Free Republic

It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case. The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that...

A solar company that got a multi-million-dollar grant from the Department of Energy earlier this year announced Wednesday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it the second taxpayer-backed green energy company to file for bankruptcy this week. Satcon Technology Corp. announced the decision in a Wednesday news release. “This has been a difficult time for Satcon,” president and CEO Steve Rhoades said. “After careful consideration of available alternatives, the Company’s Board of Directors determined that the Chapter 11 filings were a necessary and prudent step, allowing the Company to continue to operate while giving us the...

The U.S. military is ending a massive nation-building experiment in Afghanistan, shutting down teams that have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into roads, schools and administrative buildings in the country’s hinterlands, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. As part of an effort to improve the reach and reputation of Afghanistan’s central government, the U.S. and its allies set up over two dozen Provincial Reconstruction Teams around the country to dispense development aid and advise local officials. At least five of these have closed in recent months, and most of the remainder will shut down over the next year, the...

WASHINGTON—A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report concludes. It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond anyone's ability to control. What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found. The lengthy, bipartisan report is a scathing evaluation of what the Department...

LOS ANGELES -- A tiny San Jose solar company named SoloPower will flip the switch on production at a U.S. factory Thursday, a major step toward allowing it to tap a $197 million government loan guarantee awarded under the same controversial program that supported failed panel maker Solyndra. SoloPower has initiated a strategy to differentiate it from struggling commodity players in the solar panel industry. Still, there are several similarities between SoloPower and Fremont-based Solyndra -- which became a lightning rod in the U.S. Presidential campaign this year after taking in more than $500 million in government loans and then...

San Francisco's persistent fascination with public power is up for another test. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will consider an attractive but flawed plan to offer clean energy and shake up the utility landscape. At issue is a long-studied proposal that tests the public appetite for going 100 percent renewable on electric power, an option not offered by the city's only provider, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The proposal is public-power-lite, afforded by a state law that allows a city to line up renewable energy as a consumer option. The plan, called CleanPowerSF, calls for an outside source to...

Juhl Wind will provide 520,000 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy credits over the eight regular season home games, which is equal to conventionally produced coal-fired electricity that results in 507,570 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, Juhl Wind estimated. The credits offset the electricity used throughout the Metrodome, covering everything from the concession stands to the scoreboards and making the Vikings one of the only National Football League teams to play in a 100 percent green-powered facility during the entire 2012-2013 season, Corey Juhl said. To be clear: The Vikings are not using wind power to light up the Dome. Juhl Wind...

At a protest last year at New York University, students called attention to their mounting debt by wearing T-shirts with the amount they owed scribbled across the front — $90,000, $75,000, $20,000. “I couldn’t believe the accumulated wealth they represent — for our industry,” the consultant, Jerry Ashton, wrote in a column for a trade publication, InsideARM.com. “It was lip-smacking.” Though Mr. Ashton says his column was meant to be ironic, it nonetheless highlighted undeniable truths: many borrowers are struggling to pay off their student loans, and the debt collection industry is cashing in. As the number of people taking...

* GM losing as much as $49,000 per Volt sold * Cheap leases likely only exacerbate the losses * GM still years away from break even on the car * New plug-in competitors soon from Ford, Honda Sept 10 (Reuters) - General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August - but that probably isn't a good thing for the automaker's bottom line. Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts...

"This weld is our own version of the golden spike for the transcontinental railroad as it connects the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis," Fuhrmann said. "By connecting Central Corridor Green Line with the Hiawatha Blue Line, we will expand environmentally friendly, affordable transit options for residents of St. Paul, Minneapolis and the region."

The solar energy systems manufacturer has missed the first two payments of a $1.5 million state loan to build a factory on the Iron Range last year, but state and company officials say they're optimistic the business can still thrive if a state rebate program are extended. Silicon Energy failed to make $80,000 in schedule quarterly payments earlier this year, and it has reduced its workforce at its Mountain Iron, Minn., assembly plant from 15 employees to 11, Tony Sertich, commissioner of the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, said Wednesday, Sept. 5. Silicon Energy, based in Washington State, has...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The U.S. Clean Heat & Power Association (U.S. CHP Association) today praised the Obama Administration for today's Executive Order, "Accelerating Investment in Industrial Energy Efficiency," which calls for a national combined heat and power deployment goal of an additional 40GW by 2020. Currently supplying twelve percent (12%) of U.S. energy capacity, CHP systems can reach efficiencies above eighty percent (80%). There is approximately 82 GW of CHP installed in the U.S. and industry estimates indicate the technical potential for additional CHP at existing sites in the U.S. is approximately 130 GW (plus...

Opponents of high-speed rail contend that it's a boondoggle because of its $68 billion pricetag. But a recent UC Berkeley study provides evidence that a California bullet train might be a good investment, particularly when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases and fighting climate change. The study, published recently in the journal Environmental Research Letters, was the result of two years of research by UC Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Arpad Horvath and Mikhail Chester, professor at Arizona State University's School of Sustainable Engineering and The Built Environment. The study analyzed the environmental sustainability of a high-speed rail network...

Come November, California will open North America's first full-scale carbon market, in which companies buy and sell the right to emit greenhouse gases from their factories, power plants and oil refineries. It's a major undertaking involving hundreds of companies and - potentially - billions of dollars. Success or failure could have big implications for California's fight against climate change, not to mention the state's fragile economy. So on Thursday, California officials plan to stage a dress rehearsal. The California Air Resources Board will hold a practice auction, giving future players in the carbon market a chance to see how the...

Breaking news: The Fishwrap of Record has finally discovered that the Obama administration gives its Chicago corporate pals special access to power and regulatory favoritism. On Thursday, The Not-So-New York Times published an A1 story titled "Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Big Utility." Everyone, put on your shocked faces! "With energy an increasingly pivotal issue for the Obama White House," the Times intoned, "a review of Exelon's relationship with the administration shows how familiarity has helped foster access at the upper reaches of government and how, in some cases, the outcome has been favorable for Exelon." You mean...

WASHINGTON – A veteran Wall Street executive who performed an independent review that exonerated the Obama administration's program of loans to energy companies contributed $52,500 to re-elect President Barack Obama in the months since completing his work,

We Can’t Wait: Obama Administration Announces Seven Major Renewable Energy Infrastructure Projects that Would Power 1.5 million Homes to be Expedited WASHINGTON, DC – Today, as a part of his We Can’t Wait initiative, President Obama announced that seven nationally and regionally significant solar and wind energy projects will be expedited, including projects in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Wyoming. Together, these job-creating infrastructure projects would produce nearly 5,000 megawatts (MW) of clean energy – enough to power approximately 1.5 million homes, and support the President’s all-of-the-above strategy to expand American made energy. As a part of a Presidential Executive Order...

Green energy firm sacks two-thirds of American workforce days after receiving $32 million government loan ust days after the Export-Import Bank approved a multi-million dollar federal loan guarantee to benefit a mostly foreign-based wind-energy outfit, the company pink-slipped more than 200 American workers. The Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that promotes and finances sales of U.S. exports to foreign buyers, approved a $32 million loan guarantee on Aug. 2 for a Brazilian firm to purchase wind turbines from LM Wind Power. According to its website, LM Wind Power is headquartered in Denmark. “Ex-Im Bank’s financing, which guarantees a Bank of...

Thanks to the ethanol mandate, more than 40 percent of the nation's corn crop now goes into the production of a useless fuel that hardly anyone would buy if the government didn't require it. That's up from just 17 percent in 2005, before the mandate went into effect. Only 36 percent of the corn crop now goes for feed, and 24 percent goes for food. Obama could solve this problem instantly by suspending the federal ethanol mandate -- something his EPA actually can do unilaterally and legally. Instead, Obama will buy up meat -- a move that meat producers say...

The Department of Energy announced the distribution of $43 million in funding for the development of energy storage technology that is “too risky for private-sector investment.” The Aug. 2 press release said the recipients were chosen through two programs of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy – the Advanced Management and Protection of Energy Storage Devices (AMPED) and Small Business Innovation Research (STTR). “ARPA-E was launched in 2009 to seek out transformational, breakthrough technologies that are too risky for private-sector investment but have the potential to translate science into quantum leaps in energy technology, form the foundation for entirely new industries,...