Energy Secretary Steven Chu again warned Friday that more recipients of Energy Department green technology loan guarantees will likely collapse even as he touted the strength of the program overall.
The warning comes as many Republicans continue to assail the green-energy loan program as a risky use of taxpayer dollars.
“We have always known that there were inherent risks in backing innovative technologies at full commercial scale, and it is very likely that there will be other companies in the portfolio that won’t succeed,” Chu said in a statement Friday.
“But the vast majority of companies are expected to pay the loans back in full, on time, and with about $8 billion in interest — while supporting a total of 60,000 American jobs and helping us compete for a rapidly growing global industry,” he said.
Chu spoke in response to the release of a White House-commissioned outside review of the loan guarantee program, which called for better oversight but also cut the estimate of taxpayer money at risk from recipients defaulting.
The White House commissioned the report last October amid increasing GOP criticism over the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the California solar panel company that collapsed in September after receiving a $535 million loan guarantee two years earlier.
Beacon Power Corp., an energy storage company that received a $43 million guarantee (and drew $39 million of its federally backed loan), has also filed for bankruptcy. The Energy Department, however, expects to recover more than 70 percent of the money.
But the outside report on the Energy Department’s $23.8 portfolio includes a reduced federal estimate of taxpayer risk of losses to roughly $3 billion, compared to an earlier $5 billion department estimate.
The report evaluated 30 loan guarantees (and direct loans to automakers) but did not include Beacon and Solyndra.
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Only $3 Billion in losses were BUILT IN?
I think we are going to fly past that number.
I read about a solar desert plan for CA that is falling through.
Seems they rushed past vetting it for endangered species echo-destruction.
It is causing the rare desert tortoise to be electrocuted.
It is causing stresses in the rare kit fox that has led to many dead from it.
And it seems they raced past vetting the area for Native American sacred grounds, too.
It has some.
We, the tax payers, are on the hook for only 80% of its costs as it dies.
That comes to ONLY $800,000,000.
@Nan G: Check it out, but it’s either Piglosi’s family (son?) or Robert Kennedy (or both) who are benefiting. Follow the money from DOE.
Time to eliminate the DOE since their Nuclear Reactor Power unit has not approved a new reactor since ~1 year before TMI (34 years +/-). Great job for a chimp; just stamp no on every request for a new nuclear power plant. I’ll bet the three or four hundred “No Stamper” chimps at DOE have retired with exceptional pensions.