Obama's "green" jobs initiative
Part of President Barack Hussein Obama's energy policies were directed at so-called "green" jobs, i.e. those businesses that create energy based on renewable sources such as wind and solar power, and the jobs that go with them. To that end, he directed taxpayer dollars to fund them and did so for most of his time in office.
The Heritage Foundation released a report[1] documenting the failures of Obama's foray into these green jobs. Taxpayer money was handed out to companies based largely on cronyism; corruption was rampant, and the end result for most of the thirty-six companies on this list was bankruptcy, billions of taxpayer dollars lost, and more than 1,900 criminal investigations pending.
Despite the well-publicized bankruptcies of numerous loans guaranteed by the Department of Energy Loans Program office,the program was reported in November 2014 to be in the black by $30 million.[2] Though it was never designed to be a money maker, as of 2014, the program collected $810 million in interest that more than offset the amount of defaulted loans. As of 2017, the program is still active.[3][4]
| List of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies (Oct. 2012) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Money lost | Status | |
| Evergreen Solar | $24 million | Bankrupt | |
| SpectraWatt | $500,000 | Bankrupt | |
| Solyndra | $535 million | Bankrupt | |
| Beacon Power | $69 million | Bankrupt | |
| AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy | $17.1 million | Faltering | |
| Nevada Geothermal | $98.5 million | Faltering | |
| SunPower | $1.5 billion | Faltering | |
| First Solar | $1.46 billion | Faltering | |
| Babcock and Brown | $178 million | Faltering | |
| EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 | $118.5 million | Bankrupt | |
| Amonix | $5.9 million | Faltering | |
| National Renewable Energy Lab | $200 million | Faltering | |
| Fisker Automotive | $528 million | Faltering | |
| Abound Solar | $374 million | Bankrupt | |
| A123 Systems | $279 million | Bankrupt | |
| Willard and Kelsey Solar Group | $6 million | Faltering | |
| Johnson Controls | $299 million | Faltering | |
| Schneider Electric | $86 million | Faltering | |
| Brightsource | $1.6 billion | Faltering | |
| ECOtality | $126.2 million | Faltering | |
| Raser Technologies | $33 million | Bankrupt | |
| Energy Conversion Devices | $13.3 million | Bankrupt | |
| Mountain Plaza, Inc. | $2 million | Bankrupt | |
| Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company | $10 million | Bankrupt | |
| Range Fuels | $80 million | Bankrupt | |
| Thompson River Power | $6.4 million | Bankrupt | |
| Stirling Energy Systems | $7 million | Bankrupt | |
| LSP Energy | $2.1 billion | Bankrupt | |
| UniSolar | $100 million | Bankrupt | |
| Azure Dynamics | $120 million | Bankrupt | |
| GreenVolts | $500,000 | Faltering | |
| Vestas | $50 million | Faltering | |
| LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power | $150 million | Faltering | |
| Nordic Windpower | $16 million | Bankrupt | |
| Navistar | $10 million | Faltering | |
| Satcon | $3 million | Bankrupt | |
| TOTAL TAXPAYER MONEY LOST | $10.208 BILLION | ||
References
- ↑ http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/18/president-obamas-taxpayer-backed-green-energy-failures/
- ↑ http://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363572151/after-solyndra-loss-u-s-energy-loan-program-turning-a-profit
- ↑ https://energy.gov/lpo/portfolio/portfolio-projects
- ↑ http://www.washingtonguardian.com/stimulating-investigation
