It is no secret that Barry’s has a fetish for dabbling in venture capitalism and that his attempts have not gone all that well. Especially for we taxpayer who have been funding these little experiments of his. But the extent, and the magnitude of the costs involved, of his abysmal failure has gone largely ignored by our illustrious state-controlled media. Sure, single instances garner a brief amount of attention as they happen, but are then swept out of sight just as quickly and there is never any mention of any past failures in an attempt to make it all appear as if is all some a rare and isolated case, or an anomaly in an otherwise brilliant plan.
But the truth of the matter is that the problem is very widespread. The government’s, actually it's all Barry, picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers literally Billions and Billions of dollars in the hole. And the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is really quite amazing, as well as very substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success by any stretch. It simply means that our taxpayer dollars subsidized companies that would’ve found the financial support in the private market.
So far, 36 companies that have received federal support from taxpayers have either gone bankrupt or are laying off workers and heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from Barry’s Department of Energy. 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:
Evergreen Solar ($24 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($69 million)*
AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.5 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
Abound Solar ($374 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Schneider Electric ($86 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.4 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)*
UniSolar ($100 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($120 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Chemical Power ($150 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($10 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
The problem begins when those in government, who more often than not, come nowhere near to actually possessing the level experience required to do so, think themselves as being capable of picking winners and losers. Venture capitalist firms exist for this very reason, and they choose which companies to invest in by looking at those companies’ business models and deciding if they are investment worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connected to the policymakers themselves or because it makes them all warm and fuzzy inside to "invest" in green energy.
That which was described as being the 2009 'stimulus' set aside $80 Billion to subsidize what were seen as being politically ‘preferred’ energy projects. Since that time, 1,900 investigations have been opened to look into 'stimulus' waste, fraud, and abuse, although not all are linked to the green-energy funds, and nearly 600 convictions have thus far been made. Of that $80 Billion in clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits, at least 10 percent has gone to companies that have since either gone bankrupt or are now in the process of going completely 'Tango Uniform (tits up)..
Look, I’m just as much in favor of "green energy" as the next guy. But for crying out lour, there needs to be some level of rational thought applied to the process. Government, or our president, has no absolutely no business picking companies in which to "invest" large sums of public funds. And I also question the urgency with which this whole ‘green energy’ thing needs to be addressed. Personally, I would argue that what’s most imperative is that we first wean ourselves off of the oil that we’re currently buying from the flaming nut cases who hate us. Let’s face it, we are quite literally paying the people who are trying to kill us. DUH!!
So how about we start by applying a little sanity to our energy policy. Because I gotta tell ya, what’s been going on for the last four years makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Now first of I would think that we should start off by taking full advantage of our vast energy reserves right here at home. And we do so while at the same time researching renewable energy sources that are actually viable, in a very logical and methodical manner rather than the current haphazard, willy-nilly, very expensive and outrageously wasteful helter-skelter manner in which Barry has continued to approach this very important issue.
Barry likes to talk a lot about his so-called "all of the above" approach regarding his energy policy, but that "all of the above" approach never seems to include the actual drilling for more oil anywhere here at home. Only in places like Brazil. So we're going to need to scrap Barry's entire idiotic, and politically motivated, plan pretty much in it's entirety and start from scratch. Look, here we are sitting atop more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, and we're forbidden from going after it. Meanwhile gas prices continue to increase as does the cost to heat and cool our homes. It just makes no sense.
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