan to remake society by force.

• The Conservation Movement was established in Germany and embraced the Nazi party. (see: Green and Brown)

• The Ku Klux Klan claimed one million members in USA.

• The British imposed a Salt Tax in India, thus provoking Ghandi to peaceful revolution. The first Hindu-Muslim riots occurred.

• In Australia there were long strikes in the coal mines, at Broken Hill and on the waterfront.

Read the rest here

As H. L. Mencken once wrote, ``The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Environmental Politics Dottiness: Taxing Cow Farts! Human Farts Next?

The "Green" theme has evolved from science to patent religious zealotry or wanton absurdity...

Take this news from the timesonline.com "What do cars and cows have in common? No, not horns"

Excerpts from the article with all bold highlights mine...

``Proposals to tax the flatulence of cows and other livestock have been denounced by farming groups in the Irish Republic and Denmark.

``A cow tax of €13 per animal has been mooted in Ireland, while Denmark is discussing a levy as high as €80 per cow to offset the potential penalties each country faces from European Union legislation aimed at combating global warming."

``The proposed levies are opposed vigorously by farming groups. The Irish Farmers' Association said that the cattle industry would move to South America to avoid EU taxes.

``Livestock contribute 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The Danish Tax Commission estimates that a cow will emit four tonnes of methane a year in burps and flatulence, compared with 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide for an average car.

``Agriculture, transport and housing are not included in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which enables industrial companies to buy and sell permits to emit carbon dioxide. Instead, EU member states are obliged to cut the emissions from non-ETS sectors by 10 per cent overall by 2020.

``While Romania and Bulgaria will be allowed to increase emissions, Ireland and Denmark are each faced with cuts of 20 per cent in farming sector emissions.

``The cow tax proposals would raise funds to buy allowances from other member states or to invest in technology that might reduce emissions. Denmark is believed to be further advanced with housing for pigs that captures and stores methane emitted from the animals. The gas can be used as a fuel for power generation."

My comment:

What the article didn't say?

If you want more of a 'thing' you reduce its costs, if you want less of the same 'thing' you raise its cost.

Alternatively, by taxing livestock farming which means raising the cost of meat production, governments in essence wants people to reduce meat intake...unless of course you are willing to pay for it with higher prices.

On the other hand, a shift in production and consumption patterns due to such taxes, essentially leads to higher prices across the board for food items, i.e. production of livestock will be reduced or moved overseas (causing shortages of supplies), while demand will likely shift to non-meat products (raising the cost of seafoods,vegetables and etc.).

The other unseen cost is that the demand substitution as a consequence to such obtuseness will equally strain environments, i.e. overfishing, overcropping etc... will translate to other unintended consequences (drought, desertification, fish depletion, pollution, etc.).

In a choice between human and environment, these taxes are skewed towards preserving environment than people. How sensible can this be?

In short, governments have implicitly been promoting HUNGER out of the ridiculous notion that cow farts have been causing greenhouse gases.

What's next, tax human fart?

The Green Religion: Do As They Say and Not As They Do

Interesting article from the Guardian on the political rhetoric of environmentalism....

``People who believe they have the greenest lifestyles can be seen as some of the main culprits behind global warming, says a team of researchers, who claim that many ideas about sustainable living are a myth.

``According to the researchers, people who regularly recycle rubbish and save energy at home are also the most likely to take frequent long-haul flights abroad. The carbon emissions from such flights can swamp the green savings made at home, the researchers claim.

``Stewart Barr, of Exeter University, who led the research, said: "Green living is largely something of a myth. There is this middle class environmentalism where being green is part of the desired image. But another part of the desired image is to fly off skiing twice a year. And the carbon savings they make by not driving their kids to school will be obliterated by the pollution from their flights."

``Some people even said they deserved such flights as a reward for their green efforts, he added.

Read the rest here

Lesson: Be wary of holier than thou preaching. They may be sounding noble, but the preachers themselves don't practice what they advocate.