Free Republic

If you still own shares in solar energy it’s probably a sign that you’ve been in the sun too long: the sector is tanking – and deservedly so – as reality dawns that this is a Potemkin industry, an Enron of a con-trick, whose survival depends not on the energy it generates but on the subsidies it squeezes from the taxpayer. Consider Exhibit A: the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the California desert. This $2.2 billion project, heavily backed with federal grants by the Obama administration, is absolutely brilliant at killing birds. According to some estimates it accounts for...

The Department of Energy recently turned over more than 1,200 pages of heavily redacted documents in response to a records request about a subsidized biofuels company from The Daily Caller News Foundation. In October, TheDCNF filed a FOIA request with the Energy Department, asking for email records from government officials regarding federal loan guarantees given to Abengoa, a Spanish-based green energy company. The request came on the heels of reports Abengoa was running into big financial problems, despite being given generous taxpayer-backed loans. The DOE gave TheDCNF the records it requested Dec. 18, and after spending time reviewing the documents,...

The Department of Energy recently turned over more than 1,200 pages of heavily redacted documents in response to a records request about a subsidized biofuels company from The Daily Caller News Foundation. In October, TheDCNF filed a FOIA request with the Energy Department, asking for email records from government officials regarding federal loan guarantees given to Abengoa, a Spanish-based green energy company. The request came on the heels of reports Abengoa was running into big financial problems, despite being given generous taxpayer-backed loans. The DOE gave TheDCNF the records it requested Dec. 18, and after spending time reviewing the documents,...

Abengoa, a renewable energy multinational company headquartered in Spain, has been a favorite of the Obama administration in getting federal tax money for clean energy projects. Since 2009, Abengoa and its subsidiaries, according to estimates, have received $2.9 billion in grants and loan guarantees through the Department of Energy to undertake solar projects in California and Arizona—as well as the construction of a cellulosic ethanol plant in Kansas. But in the space of less than a year, Abengoa’s financial health has become critical, leading investors to worry whether the company can survive. The company’s stock price on NASDAQ has swooned—from...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid helped steer billions of federal tax dollars to companies supporting a green energy group run by two of his former staff members and a current campaign operative.The Nevada Democrat pushed for millions of dollars in grants and billions more in federal loan guarantees for corporations that donated to the Clean Energy Project, a nonprofit founded by a pair of former staffers with close ties to both Reid and to a major Democratic PAC associated with the senator, Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon reported.One such company, California-based Fulcrum Bioenergy, received a hefty federal grant...

During my last bombshell blog post, I chronicled the Spanish conglomerate Abengoa that snagged billions of U.S. green energy stimulus funds, exposing how this foreign-owned entity screwed over American taxpayers, workers and vendors. This included a long wrap sheet of chilling, unethical and potentially criminal activity that only came to light due to the testimony, coupled with substantiated documentation, by a whistleblower, whom had worked for Abengoa for three years, from 2010 until 2013. In summary Abengoa: Violated at least the spirit of the 2009-stimulus law as well as the Department of Energy (DOE) loan stipulations Conspired and blatantly broke...

In the summer of 2012, when Marita Noon and I began our collaboration in exposing the entire green corruption scheme, we covered a favored White House Spanish conglomerate in our piece "How Democrats Say 'Crony Corruption' in Spanish: Abengoa." Early this year, we received bombshell testimony, coupled with substantiated documentation, that Abengoa, at least at one of their three projects funded with billions of U.S. taxpayer money from President Obama’s 2009-Recovery Act, has broken stimulus laws and DOE loan stipulations. Worse, what we uncovered is that this foreign-owned firm has engaged in chilling, unethical and potentially criminal activity, including, but...

This chapter looks at the Spanish company Abengoa that received more than $2.8 billion in loans and grants—making them the second largest recipient of the $16 billion doled out through the DOE 1705 loan guarantee program. From the introduction of this serialized book, the thumbnail says: Abengoa has two solar projects: Solana and Mojave Solar. Solana’s Fitch rating is BB+. Just before Christmas, 2010, the company received $1.45 billion from the DOE for a solar thermal plant, to use parabolic trough technology in Gila Bend, AZ. Mojave Solar’s rating was BB. Yet the company received $1.2 billion in September 2011...

Yet again, evidence of impropriety surrounds the issuance of federal Department of Energy “green” loan guarantees — in this instance, loans were granted to a foreign company with Democratic Party ties. Over the last two years, DOE Secretary Steven Chu has awarded Spain-based Abengoa — a sprawling, multi-national industrial firm operating in 70 countries — loan guarantees worth a staggering $2.78 billion for solar and ethanol plants. Abengoa is a Madrid-based conglomerate that operates throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. It is not starved for cash: according to its 2009 annual report, the firm was valued at...

The Energy Department continued to hurry up approvals for green energy loans before the program ends Sept. 30. Late Thursday, the DOE approved a $132 million loan guarantee for Abengoa Bioenergy Project, a Kansas-based cellulosic ethanol plant. The project would create 65 permanent jobs — or just over $2 million per position. That’s actually a big improvement from Wednesday’s DOE approvals of more than $1 billion in loans to two green projects promising 52-55 permanent jobs.

On 18th October former Vice-President of the United States Al Gore made a private visit to the solar platform operated by Abengoa in Sanlúcar la Mayor, Seville, the largest solar platform in Europe (300 megawatts). The construction of two thermosolar plants of 50 megawatts each is scheduled to commence in Écija (Seville), to add to the first two hybrid solar combined cycle plants in the world, in Algeria and Morocco, currently under construction. The visit also included R. Pachauri, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize together with Al Gore in 2007.Al Gore shared a day with Abengoa that included a...

PHOENIX, ARIZONA (AP) -- A Spanish company is planning to take 3 square miles of desert southwest of Phoenix and turn them into one of the largest solar power plants in the world.< > Arizona will be enough to supply up to 70,000 homes at full capacity. < > Arizona regulators are requiring utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025, with annual increases of roughly 1 percent. < > Unlike most solar energy, Solana will use the sun's heat, not its light, to produce power. Gila Bend can get as hot as 120 degrees...