Presidents of both parties have long extolled the virtues of renewable or green energy. But no president has embraced the concept, nor has spent so much taxpayer money on the idea with nothing to show for it but a string of bankrupt companies, as has Barack Hussein Obama. He has even made the idea a cornerstone of his political and environmental platforms. Yet despite dismal failure, his green energy vision remain undaunted, and he continues to spend taxpayer money and offer all manner of provably untrue or conveniently incomplete success stories.
For example, in his State of the Union speech, Obama said, “It was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.” That preposterous claim is completely untrue. Fracking has been used since 1947, and was originally developed by Stanolind Oil and Gas Corporation, and improved by a small-time, independent oil man named George Mitchell.
In the “great timing” department, Obama said, “In three years our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries.” Two days later, Ener1, high-tech battery manufacturer and the recipient of a $118 million federal grant, filed for bankruptcy. But, the Obama administration advisers promise that battery costs will fall. Why do they think that? The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences reported that lithium-ion batteries, like those most used in electric vehicles, is not an “emerging” technology, but is quite mature. Dramatic cost drops are most often associated with new technologies.
Obama’s green-energy program has yielded thousands of jobs. The Department of Energy (DOE) reported that $38.6 billion worth of federally backed loans to green-energy companies has created 3,545 new permanent jobs, with each job costing taxpayers $5 million. It would be much cheaper to have simply supported/subsidized these workers until they died. The wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal industries admit that they would cease to exist without mandated consumption orders and massive production subsidies.
Obama’s DOE predicts that consumption of renewable energy will go from 8.4% of total US energy consumption to 10.8% in 2035, with most of that growth coming from government consumption orders. When we total the billions of taxpayer dollars we’re spending on renewable or green energy, that’s not much of a technological revolution. Technological breakthroughs do occur, often without warning. But there is no reason to believe that President Obama is a better energy future forecaster than are market capitalists who stand to gain billions in profits by making good investments in future technologies So for all you green-energy environmentalists, it’s time to put up (especially your own money) or shut up. Speaking of putting up, environmentalists, why are Chevy Volt sales so dismal?
The recent bankruptcies of DOE green-energy loan recipients and the record of bad DOE bets over the past three years caution taxpayers against future crony paybacks, er, taxpayer-backed loans, er, “investments.” American voters should not confuse hope with certainty.
But that’s just my opinion.
Remember the Fisker Karma?
Only 40 have been bought by anyone in the USA.
All the rest (199 cars) are at dealerships.
But the DOE gave Fisker over $1/2 BILLION to create these $102,000 plug-in nightmares.
Now, not only has every Karma in the hands of the RICH 1%’er public been recalled, but the gov’t wants to hold up more DOE money to refurbish a manufacturing plant in the USA (all the previous Fisker cash went to Finland where the car is now made).
So, $500,000,000/239 cars is “only” a waste of taxpayer money of $2 million, 92 thousand and fifty dollars EACH!
Obama trying to pick winners and losers seems only to pick his buddies as winners and us taxpayers as losers 100% of the time.
A ‘string’ of bankrupt companies? That’s a lie. Tell me, do you even know the other companies we have invested in which are thriving? Off course not, Fox wouldn’t be telling you this! Lol!
Green energy (not sure why it is called that! Is it because of all the green backs it takes to get a kilowatt!) cannot succeed until fossil fuels become so expensive in the US that it becomes viable. Obama’s EPA knows that and is implementing its strategy to make fossil fueled power more expensive. The EPA coal fired power plant emission standards (CO2 and Hg) will in effect double electric costs for many people who cannot afford to pay the increased bills. (I bet Obama will implement a utility support tax for those 49% who cannot pay their utility bills for their X Box and flat screen TV.)
Higher power costs will drive the remaining manufacturing jobs overseas that the labor unions were not able to put out of business. How many steel plants can you run with solar or wind power? Geothermal any one?
So with more and more scientist finally seeing that the APG scientists are wearing no clothes, CO2 has the potential for becoming a friendly gas that supports improved plant growth. When the mercury danger hype subsides as scientists see 95% of Hg is naturally generated, coal fired power plants will again be in vogue. Natural gas, declared to not be a fossil fuel by our esteemed representative from California, is so plentiful it has the potential for export can reduce electric costs, but fracking in under attack by the EPA as well. Maybe we can import cheap oil from Canada through a pipe line that is the safest means for oil import. No? Obama nixed this project?
Four more years of Obama will see actual unemployment rise. (This is actual unemployment, not the adjusted figures this administration publishes.) More industry will move over seas due to increased taxes, higher utility costs and high labor costs. More of the US population will be dependent on big government to survive. Even the 1% will find a more suitable place to invest their money. All of this will happen because of this administration’s efforts to replace fossil fuel energy with “green energy”. Then, there will be no money to subsidize green energy project because as Maggie Thatcher said, “Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.”
Mr. Beatty, you are quite right. It is time to put up or shut up before it is too late to find our way back!
@liberalmann:
Eleven more Solydras – and that was as of a month ago.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57358484/tax-dollars-backing-some-risky-energy-projects/
Tell us about the success stories and how much taxpayer money they represent, by all means.
@liberalchild: You said:
Do you?
I doubt it.
Put up or shut up liberalchild.
@Wm T Sherman:Wm T Sherman, I’m sure that liberalmann, in comment #2, did not bother to read your excellent source, or even investigate the situation, before calling me a liar. Typical liberal.
@liberalmann:
If these alleged companies are “thriving”, why do they need our forced “investment”?
So-called green energy is just a scam allowing politicians to pretend to solve a problem created largely by them, without actually taking any responsibility for the practicallity of their “solution”
The only green product I am aware of that works are trees. They give off oxygen when they grow. They create heat when they are harvested, they heat your house when you burn them, and they create heat when you replant! Of course the left does not want us to harvest this green product!
@chicken thief:
It’s actually a case of the left not thinking through clearly, yet again. Trees provide many things to civilization, chief amongst them the lumber for building. There is no cheaper way to build a building like, say, dwellings to live in, than with the lumber we turn those harvested trees into. So, without that, new housing would be much more expensive. And the poor can hardly afford decent housing now, as it is. So what are we to assume the “green” people’s goals really are? That they simply want humans to go back to the stone age?
@johngalt: That is why I have taken a page from Mark Levin’s book and call the greenies, “flat earth, no-growth, Marxists.”
Obama must have thought he could dither on the Keystone pipeline with Canada.
But Canada has just penned deals with China for sale of OIL uranium and other stuff to that country.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/China+Canada+reach+deals+uranium+travel/6125940/story.html
@johngalt:
Great points.
The $1-billion Genesis Solar Energy Project that had been expedited by state and federal regulatory agencies in California might die.
Oh, and WE the TAXPAYERS will cover the bills.
All because lefties never think things through.
The accelerated procedures approved by state and federal regulators failed to protect wildlife and irreplaceable cultural resources.
Now kit foxes are suffering from deadly distemper.
And a Native American cremation site has been endangered.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-solar-foxes-20120211,0,3104440,full.story