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Securities law firms are lining up to get a piece of the action after a class action lawsuit was filed against federally subsidized First Solar, Inc., allegedly because the company failed to disclose the massive costs it was incurring due to defects in its solar panels, leading investors to believe the company’s stock was worth more than its actual value. The complaint, filed by the New York-based Pomerantz, Haudek, Grossman, & Gross law firm, claims that First Solar executives – including founder Michael Ahearn and former CEO Robert Gillette – “made false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed...

Automotive and green technology advocacy Web sites areabuzz with a story about a former employee of Fisker Automotive who claims the company released its $102,000-plus Karma electric sport sedan prematurely, in order to meet targets set forth by the Department of Energy so Fisker could access funds from a $529 million loan award. This followed reports from all over the Internet that Consumer Reports purchased a Karma in Connecticut for $107,850, only to see it totally disabled before the magazine could run it through its tests. The whistleblower story originated on the pro-Clean tech Web site Gigaom.com, and was...

Get ready for a new round of green bankruptcies, as Europe trims back subsidies for solar companies and taxpayers lose their appetite for subsidizing green power. “The mini-bubble resulting from the rush to cash in on solar subsidies in European and U.S. markets is ending, as feed-in tariffs drop in Europe while loan guarantee and tax credit programs tighten up in the U.S.,” says a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch according to CNBC.com.Germany is dialing back subsidies for solar this month by 29 percent with subsequent decreases each month, according to Bloomberg.com.Rasmussen has recently released a survey...

March is an important month in the ongoing saga of President Obama’s abject policy failures. First, Chevrolet announced that it would temporarily cease production of the president’s much-touted car for the green economy, the Chevy Volt. Second, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the state-led challenge to the president’s health care legislation. And while “ObamaCar” and ObamaCare may seem like unrelated topics, in this case they have at least three elements in common. Both were sold as a key to creating jobs and economic growth. Only last year the president predicted that there would be 1 million electric cars on...

President Obama boasted at a United Auto Workers conference last week that General Motors was back in business, producing cutting-edge vehicles like the plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt. He even promised to buy one when his time in office ends “five years from now.” Whoops! Just three days later, GM announced that it would suspend Volt production for five weeks this spring, idling 1,300 workers at a Hamtramck, Mich., factory. Alas, Obama’s endorsements notwithstanding, there’s not much of a market for this little bitty car, at least not at the price of almost $32,000 — after a $7,500 federal tax rebate....

Costs of Algae Biofuel* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *Detective Thorn: It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them! ~ Memorable quotes from Soylent Green * The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), reported that gasoline prices have risen from an average price of $1.61, in the week ending December 29, 2008, to $3.72, as of the week ending February 27, 2012 (see chart above). So with gasoline prices on a tear having risen by 131%...

A Department of Energy-funded solar company that laid off 280 workers last week quietly imposed a mandatory, temporary cessation of its operations during the holidays, and warned employees to “not let the rumor mill create false purposes for this shut down.” And in another sign of potential financial troubles, a company document that is supposed to guide “the next great solar company” advises leadership to “stretch payables” to help attain its goals. The forced time off was discovered in an internal memorandum obtained by The Complete Colorado, a news digest Web site, which also revealed the planning document. Employees...

President Obama's Department of Energy helped finance several green energy companies that later fell into bankruptcy -- but not before the firms doled out six-figure bonuses and payouts to top executives, a Center for Public Integrity and ABC News investigation found. ----------------------- snip EnerDel, maker of lithium-ion battery systems, landed a $118.5 million energy grant in August 2009. About one-and-a-half years later, Vice President Joe Biden toured a company plant in Indiana and heralded its taxpayer-supported expansion as one of the "100 Recovery Act Projects That Are Changing America." Two months after Biden's visit, EnerDel corporate parent Ener1 paid $725,000...

The taxpayer-funded ($279 million) battery supplier that gave big raises and parachutes to its executives shortly after it cut “Green jobs” at its Michigan factories, reported last week it would suffer big losses again for 2011. A123 Systems , whose fortunes were entwined with those of electric vehicle startup manufacturer Fisker Automotive, also announced it would look to China and India in order to survive. A123 also received grants and tax credits from Michigan that could total more than $135 million. The company said it would realize a loss of $257.7 million for last year, compared to the $152.6...

Just when it seemed like things couldn't get worse, Indiana received more bad news on the electric vehicle front Wednesday as another promising hopeful announced it would call it quits. Bright Automotive, which had plans to deliver 300 manufacturing jobs to Indiana by 2012 pending the outcome of a loan from the Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, announced Wednesday it has withdrawn its DOE application and will wind down operations in Indiana. In a scathing letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Bright Automotive Chief Executive Reuben Munger and Chief Operating Officer Mike Donoughe described an overly bureaucratic...

Corruption: Outrageous bonuses and White House stonewalling guarantee that the Solyndra scandal, in which betting on green lost taxpayers $535 million, won't go away. But Solyndra is no isolated failure. With 24 million Americans either without any job or underemployed, and 7 million claiming jobless benefits, the latest Solyndra news of wasted stimulus funds and noncooperation with Congress is sure to make taxpayers' blood boil. Nearly two dozen employees of the solar panel maker that got a $535 million federal loan guarantee shortly before bankruptcy got $368,500 in bonuses Wednesday from a federal bankruptcy judge — in spite of the...

Many households in Germany are no longer able to pay their electricity bills. As a result, around half a million households are sitting in the dark. The sharp price increases for electricity and gas is leading to serious payment problems for more and more consumers – even to dark apartments. Because of unpaid bills an estimated 600,000 households in Germany had their power cut off in 2010, said the consumer watch dog Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen which is based in Düsseldorf. This estimate is based on a survey of local energy providers in Germany’s most populous state. "Price increases of around 15...

In the final days of Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s tenure, the state Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth trumpeted the success of green jobs created in the solar industry. “Total job creation projected of 21,592” the April 12, 2010, DELEG presentation claimed. Almost two years later, the large majority of those jobs never saw the light of day. Even if they had come to fruition, they would just be a small part of the entire Michigan economy, says James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. For example, the state of Michigan created 218,137...

Snips from excerpt website: Japanese solar company Sanyo plans to lay off about 140 employees in California, or about 40 percent of its manufacturing workforce in the United States, as it shifts its strategy in order to compete with large rivals, particularly those from China. The company, which is part of Panasonic, is buiding a large factory in Malaysia that will make wafers and turn them into solar cells and then panels. Panasonic plans to invest 45 billion yen (about $580 million) in the new factory. A fellow manufacturer in Japan, Sumco, announced Friday it would get out of the...

Fisker Automotive, the maker of an exotic electric sports car that is being built with help from a $529 million federal government loan guarantee, has announced layoffs at its Delaware plant as it tries to persuade the Department of Energy to send it more public funds. The company says 26 Fisker employees have been let go from the Delaware factory where renowned automotive engineer Henrik Fisker promised to one day begin producing affordable electric sedans. A Delaware newspaper also reported that subcontractors working on the car venture have been let go. Fisker was one of a handful of auto companies...

Fisker Automotive, the maker of an exotic electric sports car that is being built with help from a $529 million federal government loan guarantee, has announced layoffs at its Delaware plant as it tries to persuade the Department of Energy to send it more public funds. The company says 26 Fisker employees have been let go from the Delaware factory where renowned automotive engineer Henrik Fisker promised to one day begin producing affordable electric sedans. A Delaware newspaper also reported that subcontractors working on the car venture have been let go. "It's temporary," said Roger Ormisher, a company spokesman. "We're...

Even before he took the oath of office, Barack Obama embraced the financial crisis of 2008.  In the words of his then Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” and Obama saw the recession as an opportunity for him to play investor picking winners and losers with hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars.  This was his moment to “transform” the American economy to match his vision for a brave new world.  Lavishing billions on green technology was high on Obama’s list of favorites.  In just three years, his Administration has pumped $80 billion into...

Energy: Small- and medium-size businesses serving Louisiana's energy industry are shedding employees, dipping into personal savings or moving elsewhere to stay afloat. The administration's war on fossil fuels is taking its toll. The federal six-month moratorium on drilling that was issued in May 2010, after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, has been officially lifted, but it might as well still be in effect. The glacial permitting process put in place in the aftermath in the name of public safety is killing an industry pledged to wean us from the "energy of the past" will not mourn. A...

More Solyndra-style failure: Obama-tied Amonix Inc lays off most of company By Neil Munro - The Daily Caller 12:56 PM 01/30/2012 Some of President Barack Obama’s top donors and fundraising bundlers are partners in Amonix Inc., the latest Solyndra-like corporate crash. The company has announced a layoff of 200 workers — two-thirds of its workforce — despite a federal green-technology tax credit of $5.9 million in 2010. The investors include John Doerr’s venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Daniel Weiss’ Angeleno Group LLC and Steve Westly’s eponymous Westly Group, according to Amonix’s website. These three investors have also...