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The Government of Maine has really big plans for floating wind, a floating net zero fantasy, in fact. Since floating wind power is the next big green thing, it is worth taking a close look at this ruinous vision. Floating wind is a fad, not an established technology. It has yet to be built at utility scale or tested in a hurricane. The world’s biggest grid-connected system is a tiny 50 MW and just came online off Scotland. The cost of floating wind is necessarily much greater than fixed wind. A fixed wind tower sits on a simple monopile, while...

“What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own.” James Joyce penned those words while writing Ulysses, but he could have easily written them were he composing a report on the political attitudes of the pseudo-elite greenie left of the modern era.From an article by Greg Rehner at Fox News:California clean energy project threatens thousands of protected Joshua trees: reportsA California-based renewable energy company plans to clear thousands of protected Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert to make way for a solar project that will generate electricity for nearly 180,000 homes in coastal neighborhoods instead of the impacted communities,...

https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2024/06/04/reminder/Just a reminder to everyone so no one ever forgets or pretends that it didn’t happen: Barack Obama broke the exact same law that Martha Stewart went to prison for breaking.By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)June 4, 2024In 2009 the Obama administration gave $535 million to Solyndra, claiming that it would create 4,000 new jobs. However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It was later revealed that the company’s shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama’s campaign, that the company had spent a large sum of money on lobbying, and...

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg attempted to justify the progress on electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, prompting a laugh from CBS’s “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brenna. After $7.5 billion of taxpayers’ money being plowed into the initiative, just a “handful” of charging stations have been built. The interview took a comedic turn when Brennan pointed out the discrepancy between the investment made back in 2021 and the reality of the results. Just seven or eight charging stations have been built despite billions being spent, according to the Federal Highway Administration, “Why isn’t that happening more quickly?” asked Brennan. Buttigieg responded...

A semiconductor company whose president was head of the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar energy company stands to receive $6.6 billion in funding from the Biden administration. Under a preliminary agreement, according to CNBC, a subsidiary of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) in Arizona will receive the funding under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act. The company’s president is Brian Harrison. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Harrison was CEO of Solyndra, which in the early 2000s was involved in the manufacturing of solar panels and considered at the forefront of the sustainable energy industry.

Electric vehicle start-up Fisker is exploring bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Fisker’s stock plunged this week as investors worry about the company’s ability to survive amid a cash crunch. The auto company also said it would slash 15% of its workforce. The Wall Street Journal reported: Electric-vehicle startup Fisker FSR -55.88%decrease; red down pointing triangle has hired restructuring advisers to assist with a possible bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter. Fisker, which recently warned that it risked running out of cash this year, hired financial adviser FTI Consulting and the law firm Davis Polk...

Maine’s Department of Education is reportedly urging school districts to stop using taxpayer-subsidized electric school buses that were purchased within the last year. The districts reported problems with the new buses, which were supplied by Canada-based Lion Electric Co., last fall ... The windshields on the buses would leak whenever it rained, as the glass didn’t appear to be securely in place. concerns about mixing electricity and water from the leaking windshields led them to stop driving some of the buses. The buses, which cost about $345,000 each, were also sold with misaligned or incorrect lettering on the sides, and...

Cities coast-to-coast grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed .. Between the federal government, states and municipalities, untold billions in taxpayer dollars have been spent adding electric buses to transit fleets across the U.S. in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. However, cities from coast-to-coast are grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed, are too expensive to fix, or they have scrapped their electric fleets altogether. Officials in Asheville, North Carolina, recently expressed frustration that three of the five e-buses the city purchased for millions in 2018 are now sitting idle due to a combination of software issues,...

Biden energy loan czar Jigar Shah was a major investor in a struggling green energy company that is in advanced talks to receive a $1.5 billion loan from his office. The Department of Energy’s loan office, where Shah serves as director, is working to fast-track the funding to Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel company on the brink of bankruptcy. But the ties between Plug Power and Shah could add to concerns from lawmakers about conflicts of interest in the federal loan program. Securities and Exchange Commission records detail a long-standing financial relationship between Plug Power and Generate Capital, an investment...

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made $1.6 million from an electric car company the Biden administration boosted that just went bankrupt. Proterra, an electric bus and battery company that President Joe Biden touted as a success of his green energy initiative, filed for bankruptcy in August. Last week, it finally sold its embattled battery business at a rock-bottom price as part of the bankruptcy proceeding. The rise and fall of Proterra demonstrates once again that politicians should refrain from betting taxpayers’ money on business ventures to advance their political agenda. According to the Wall Street Journal, Proterra has sold only 550...

- Li-Cycle Holdings Corp., which is set to receive significant backing from the Biden administration, saw its share price slashed nearly in half after announcing it would pause construction on a first-of-its-kind lithium-ion-battery recycling plant. The Toronto company said it would halt work on its Rochester Hub pending completion of a strategic review, including scope and budget. Li-Cycle said it is facing escalating construction costs that exceed prior guidance and is working closely with the US Energy Department concerning its offer of a $375 million loan commitment. Li-Cycle is one of the many companies vying to help the US meet...

Gareth Joyce, the CEO and a board member of California-based electric bus maker Proterra, continues to serve on a top White House council advising President Biden on trade policy even after his company filed for bankruptcy.

Proterra, the electric bus company at the center of an apparent conflict of interest involving Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, has filed for bankruptcy, Reuters reported Monday evening. Granholm drew immense scrutiny when it was revealed that she maintained her financial positions in the firm, for which she used to sit on the board of directors, after she assumed her post as the leader of the Department of Energy (DOE) and began to direct policies which could have favored her own financial interests. Granholm eventually closed her position in the firm late in May 2021, and netted capital gains amounting to...

Sunlight beats down on a graveyard for dead solar panels in Yuma, Arizona, hundreds stacked in neat piles, waiting for their next life. The great majority of worn and damaged panels are still dumped in landfills. But with more and more piling up, many people know that needs to change. In this desert city where Arizona, California, Sonora and Baja California meet, North America’s first utility-scale solar panel recycling plant has opened to address what founders of We Recycle Solar call a “tsunami” of solar waste. Plans to address climate change rely on massively scaling up clean, solar electricity. The...

Electric Vehicle maker Lordstown Motors Corp. (LMC) announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday despite receiving millions in taxpayer funding through tax breaks and grants. LMC received $4.5 million from JobsOhio, a private nonprofit that collects funds through a government-mandated monopoly on spirituous liquor sales, according to Cleveland.com, and $20 million in tax credits to be paid out over 15 years by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority, according to Business Journal Daily. LMC also received a $40 million loan from the previous owner of the plant, General Motors, who received $60 million in subsidies from the state of...

The solar industry in California has experienced several high-profile bankruptcies including one of its largest producers, Petersen Dean. Now, another local solar company has shuttered, leaving homeowners with unfinished systems on roofs that aren't producing any power, not saving money on utility bills, and often there's still the financing of the equipment and installation that the customer is responsible for.

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.