Posted on 11/29/2016 3:48:17 PM PST by jazusamo
As part of a broad mission to end extreme poverty worldwide the Obama administration is giving unproven startups millions of dollars to create solar power in Africa. It’s a multi-million-dollar U.S. initiative to inspire entrepreneurs and investors to help bring enough connections so households in sub-Saharan Africa have access to clean, modern and affordable electricity. Uncle Sam will pitch in around $36 million and the money will flow through Power Africa, a program created by President Obama to increase the number of people with access to power in the world’s second-largest continent.
More than 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live without access to electricity, according to one of the program’s websites, and most countries are unlikely to connect their entire populations to grid electricity for years, if not decades. As a result, many households rely on expensive, dangerous, pollution-causing kerosene and diesel fuel for their energy needs. The program’s mission is to spur a vibrant marketplace of enterprises that provide off-grid energy solutions that meet the needs of low-income consumers across the African continent. This comes with a hefty price tag and, though the United Kingdom and private foundations will also contribute, American taxpayers will dole out the largest chunks of cash for the African endeavor.
It appears to be the international version of the president’s disastrous—and costly—plan to create innovative clean technologies domestically by filling the coffers of fly-by-night companies that never delivered. Instead, they went bankrupt after getting billions of dollars from American taxpayers under a Department of Energy (DOE) initiative that doled out $16.1 billion for more than two dozen projects. Among the recipients was a now-defunct northern California solar panel firm named Solyndra that abruptly folded after getting $535 million from the DOE to promote green energy. More than 1,000 workers got laid off. Other green energy companies that crashed after getting huge sums of money from the government include ECOtality, a firm that promised to make charging stations for electric cars, and Fisker Automotive, which was supposed to develop a wheelchair-accessible “green” van. ECOtality collapsed after getting $99.8 million and Fisker went under after receiving nearly $200 million.
Now the U.S. is funding similar experiments abroad in the name of ending poverty. A $4 million allocation announced this week will be divided among eight new businesses that promise to revolutionize household solar power across Africa. The Obama administration claims the money is “seed funding” for solar start-ups to support geographical expansion throughout Africa, test new business models and tap into private and public financing. It will also help bring down costs for customers in Africa, which is unlikely to be much of a concern for hard-working American citizens struggling to pay their own electric bill. Among the start-ups that will get cash this round are firms in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Zambia with names like Greenlight Planet, Fenix and Orb Energy that vow to expand solar energy and help rural customers.
Under Obama the U.S. has been extremely generous in funding a variety of global green energy projects, though there are no measures in place to assure completion. Just last month Judicial Watch reported that the administration is spending $2 million to build a green bus corridor in Mexico and a bicycle highway in Colombia. Earlier in the year Judicial Watch reported about corruption in a $25 million project to help Guatemala combat the ills of climate change. Last summer the U.S. spent a quarter of a million dollars to help make Morocco green by helping the North African nation develop innovative solutions to pressing environmental issues such as waste management, recycling and energy efficiency. The cash will continue flowing to similar projects in third-world countries.
This is on the par with selling them mosquito nets for malaria while outlawing DDT.
check out the documentary
3 Billion and Counting,
How do you say money laundering boondoggle in Swahili?
Last I heard even his Kenyan family clan didn’t all have electricity or toilets in their huts
Sterilize 90% of the continent and we’ll talk. Pinching them off like no tomorrow. And we still have American “religious” charities helping them pinch them off.
No cure for stupid.
That money will go right into the coffers of the various militias in the region.
Which I believe is well known to Obama, and is his real goal and purpose.
I don’t doubt that at all.
If not for the Second Amendment, Obama would be a militia leader here in the United States.
After all, they're just "community organizers."
I read a great book called “The Really Inconvenient Truths” by Iain Murray. In it he talks about environmental disasters caused by liberals.
They won’t allow foreign aid to go to countries that allow the use of DDT.
In it, he talks about an African doctor who doesn’t have access to electricity. Instead of allowing him to use the money to buy a generator, he has to have either solar or wind power, neither of which allow him to generate enough electricity to run his equipment.
Needs to happen. Yesterday.
Aren’t there mosquito killing chemicals that don’t stick to bones like DDT? I am pretty sure that there are degradeable (over time, of course) equivalents that can kill the mosquitoes when neccessary.
Two thoughts:
1) I have been in Africa (mission trip, Uganda). Solar panel electrical systems are a great idea there. LOTS of sun, lousy (if any) state run power and if it is available it isn’t always on and the power fluctuates so much it can kill electronics. Having solar power systems for a house or a building makes tons of sense.
2) There is no reason why our federal government should be sending money to Africa to do this.
No doubt it’s true, things like that in the world today are just plain crazy.
China has worse pollution, but oh, they are not black.
Guessing obamy didn’t turn the tv on in time to catch the clip about the US $20,000,000,000,0000 debt.
How much of this money will end up in the coffers of the DNC or Clinton Foundation? I’d say a lot.
I bet a bunch of that money comes back to democrat party. I bet a bunch of the owners were donors.
we have a whole bunch a coal just sitting there....I wonder if it could be used for something ? If China can burn coal....oh nevermind.
A few years ago Omoeba told Africans that if everyone owned a car and had air conditioning the earth would ‘boil over’.
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