Taxpayers subsidizing desert solar energy

CalWatchdog ^ | May 21, 2013 | Warren Duffy

[artichokegrower]

What is going on with the California based Ivanpah solar plant?

In April 2011, Brightsource Energy received a loan guarantee of $1.6 billion from the Department of Energy for the California-based Ivanpah project. It’s located along I-15 at the California-Nevada border, 29 miles northeast of Barstow. The loan amount was three times that given by the DOE to the now bankrupt California solar company Solyndra.

At the time of the April 2011 loan, the man at the controls as board chairman of Brightsource was John Bryson. He served in that capacity from September 2010 to January 2012. The loan was approved by then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a fellow Californian and friend of Bryson.

An interesting turn of events occurred during his tenure. On May 31, 2011, Bryson was nominated by President Obama to serve as U.S. Commerce Secretary. Bryson held the post until seizures and car accidents forced his resignation on June 21, 2012.

Bryson also was the director of Southern California Edison from 1990 until he retired in 2008, guiding the firm during the politically treacherous 1996 reorganization of the California electricity system and the 2000-2001 California Electricity Crisis. Curiously, in 1970 Bryson co-founded, with John Adams, the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental defense law firm.

[artichokegrower]

This will not end well.

[mkmensinger]

If government is involved, they’ll either run out of sand or sun.

[artichokegrower]

$55 million to move 166 tortoises. That’s $336,000 per tortoise. Hey it’s just taxpayer money.

[NormsRevenge]

Now, now.. Don’t blame a Kennedy is it fails.. ;-]