Free Republic

There's more Solyndras lurking in Obama's "green-land." The junk bond-rated Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy, and the infamous, Solyndra all were beneficiaries of Obama's "green" obsession. According to a hard-hitting CBS News report; Beacon Power, a “green energy storage company,” received $43 million from the Obama admin. The deadheads in the Obama admin gave the biggest S%P 500 loser loan gurantees. The high-sounding "Solar Trust for America" received $2.1 billion in conditional loan guarantees from the DOE — “the largest amount ever offered to a solar project,” according to Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The project near...

Green Jobs Are a National ScandalMore bankruptcies are to come. Solargate is just the tip of the iceberg.This cliché within a mixed metaphor reflects the madness of President Obama’s obsession with “green jobs.” It would be bad enough if this disaster were limited to possible criminality at Solyndra — the solar-panel maker that Obama stimulated with loan guarantees, despite repeated warnings about its rickety finances.“The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra,” Obama proclaimed at its Fremont, Calif., headquarters on May 26, 2010. Not quite. Solyndra’s August 31 bankruptcy transformed 1,100 green jobs into pink slips...

A Daily Caller investigation has found that in addition to the failed company Solyndra, at least four other solar panel manufacturing companies receiving in excess of $500 million in loan guarantees from the Obama administration employ executives or board members who have donated large sums of money to Democratic campaigns. And as questions swirl around possible connections between political donations and these preferential financing arrangements, the Obama White House suddenly began deflecting The Daily Caller’s questions on Wednesday to the Democratic National Committee. Asked Wednesday to comment on the connection between large Democratic donors and Obama administration loan guarantees to...

Solyndra, the solar panel company whose highly publicized failure and consequent investigation by federal authorities has flashed across headlines recently, isn't the only business to go belly up after benefiting from a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package passed in 2009. At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy. Evergreen Solar Inc., indirectly received $5.3 million through a state grant to open a $450 million facility in 2007 that employed roughly 800 people. The company, once a rock star in the solar...

Solyndra, the solar panel company whose highly publicized failure and consequent investigation by federal authorities has flashed across headlines recently, isn't the only business to go belly up after benefiting from a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package passed in 2009. At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy. Evergreen Solar Inc., indirectly received $5.3 million through a state grant to open a $450 million facility in 2007 that employed roughly 800 people. The company, once a rock star in the solar...

WICCOPEE — In a stunning reversal, the frequently lauded and taxpayer-funded SpectraWatt Inc. has told the state it will close its solar cell plant starting in March and lay off 117 workers. The announcement was startling because in the past two months, the company, which had been promised about $8 million in tax dollars, planned to train more workers and changed its work shifts to enable a 24-hour operation. In a news release, the company said it hopes to reverse the situation that led to the decision, but SpectraWatt officials did not respond to requests for details.

Intel Corp. disclosed that an internal team has been working on technology for use in solar panels, and now is spinning off that effort to form a new company. The chip maker said the company, SpectraWatt Inc., will make photovoltaic cells, the primary component in solar panels that use sunlight to generate electricity. It will receive $50 million in initial funding from a consortium including Intel's venture capital arm, Goldman Sach's Cogentrix Energy subsidiary, PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund, and Solon AG, a German solar-panel maker. Intel's move is the latest in a scramble among Silicon Valley companies to...