Free Republic

A state program awarding 12 grants totaling $67 million in taxpayer dollars created only a third of the projected jobs. The Centers of Energy Excellence (COEE) program was supposed to create 1,746 jobs by the end of 2012. Yet according to the latest 21st Century Jobs Fund Annual Report, only 588 of these jobs had been created as of February 29, 2012. "The definition of insanity is having our state government continue to selectively fund areas of the private economy and be surprised that the outcomes aren’t good," said Wendy Day, president of Common Sense in Government. Former Gov. Jennifer...

Industrial Policy: For a $9 billion investment, the administration created just over 900 new, permanent jobs. We could've had 20,000 jobs building a pipeline with not a dollar of taxpayer money being wasted. According to the report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, Section 1503 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the stimulus), the part that covers green energy projects got some $9 billion in stimulus cash for 2009-11 and created a whopping 910 direct jobs — those involved in the ongoing operation of the wind and solar projects...

Left-leaning politicians and earth-saving environmental zealots have touted the “new economy” and its new “green jobs” as the solution to what ails us. So, what exactly is a “green job?” As you will see, the Big Government has defined “green jobs” in such a way that nearly everything can be considered a “green job,” which means no matter what happens, the Big Government can claim success. Virtually any new job is essentially a “green job.” Why? Because Big Government says so...

On the day it closed, Solyndra said it was laying off 1,100 full-time and temporary employees. But 1,861 workers lost their jobs as the solar panel manufacturer shut its doors, according to U.S. Labor Department documents provided to The Bay Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents also show the Fremont-based company increased production in 2011, even though it failed to sell all the panels it made the previous year. By the time it closed last August, Solyndra had an unsold inventory of more than 23 megawatts – enough solar panels to power about 23,000 homes. Analysts said...

Kermit the Frog established his legacy convincing millions of impressionable youth that "it's not easy being green." Unfortunately for the once famous frog, the Obama Administration has made poor Kermit look like a liar and burst the generational myth – apparently, it is a whole lot easier to be green than Kermit would have had us all believe. In a June 6 hearing to delve into exactly how the Administration comes up with all those green jobs they claim to have saved-or-created, Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee probed the essential question, "Just what...

Published on Jun 1, 2012 by mittromney Two years ago, President Obama went to Solyndra and touted it as an example of his initiative to create jobs. Today, the company is bankrupt and the building stands empty as a symbol of the failure of President Obama's

Republicans are scoffing at Democrats’ attempts to explain why President Barack Obama’s failed green-tech investments are unimportant but Mitt Romney’s few failures at Bain Capital, an otherwise wildly successful private equity firm, are a scandal. Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter tried out the new tactic during a May 30 appearance on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown,” when she was asked about the president’s support for Solyndra. “The president’s not picking winners and losers, he’s making strategic investment to promote clean energy,” she said. “Mitt Romney’s role at Bain Capital was to make profits for his investors and for himself. … There...

AP Photo Mitt Romney arrived at the shuttered headquarters of Solyndra Inc. this morning, a surprise visit that was shrouded in secrecy and part of the presumptive GOP presidential candidate’s attack on President Obama’s record on jobs creation.“Two years ago President Obama was here to tout this building and this business as a symbol of the success of his stimulus,” said Romney, stepping off a bus and onto the public sidewalk in front of the Solyndra buildings just outside Silicon Valley. “Well you can see that it’s a symbol of something very different today.” Read More About Solyndra from ABC’s...

SOLYNDRA For Sale Property Size Total building area is approximately 411,618 square feet (excluding mezzanine) o Manufacturing area: 287,448 square feet single story o Office building: 37,210 square feet two-story o Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) area: 86,960 square feet usable o Expandable to 739,232 square feet Building Highlights • Highly visible world class manufacturing facility • Frontage along Interstate 880 and Kato Road • Headquarters style office area constructed to LEED Gold Standards • Construction completed in October of 2010 • The total electrical service: 22 Megawatts • Facility is backed up by 2 diesel generators each with 2...

I’m away, so this is a good time for Guest posts. Here Tony explains that we need lots of electricity even while we sleep. I didn’t realize our electricity needs were so high at night. The lowest power use each day is still as much as 60% of the peak. That’s the base load at 3am, and solar panels and wind farms just can’t provide it. We can burn the odd $500 billion building hundreds of solar plants, but even then, we would have to go “medieval” for about 8 hours each night. Candles anyone? — Jo Guest post by...

HELP WANTED: Seeking a go-getter able to thwart sea level rise, reduce polluting fossil fuel emissions and protect strained drinking water supplies. Must have lobbying skills to convince local government and residents to invest in preparing for climate change. Al Gore-style PowerPoint abilities a plus. Palm Beach County is in the market for a climate change czar. While the actual job title and day-to-day duties for this new county post remain in flux, the far-reaching goal is to get a county with more than one million people ready for climate change. That includes promoting "environmental sustainability" efforts such as recycling...

If jobs are any measure, 14 Michigan "green" companies that were awarded $34.5 million in taxpayer funded grants and loans aren't generating much heat. According to the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the companies have reported a total of 183 jobs. While a final report will not be issued until June, calls and emails to the companies indicate the total number will not be much higher. The state awarded the grants and loans in 2009 and 2010 under its Clean Energy Advanced Manufacturing Program. The money came from federal stimulus funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The federal government...

The creation of green jobs is essential to ensure a sustainable future, United Nations officials stressed today at a forum held at the Organization’s Headquarters in New York aimed at giving young people a platform to voice their concerns, experiences and ideas to tackle youth unemployment. In her address to participants, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro stressed that youth are mobilizing like never before and that their ideas can help countries achieve their sustainable development objectives. “Young people can drive the global push for green growth. As entrepreneurs, consumers and leaders, they can adopt new lifestyles that respect our planet. They...

Solar panel installations have fallen by almost 90% in the weeks since the government halved cut the subsidy available, according to Department of Energy and Climate Change figures. The new data lends support to the charge of some in the solar industry that the government cut the subsidy too far and too fast, endangering thousands of jobs. Ministers have defended their actions, saying the scheme they inherited from the previous government was poorly set up and was too costly for the energy customers who ultimately foot the bill.

The U.S. Department of Labor has determined that all manufacturing employees laid off from SolarWorld Industries America Inc. as a result of the company's shutdown of its solar module production plant in Camarillo, Calif., in September are eligible for federal trade-adjustment assistance, including grants for education to retrain them for new work.

A group of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives has introduced new legislation that would extend a number of incentives for wind power and other forms of renewable energy while stripping subsidies for fossil fuels. The bill - Investing to Modernize the Production of American Clean Energy and Technology (IMPACT Act) - introduced by Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Henry Waxman, D-Calif.; John Larson, D-Conn.; Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.; and Bill Pascrell Jr.; D-N.J. - proposes an eight-year extension to the production tax credit (PTC) for wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, landfill gas, hydropower, and marine and hydrokinetic power production. Notably, however,...

After being fired in 2009 as the top executive of Willard & Kelsey Solar Group, a Perrysburg start-up that has received millions in state loans, William Mitchell made a decision that he wasn't going to go away quietly. Before the company's chief executive officer left his job, he copied company records onto his computer's external hard drive -- months of financial transactions, banking records, and detailed expense reports showing the firm spent thousands on travel and entertainment, including trips to Detroit Tigers games and Pittsburgh Steelers events. Emails from Mr. Mitchell also show that he took a keen interest in...

One of President Obama's radical eco-bureaucrats has apologized for confirming an indelible truth: This White House treats politically incorrect private industries as public enemies who deserve regulatory death sentences. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Al Armendariz, an avowed greenie on leave from Southern Methodist University, gave a little-noticed speech in 2010 outlining his sadistic philosophy. "I was in a meeting once, and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting, but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said," he...

Take a drive through your neighborhood, if you dare increase your carbon footprint. Count the number of houses and then the number of houses with that outdoor plumbing atop the roof. You know, the solar panels. After you’ve counted up 1,000 or so houses, how many had solar panels? 10? Not that many? How many “green jobs,” better known as “installers,” do you think those 10 panels created over the year, or five years, or 10 years or whatever it took to put that plumbing on those few roofs? You can bet your last dollar that there were far more...

Barack Obama recently campaigned in Ohio about the importance of his policies, solar energy efforts. Solyndra, endorsed enthusiastically by Department of Energy and the president, declared bankruptcy less than 12 months after receiving Obama’s “investment” of $534 million dollars. Unfortunately, Solyndra was not Obama’s only poorly performing solar energy investment. Obama has, so far, lost over 2 billion dollars in poorly performing solar companies that, soon after huge infusions of taxpayer dollars, filed for bankruptcy protection. Consider Obama’s investment in “green jobs”. After three and a half years and almost one hundred billion dollars of “investments”, Obama’s programs have been...