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Obama's Taxpayer Funded Green Energy Failures

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Monday, 22 October 2012 08:08

Written by Darrell Lect

The term crony capitalism gets tossed around quite a bit, but it's reached a new level in the Obama administration. The phony $787 billion stimulus bill? Less than 6% went to building roads and bridges, while the rest went to pay back his labor union thug supporters and to ridiculous government programs that didn't help the economy. But the real cronyism was with his green energy initiatives, originally under guidance of Communist and 9/11 truther Van Jones. Obama put a huge responsibility on his White House to pick winners and losers – and mostly all were losers.

Billions of dollars have been wasted on phony green initiatives. This is solely a political move, as many of the green technologies simply don't have a market and audience for their products or service. But, as with liberalism, having a hand in energy gives the government message control over the individual.  As for the stimulus, it was essentially a welfare program that's baked into every annual budget from now on. 

The Heritage Foundation compiled a list of the Obama regime's green energy failures, which have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success. 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 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:

Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
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 ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

This is what happens when the government intervenes in the marketplace, especially when they try to drive innovation.  Look at the Soviet Union and their attempt to build automobiles - it was horrendous.  They built a car that had a hood made of leather!  

Billions of dollars were wasted paying back Obama supporters with phony green initiatives.  This list is a friendly reminder of the failed investments made by the Obama regime.

Darrell Lect is a contributing editor for Habledash.