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Professor Peabody
09-17-2013, 07:47 PM
ECOtality fatality: Green company files for bankruptcy after 115M stimulus funding granted

By Lachlan Markay The Washington Free Beacon
Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Taxpayer-backed green energy company ECOtality filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday following weeks of turmoil in which the company laid off employees and ceased filling orders for its electric vehicle charging stations.

The Department of Energy (DOE), which awarded the company about $115 million in stimulus funds to produce those chargers, suspended payments last month.

DOE has already paid $96 million of its $115 million commitment to the company.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/17/ecotality-fatality-green-company-files-bankruptcy-/

..and away goes our money...down the drain...


Energy Department loses $42M on clean-energy loan to Mich. van company

By Douglas Ernst - The Washington Times Friday, September 6, 2013

The Energy Department conceded Friday that the federal government will lose $42 million on a loan to a shuttered Michigan van manufacturer — part of the same program that provided a $529 million loan to an electric car maker that also has gone under.

Vehicle Production Group (VPG), which made vans for the disabled, ceased operations in February and laid off 100 workers, two years after receiving a $50 million federal loan......

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/6/energy-department-loses-42-million-loan-michigan-c/

More Obama administration success stories. We all need to remember the billions wasted on Obama so called "green energy" programs, when the Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling.

I can only wonder just how much of that $138 million went to bonuses for the executives of those companies and imagine how much of that will end up in the DNC piggy bank. If we had a real attorney general instead of a puppet on a string, the DOJ would be investigating these failed companies for malfeasance with our money. An ABC story on bonuses for execs of failing "Green Firms Get Fed Cash, Give Execs Bonuses, Fail" (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/green-firms-fed-cash-give-execs-bonuses-fail/story?id=15851653), The DOJ is just too busy foolishly suing states that pass voter ID laws, especially since minority voting rose (http://www.ajc.com/news/news/despite-voter-id-law-minority-turnout-up-in-georgi/nR2bx/) in Georgia after the voter ID law was implemented there.
More Obama administration success stories. We all need to remember the billions wasted on Obama so called "green energy" programs, when the Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling.

I can only wonder just how much of that $138 million went to bonuses for the executives of those companies and imagine how much of that will end up in the DNC piggy bank. If we had a real attorney general instead of a puppet on a string, the DOJ would be investigating these failed companies for malfeasance with our money. An ABC story on bonuses for execs of failing "Green Firms Get Fed Cash, Give Execs Bonuses, Fail" (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/green-firms-fed-cash-give-execs-bonuses-fail/story?id=15851653), The DOJ is just too busy foolishly suing states that pass voter ID laws, especially since minority voting rose (http://www.ajc.com/news/news/despite-voter-id-law-minority-turnout-up-in-georgi/nR2bx/) in Georgia after the voter ID law was implemented there.

AmazonTania
09-17-2013, 07:57 PM
So what does this make it, nine?

Professor Peabody
09-18-2013, 03:02 PM
So what does this make it, nine?

Nine?


The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies: Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Schneider Electric ($86 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)


http://nation.foxnews.com/obama/2012/10/20/list-36-obama-s-taxpayer-funded-green-energy-failures

There are 36 that are either in bankruptcy or faltering.

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

The dollar amounts are the tax dollar amounts of their loans from us.

ptif219
09-18-2013, 04:31 PM
Nine?



There are 36 that are either in bankruptcy or faltering.

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

The dollar amounts are the tax dollar amounts of their loans from us.

You beat me to it I had 30 on heritage from a year ago

patrickt
09-18-2013, 05:01 PM
The game is called "Take the Money and Run." For liberals the game is called, "Spend More No Matter What."

Chris
09-18-2013, 08:55 PM
It's called, fatten the rich, starve the middle class, and ignore the poor, in short, progressivism.

Professor Peabody
09-19-2013, 01:52 AM
It's called, fatten the rich, starve the middle class, and ignore the poor, in short, progressivism.

Call me crazy, but I think it's a way to launder tax dollars into DNC donations.

Chris
09-19-2013, 08:37 AM
Call me crazy, but I think it's a way to launder tax dollars into DNC donations.



I'm sure we could come up with many euphemisms for theft.

Chloe
09-19-2013, 09:23 AM
I personally do not like or completely agree with how President Obama is going about trying to promote green energy and helping start up some green companies by just giving them money, but President Obama and tax money aside though I don't think that the failings of these alternative energy companies is solely the fault of the administration or bad business practices of those companies but actually I think it's the fault of the majority of Americans and definitely exposes the lack of motivation, information, stewardship, and interest in advancing society towards a more sustainable and cleaner future.

For example, people want cheaper gas so they demand more drilling, exploration, and pipelines, however, if they spent the extra money on a solar panel for their home instead of buying the gas guzzling giant SUV then their investment would pretty much be paid off, or close to it, by the time the new oil being found, drilled, and refined out of a place like Alaska or Canada even gets to their local gas station years later, and they'd save money at home on electricity costs which would take the place of the savings they are waiting for at the gas station. I know it's not a cheap initial payment for a solar panel for your home but three, five, ten years down the road where exactly do you hope to be saving money if gas prices continue to go up?

Chris
09-19-2013, 09:31 AM
I personally do not like or completely agree with how President Obama is going about trying to promote green energy and helping start up some green companies by just giving them money. President Obama and tax money aside though I don't think that the failings of these alternative energy companies is solely the fault of the administration or bad business practices of those companies but actually I think it's the fault of the majority of Americans and definitely exposes the lack of motivation, information, stewardship, and interest in advancing society towards a more sustainable and cleaner future.

For example, people want cheaper gas so they demand more drilling, exploration, and pipelines, however, if they spent the extra money on a solar panel for their home instead of buying the gas guzzling giant SUV then their investment would pretty much be paid off, or close to it, by the time the new oil being found, drilled, and refined out of a place like Alaska or Canada even gets to their local gas station years later, and they'd save money at home on electricity costs which would take the place of the savings they are waiting for at the gas station. I know it's not a cheap initial payment for a solar panel for your home but three, five, ten years down the road where exactly do you hope to be saving money if gas prices continue to go up?



Thing is, chloe, people don't generally look at the big picture but consider subjectively the value of options before them and it is these individual choices among many that emerge as the big picture. Anyone who pushes a big picture is likely pushing an agenda and the picture is biased to the agenda, agendas that, while they sound good and feel good, because they are partial, will never work.

On such a view the solution is not a top-down government enforced one, that could well go in the wrong direction if not be outright corrupt, but is to be found in informing and persuading people that different choices can be of more value. You don't have to become a solar panel salesman but a seller of the idea of solar energy as an alternative, or some other alternative energy source.

Mainecoons
09-19-2013, 09:39 AM
Chloe, unfortunately, more than a few of these companies exist(ed) solely for the purpose of milking the taxpayer through cronyism. They never had technology of any real world value.

Basically, they were scams.

Also, you are confusing energy technologies again. There is very little use of liquid hydrocarbons for power generation in the U.S. Virtually all of it is coal or natural gas. Liquid fuels are primarily used for vehicles or home heating when there are no piped (to the home) sources of gas.

Solar power is very uneconomic in much of the U.S. simply because the sun doesn't shine enough to make it so. By contrast, you would be very impressed with how much it is used in Mexico around us, where the sun shines over 300 days per year (but not this summer, grrrr). Payout here is less than 8 years but that is on the basis of power costs in excess of 30 cents per kWh.

Solar wouldn't be seriously considered in most of the U.S. without heavy government subsidies, translated: we take someone else's money, or borrow it, and give it to you to buy a technology that can't stand on its on economically.

Chloe
09-19-2013, 09:46 AM
Chloe, unfortunately, more than a few of these companies exist(ed) solely for the purpose of milking the taxpayer through cronyism. They never had technology of any real world value.

Basically, they were scams.

Also, you are confusing energy technologies again. There is very little use of liquid hydrocarbons for power generation in the U.S. Virtually all of it is coal or natural gas. Liquid fuels are primarily used for vehicles or home heating when there are no piped (to the home) sources of gas.

Solar power is very uneconomic in much of the U.S. simply because the sun doesn't shine enough to make it so. By contrast, you would be very impressed with how much it is used in Mexico around us, where the sun shines over 300 days per year (but not this summer, grrrr). Payout here is less than 8 years but that is on the basis of power costs in excess of 30 cents per kWh.

Solar wouldn't be seriously considered in most of the U.S. without heavy government subsidies, translated: we take someone else's money, or borrow it, and give it to you to buy a technology that can't stand on its on economically.

You act like it has to be sunny every day of the year for them to work but they don't. The panels are absorbing UV rays which go through clouds. It's the same way I can get sunburned on a cloudy day at the beach just like I can on a sunny day at the beach. Sure the panels work more efficiently with full sun but there are regions that are cloudy a good chunk of the year that have solar panels. We have a solar panel and i'm in Portland where people think that it's cloudy 365 days of the year which it isn't. Germany, Norway, and so on have huge solar facilities for example and it's not constant sun. The point is that even a solar panel on your home will save you money, even if it is providing a percentage of your power because it is constant and renewable. Solar wouldn't be seriously considered in the US because people don't care to know. They are soooo used to getting electricity from a grid powered by fossil fuels that they are comfortable, and in turn look for savings at the gas station.

Mainecoons
09-19-2013, 09:50 AM
Chloe, of course they work. The question is do they produce enough power to pay off their purchase and install costs in northern, cloudy climates?

No, they don't.

It is really difficult to discuss these topics with you because you just haven't learned enough science, economics and technology to grasp that "works" is not only that something might produce a trickle of power on a cloudy day. It has to produce enough power WHEN IT IS NEEDED to offset the cost of buying it and installing it.

On that basis, solar power is uneconomic in northern or very cloudy climates. Now, should you somehow reduce the cost of purchase and installation by some orders of magnitude, and without subsidies, then the economics change.

ptif219
09-19-2013, 10:24 AM
Call me crazy, but I think it's a way to launder tax dollars into DNC donations.

Solyndra was Obama paying back a campaign bundler

ptif219
09-19-2013, 10:31 AM
I personally do not like or completely agree with how President Obama is going about trying to promote green energy and helping start up some green companies by just giving them money, but President Obama and tax money aside though I don't think that the failings of these alternative energy companies is solely the fault of the administration or bad business practices of those companies but actually I think it's the fault of the majority of Americans and definitely exposes the lack of motivation, information, stewardship, and interest in advancing society towards a more sustainable and cleaner future.

For example, people want cheaper gas so they demand more drilling, exploration, and pipelines, however, if they spent the extra money on a solar panel for their home instead of buying the gas guzzling giant SUV then their investment would pretty much be paid off, or close to it, by the time the new oil being found, drilled, and refined out of a place like Alaska or Canada even gets to their local gas station years later, and they'd save money at home on electricity costs which would take the place of the savings they are waiting for at the gas station. I know it's not a cheap initial payment for a solar panel for your home but three, five, ten years down the road where exactly do you hope to be saving money if gas prices continue to go up?

in this economy who can afford 10 to 20 thousand dollars for solar panels?

http://www.solarpanelscostguide.com/