BrightSource and the Fracking Task Force

American Thinker ^ | April 16, 2012 | Jeffrey Folks

[neverdem]

Bad stuff always happens on Friday the 13th. So it was on Friday that BrightSource Energy, the large solar energy company that has already received $868 million of a $1.6-billion loan guarantee, canceled its IPO application. And that same day, President Obama appointed Heather Zichal to head a new high-level task force to coordinate regulation of hydraulic fracking. The two events, both highly inauspicious, were not unrelated.

The connection is simple and obvious: in order to prop up failing solar companies, Obama needs to force natural gas prices higher.

Solar energy companies like BrightSource can't seem to compete without government subsidies, loan guarantees, and mandates. Left to their own devices, without a trillion dollars in direct and indirect subsidies, state mandates requiring the purchase of green energy at whatever price, and the support of environmentally active nonprofits, companies like BrightSource might not have gotten off the ground in the first place. One has to assume that the withdrawal of Friday's IPO occurred because private investors were skeptical of the ability of BrightSource to produce a profit. To date, the company has generated only large losses of $71.6 million in 2010 and $111 million in 2011. That might have something to do with the market's skeptical outlook, even though at least one major investor claims that the failed IPO will not affect the company's work on the Ivanpath solar-thermal plant, one of its major projects.

It was not just Friday the 13th for BrightSource -- other solar companies had a rough day in the markets as well. First Solar, whose stock price has fallen over 90% off its peak, fell another 5.4% Friday. Others solar firms dropped as well, with the global market index of solar companies having fallen 74% in the past two years. It would appear that without much...

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem.

[1010RD]

The sun rises. Obama wakes and his programming kicks in: “What can I do to harm America today?”

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem.

BrightSource Energy, the large solar energy company that has already received $868 million of a $1.6-billion loan guarantee, canceled its IPO application. And that same day, President Obama appointed Heather Zichal to head a new high-level task force to coordinate regulation of hydraulic fracking. The two events, both highly inauspicious, were not unrelated. The connection is simple and obvious: in order to prop up failing solar companies, Obama needs to force natural gas prices higher.