Free Republic

The federal government is giving Pennsylvania a down payment to plan how to best adapt to and mitigate climate change locally. In Harrisburg on Friday, state and federal officials said Pennsylvania will get about $6 million to create priority climate action plans. The commonwealth will receive up to a $3 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant through the program set up by the Inflation Reduction Act. The resulting plans can include things like installing air quality monitoring systems, plugging old oil and gas wells, or converting school bus fleets to electric vehicles. The plans will make the state eligible for grants...

(Reuters) - The world is failing to cut carbon emissions fast enough to avoid disastrous climate change, a dawning truth that is giving life to a technology that for years has been marginal – pulling carbon dioxide from the air. Leading the charge, the U.S. government has offered $3.5 billion in grants to build the factories that will capture and permanently store the gas - the largest such effort globally to help halt climate change through Direct Air Capture (DAC) and expanded a tax credit to $180/tonne to bolster the burgeoning technology. The sums involved dwarf funding available in other...

One entrepreneur says the bank was offering ‘basically subprime business loans.’ ... If government funds it, they will come. That’s an overlooked story line in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. If Washington wants to point fingers, it should aim the biggest digit at itself. ... We serve those creating positive environmental change,” SVB’s website brags, noting that the bank worked with some 1,550 companies in the “climate technology and sustainability sector.” Most of these companies weren’t filling some vital market need. Rather .. SVB was beloved for its willingness to offer “banking services to startups that often weren’t profitable,...

When Obama was 'President' he gave a half a billion dollars to startup energy company Solyndra. They created the company, cleared a location, constructed a building, installed factory equipment, purchased inventory, hired workers, and went bankrupt- all within one year. Within 2 days of the bankruptcy announcement, the FBI swooped in and grabbed all the financial records. Instead of returning inventory to suppliers, they bulldozed it. And then it disappeared from history. No financial accounting was ever made, no Congressional hearings, no one was investigated... It all went down the memory hole.

President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for 2024 includes billions of dollars spread across federal agencies to combat climate change, with a bulk of the investment going toward boosting conservation and disaster resilience, cutting pollution and advancing clean energy technologies. Some of Biden’s spending areas on climate include: $24 billion for climate resilience and conservation $16.5 billion for climate science and clean energy innovation $6.5 billion for energy storage and transmission projects $4.5 billion for jobs building clean energy infrastructure $3 billion for advancing adaptation finance $1.8 billion for environmental justice initiatives $1.2 billion for the Energy Department’s industrial decarbonization activities...

Biden slush fund money is now looking for a home. A battle is on over who gets to waste it.. Biden’s $27 Billion Clean Energy Catalyzer Slush Fund Competition is stiff over who gets first access to Biden’s $27 Billion Clean Energy Catalyzer slush fund. The US government is getting ready to unleash $27 billion to fund projects in disadvantaged communities that cut greenhouse gas emissions and boost clean energy. The cash infusion from last year’s sweeping climate and tax law is meant to drive the deployment of solar panels, heat pumps and electric vehicles in underserved places around the...

Global green energy company Siemens Gamesa reported Thursday that it had lost a staggering $967 million during the three-month period from between October to December. The Germany-based company, which dubs itself as "the global leader in offshore power generation," noted the wind industry has faced various unfavorable pressures leading to negative growth in recent months and years, in its earnings report for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 released Thursday morning. The company added that governments would need to further assist the industry to ensure future positive growth. "The negative development in our service business underscores that we have...

The greenies’ dream of “clean” (except for millions of dead birds) energy from wind farms is dying in the face of the poor economics (even with tax subsidies) and unreliable technology. The big players in constructing wind turbines are facing massive losses and write-downs and cancelling big offshore wind projects. Brace yourself for demands for even more subsides to the failing industry.The green energy subsidiary of German electrical equipment giant Siemens just reported Thursday that it lost nearly a billion dollars in the last quarter. Via Fox News (Hat tip: Beege Welborn, Hot Air):Global green energy company Siemens Gamesa reported...

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department on Monday announced it intends to loan a joint venture of General Motors and LG Energy Solution $2.5 billion to help finance construction of new lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing facilities. The conditional commitment for the loan to Ultium Cells LLC for facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan is expected to close in the coming months and comes from the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program, which has not funded a new loan since 2010. The plan, first reported by Reuters, would mark the Energy Department's first loan exclusively for...

Green energy executive Robert A. Karmann, who was the chief financial officer for a now non-existent company, was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday for his role in a Ponzi scheme encompassing billions of dollars. Karmann was also ordered to pay $624 million in restitution for his involvement in fraudulent acts related to the DC Solar company, which made mobile solar generator units. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, investors were given “generous federal tax credits” for purchasing the units. The investors were also falsely told that there would be consistent revenue...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has issued its first clean energy loan guarantee, reviving an Obama-era program that helped launch the country’s first utility-scale wind and solar farms a decade ago but has largely gone dormant in recent years. Under President Barack Obama, the program boosted Tesla’s efforts to become a behemoth in electric cars, but it stumbled after the California solar company Solyndra failed soon after receiving federal aid a decade ago, costing taxpayers more than $500 million. Republicans and other critics seized on Solyndra as an example of wasteful spending under Obama’s stimulus program. Energy Secretary Jennifer...

The Washington Free Beacon reported: A solar energy company owned by a Biden megadonor received a $500 million government loan to build a manufacturing facility in India, the Biden administration announced this week, raising questions about whether the company’s political clout played any role in the financing decision. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation granted the loan to First Solar, which is owned by billionaire Walmart heir Lukas Walton, to build a solar module plant in India. Walton contributed over $300,000 to President Joe Biden’s campaign last year, and over $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee, according to campaign finance...

Politically connected First Solar also secured $3 billion in loan guarantees from Obama administration.. A solar energy company owned by a Biden megadonor received a $500 million government loan to build a manufacturing facility in India, the Biden administration announced this week, raising questions about whether the company's political clout played any role in the financing decision. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation granted the loan to First Solar, which is owned by billionaire Walmart heir Lukas Walton, to build a solar module plant in India. Walton contributed over $300,000 to President Joe Biden's campaign last year, and over $100,000...

How to best ensure substantial long-run economic growth should be a question on everyone's mind. Its benefits can't be overstated, and it's undeniable that the lack of growth is a root contributor to many seemingly disconnected economic and social problems. That's the central theme of a recent podcast discussion between The New York Times' Ezra Klein and George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen. They both expressed support for reforms to make government less bureaucratic and more agile. For example, Cowen cited the Food and Drug Administration's recent failure to approve COVID-19 treatments quickly enough, while also getting in the way...

Judicial Watch Sues for Solyndra Records of Biden’s Chief of Staff Judicial Watch Continues Fight to Open Biden’s Hidden Senate Records Energy Department Leaves Nuclear Labs Vulnerable to Former Employees Mystery in Mena: The Death of a Patriot Judicial Watch Sues for Solyndra Records of Biden’s Chief of Staff Solyndra is one of the worst scandals of the Obama era – and Ron Klain , President Biden’s chief of staff, is right in the middle of it. The issue is fresh again given the new administration’s plans to fund more Solyndra-type companies with countless tax dollars. Solyndra is the...

President-elect Joe Biden named Ron Klain, a lawyer and former President Barack Obama’s “Ebola czar,” to serve as his White House chief of staff. “Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years that we have worked together, including as we rescued the American economy from one of the worst downturns in our history in 2009 and later overcame a daunting public health emergency in 2014,” Biden said in a Wednesday statement distributed by his transition team. ... Klain has additionally been extremely critical of President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. In March, he gave the federal...

The Department of Energy reached a settlement Thursday to recover $200 million in taxpayer funds from a loan the Obama administration distributed in 2011 to finance a $1 billion solar power plant that was deemed obsolete before it could officially go online. The settlement between DOE and Tonopah Solar Energy must now be approved by a bankruptcy court, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported. The DOE provided a $737 million loan to Tonopah in September 2011 for the purposes of financing the $1.1 billion Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nevada. The agency disbursed funds for the plant in 2011 and...

Left-wing activist Shaun(talcum X) King has become a vocal proponent for the Black Lives Matter movement, but a recent report calls into question where the money raised by his political action committee has gone. King founded the Real Justice PAC in 2017 with the goal of electing "reform-minded prosecutors" who are committed to fighting "structural racism" and defending communities from "abuse by state power," according to the PAC's website. The Washington Free Beacon reviewed the PAC's finances and found that over the past 15 months, a quarter of the money the Real Justice PAC brought in was funneled back to...

A $1 billion solar plant approved in 2011 never delivered what it promised and closed last year. Solar farms are the new frontier in energy, with falling costs and myriad benefits. A combination of terrible management and simple technological advancement turned the plant into a dinosaur. ======================================================================= Bloomberg reports that a planned $1 billion solar plant was out of date and obsolete before it could even be completed. The Crescent Dunes plant opened outside of Las Vegas in 2015, when its technology was already behind, and the solar boom since then has completely eclipsed it. Now, the closed and...

On a joyous California stage late on Super Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden declared to a cheering crowd that reports of his campaign’s death had been greatly exaggerated. The legacy of the “Obama-Biden” democrat was alive and ready to make a second run at the White House. The past four years have seen an inner-party struggle for the soul of the Democratic party between Sanders/Warren socialism and the traditional party establishment. With one fell swoop, Uncle Joe had put himself back in the game.   Pushed by the growing public concern of climate change, Democrats during this cycle have...