The Green Fail
The 2009 stimulus directed around $90 billion toward green initiatives, including loan guarantees for green energy firms, money to weatherize homes, green jobs training grants, and many other projects.
In an audit released in September, the Department of Labor's inspector general found that a $500 million program for training people with so-called green skills has so far produced only 1,336 jobs that have lasted over 6 months, with $163 million already spent. This amounts to $121,856 per successful green trainee.
The Obama administration had an idea that would solve the jobs crisis and our environmental woes in one fell swoop. They gave loans and grants to green energy and research companies in order to move the market forward and enable the companies to hire more employees.
- SunPower, after receiving $1.5 billion from DOE, is reorganizing, cutting jobs.
- First Solar, after receiving $1.46 billion from DOE, is reorganizing, cutting jobs.
- Solyndra, after receiving $535 million from DOE, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- Ener1, after receiving $118.5 million from DOE, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- Evergreen Solar, after receiving millions of dollars from the state of Massachusetts, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- SpectraWatt, backed by Intel and Goldman Sachs, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- Beacon Power, after receiving $43 million from DOE, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- Abound Solar, after receiving $400 million from DOE, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- Amonix, after receiving $5.9 million from DOE, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- Babcock & Brown (an Australian company), after receiving $178 million from DOE, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- A123 Systems, after receiving $279 million from DOE, shipped some bad batteries and is barely operating. It cut jobs.
- Solar Trust for America, after receiving a $2.1-billion loan guarantee from DOE, filed for bankruptcy protection.
- Nevada Geothermal, after receiving $98.5 million from DOE, warns of potential defaults in new SEC filings.
Tom, the rebuttle from the green camp is that there are far more successes than failures. Van Jones claims "...the failure rate is lower than Congress anticipated when they created these programs -- and, while we're on the topic, higher than Romney's 80% success rate at Bain Capital.", but doesn't provide a data source to back that up. (http://www.ktvz.com/news/Van-Jones-Romney-green-jobs-distortion/-/413192/16884024/-/sae3ojz/-/index.html)
ReplyDeleteIs there any legitimacy to the claim that there are a significant number of success stories coming from goverment's green energy investments?
My guess would be Van Jones is full of it per usual. The entirety of the solar industry is going bust, The EV market is basically a non-starter. The subsidized domestic battery mfr's (actually not even green per se)are failing. A better question would be where is an actual govt subsidized green success?
ReplyDelete