Can President Obama Name ONE Clean Energy Success?
May 24, 2012 by Ashe Schow Leave a Comment
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UPDATE 5-24-12: Another energy company which received stimulus funds is laying off workers AND moving them to another country. While Schneider Electric is not technically a green energy company, it did receive $86 million to make energy upgrades to its plant in Cedar Rapids, IA.
The company is cutting 80 jobs, roughly 20% of it's Cedar Rapids workforce, and moving those jobs to two other plants, one of which is in Mexico. More money well spent!
UPDATE 5-15-12: President Obama finally found a clean energy success! Well, not exactly.
A new campaign ad from President Obama features a man who claims his job was saved by President Obama's meddling in the auto industry. The company that the man works for, Johnson Controls, received $299 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies from the stimulus and promised to build two factories in America. They built one in America, and will build the other one in Hungary. Not only that, but Johnson Controls will be laying off workers in the coming months.
Oh yeah, and the company was just fined for using an unreasonable amount of lead. So much for a success. If that's the best President Obama can do, Americans are in for a dire situation should he be re-elected and allowed to invest more of our money in these companies.
UPDATE 5-7-12: It's just about done, First Solar reported 1st quarter losses of 8 cents a share, a 12% revenue decline. It's just a matter of time before it joins the bankruptcy ranks of Solyndra and Beacon Power.
UPDATE 4-20-12: First Solar, which received $1.46 billion in loan guarantees, announced on Tuesday that it will lay off another 2,000 employees. In December, the company announced it would lay off 100 employees. The Export-Import bank also subsidizes First Solar.
UPDATE 4-10-12: The Willard & Kelsey Solar Group claimed they only received money from Ohio taxpayers. The Ohio-based solar company has gone bankrupt, and according to Recovery.gov (the website set up so that taxpayers could track the money they spent in the "stimulus") they actually received $6 million from U.S. taxpayers thanks to President Obama's "green" energy loan program. The company received this money, despite recording just over $500,000 in revenue in 2009 (which was a grant from the state) and a loss of $4.2 million. Money well spent!
UPDATE 4-5-12: A123 Systems, an electric vehicle battery manufacturer which shipped faulty batteries to Fisker Automotive, has seen it's stock fall to less than $1 and is filing for bankruptcy. It is now fighting a class action lawsuit because of the faulty batteries, charged with deceiving the public, artificially inflating its market price and causing investors to purchase stock at the artificially inflated price. A123 received $279 million from taxpayers thanks to President Obama's Department of Energy loan guarantees.
UPDATE 4-5-12: Solar Trust for America declared bankruptcy on Monday after receiving a conditional commitment of $2.1 billion in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. President Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu hailed it as "the largest amount ever offered to a solar project." Solar Trust was supposed to use the money (we don't know how much was actually received or spent at this time) to build a massive solar panel project in California.
NOTE: Solar Trust never got the money, as their plan to use cheaper but older technology was not good enough for the DOE and the company would not change to more expensive technology just to get a government handout (get that? The DOE's loans are not about saving people money, just being politically correct). While this shows yet another failed green energy company that our government considered giving money to, at least taxpayers didn't actually lose the money.
UPDATE 3-2-12: GM has announced that it will lay off 1,300 Chevy Volt workers while it halts production for five weeks. GM spokesman Chris Lee described the layoffs:
""Even with sales up in February over January, we are still seeking to align our production with demand."
The Chevy Volt is not selling, plain and simple. The cars are just sitting on dealer lots even with a $7,500 taxpayer subsidy for buying one. Production was far exceeding demand. The fact that they have to halt production for 5 weeks to align production with demand shows just what a failure this vehicle was.
UPDATE 2-29-12: The Obama Administration made it a whole 22 days without another embarrassing "green" energy failure! Abound Solar, which received $400 million as part of the Department of Energy's loan program, announced today that it will lay off 280 workers (a 70% workforce reduction) and put off building a new factory.
UPDATE 2-7-12: Fisker Automotive is laying off staff in order to – get this – qualify for more government loans from the Department of Energy. President Obama's "green" energy stimulus was supposed to create jobs, now its destroying jobs so that companies can get more stimulus? Outrageous.
Seriously, can he point to ONE clean energy success? On January 27, 2012, we learned that Ener1, a lithium-ion battery maker filed for bankruptcy. Ener1 owns EnerDel, which received $118.5 million dollars from President Obama's "green" energy stimulus plan. Also, Amonix, a solar plant touted by President Obama in 2010, has laid off 200 of its 300 employees.
For those who only hear about these failing companies one by one, the following is a list of all the clean energy companies supported by President Obama's stimulus that are now failing or have filed for bankruptcy. The liberal media hopes you've forgotten about all of them except Solyndra, but we haven't.
Evergreen Solar
SpectraWatt
Solyndra (received $535 million)
Beacon Power (received $43 million)
AES' subsidiary Eastern Energy
Nevada Geothermal (received $98.5 million)
SunPower (received $1.5 billion)
First Solar (received $1.46 billion)
Babcock & Brown (an Australian company which received $178 million)
Ener1 (subsidiary EnerDel received $118.5 million)
Amonix (received 5.9 million)
The National Renewable Energy Lab
Fisker Automotive
Abound Solar (received $400 million)
Chevy Volt (taxpayers basically own GM)
Solar Trust of America
A123 Systems (received $279 million)
Willard & Kelsey Solar Group (received $6 million)
Johnson Controls (received $299 million)
Schneider Electric (received $86 million)
