President Obama will tout investments in "renewable" energy Wednesday at the local Copper Mountain Solar 1 plant, although the plant has only five full-time employees.
The plant, owned by San Diego-based energy company Sempra, was built in late 2010 at a cost of $141 million. Funding included $42 million in federal-government tax credits and $12 million in tax-rebate commitments from the state of Nevada.
Construction of the plant involved over 300 part-time jobs, but currently only five full-time employees operate the plant, a Sempra spokeswoman confirmed. That comes out to $10.8 million in tax-dollar subsidies per employee….
In addition to wanting to create many new jobs, President Obama has claimed green-energy investment will decrease America's energy costs and reduce the country's dependency on foreign oil.
In Boulder City, however, renewables have produced no lower energy costs. Instead, in late 2009, the city approved a 35 percent rate hike, while power generated by Copper Mountain is to go to Southern California — rather than serve Nevadans whose taxes helped finance the plant.
