Green Energy Bankruptcies Could Cost Taxpayers $2 Billion

TAXPAYERS ON HOOK FOR $2.2 BILLION

CRONYSIM RULES CLEAN ENERGY

Excellent short clip from Friday on Fox Biz. SunEdison benefited to the tune of $750 million from taxpayers, mostly through its purchase of First Wind. Marc Morano discusses green skeletons, Solyndra 2, renewable illusions, and rampant crony capitalism at SunE.

Comments

[john]

It's a lot higher than that. I get 2.51 billion as of 2012.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/22/news/economy/obama-energy-bankruptcies/


A lot more has been lost over the last 4 years. How much is hidden? How much was overseas? I make my case with Evergreen Solar:


Bankrupt Solar Company Stimulus Money Missing From Federal Records

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/15581

Evergreen Solar may be a better example of just how complicated and difficult it can be to track the massive $821 billion federal stimulus.

Because despite the White House and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick both citing Evergreen Solar as receiving stimulus money, the government’s website that tracks ARRA spending could find no evidence the solar panel company did indeed get that money.

Recovery.gov, the U.S. government’s official website related to Recovery Act spending, could find nothing showing that Evergreen Solar received any stimulus money.

[john]

Spanish Firm Under Federal Investigation Wins $230 Million in DOE Subsidies

http://freebeacon.com/issues/spanish-firm-under-federal-investigation-wins-230-million-in-doe-subsidies/

A Spanish renewable energy company under investigation by at least two federal agencies unveiled a new biofuel production facility on Friday that will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies.

Former employees of the company have alleged that it routinely engages in violations of U.S. immigration, environmental, and workplace safety laws and uses taxpayer funds to hire foreign workers in violation of federal regulations.

The company, Abengoa, received a $132.4 million loan guarantee and a $97 million grant to build a new biofuel plant Hugoton, Kansas. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback attended its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday.



They filed BK last week! Keep in mind they are the parent of Iberdrola.


Here are some numbers from existing, soon to go under or gone wind entities from 2010.

http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/wind-energy-funds-going-overseas/story/stimulus-wind-grants/

[skinflint]

Commodities crash? Aubrey McClendon dies from an automobile accident a day after a grand jury charged him with rigging bids. This guy and Chesapeake once owned most of the natural gas wells in the US. Natural gas crashed and so did the company. McClendon had just raised 15bil for a new venture and drove his SUV into a concrete structure and burst into flames and became a crispy critter. According to witnesses he made NO attempt to slow down and the stock price of Chesapeake jumped up over 30 per cent upon the announcement of his untimely demise. A curious thing to be liquidated, or in his case, carbonated.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/02/ex-chesapeake-ceo-mcclendon-dies-in-car-wreck-day-after-indictment.html

[DailyBail]

McClendon was going to jail. He couldn't handle it. I got drunk with him in Dallas in 1992 when I was there for an Alex Brown trip. He is a wild human being. I never ran into him again, but I was out of oil & gas a few years later.

[john]

Recapping the Obama Administration Green Energy Stimulus Failures

http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/recapping-the-obama-administration-green-energy-stimulus-failures/

Conclusion

As the above discussion implies, the government is not good at determining winners and losers, and favoritism for those with close ties to political figures seems to be present in many of the failures. Further, outside forces pushed DOE loan guarantees to be awarded quickly without sufficient review. American taxpayers’ dollars were being used to support companies that were large donors to President Obama and to other candidates, without garnering any benefits.

List from 2012.

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)
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.(by 2012)

==========

In my next chronicle I will have a current and complete list.

[DailyBail]

Texas has lost 84,000 oil and gas jobs in the oil bust

http://www.mrt.com/business/oil/top_stories/article_ccf3cd6a-08d0-11e6-ba96-7b8ab5b1efd0.html

[DailyBail]

Oil tanker laden with North Dakota crude reaches Netherlands

http://www.mrt.com/business/oil/top_stories/article_85b87ad2-08ca-11e6-a059-4f802d251d28.html

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A petroleum tanker laden with 175,000 barrels of North Dakota crude was being offloaded in Europe on Wednesday, the first such overseas shipment of the state’s oil since Congress lifted a 40-year ban on crude exports in December.

[john]

Reliance buys Iranian oil after six-year hiatus

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/oil-gas/reliance-buys-iranian-oil-after-six-year-hiatus/articleshow/51963025.cms

NEW DELHI: Reliance IndustriesBSE -0.21 % has bought crude oil from Iran after a 6-year break and is looking to strike a long-term fixed quantity deal, post lifting of sanctions.

RIL, which operates the world's biggest refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat, is looking at quickly ramping up purchases to the earlier levels of about 5 million tonnes a year.

[john]

Billionaire Vinod Khosla’s big dreams for biofuels fail to catch fire

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/billionaire-vinod-khoslas-big-dreams-for-biofuels-fail-to-catch-fire/2014/11/27/04899d12-69d7-11e4-9fb4-a622dae742a2_story.html

Just over a year ago, billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla was bubbling with optimism about one of his latest investments: KiOR, a biofuel outfit he said would turn wood chips into hydrocarbons that could be poured straight into a refinery, pipeline or vehicle.

The KiOR refinery in Columbus, Miss., was “an amazing facility,” Khosla gushed. “It is exactly the same as what nature does, but nature takes a million years and we take a few minutes,” Khosla said in a November 2013 e-mail to The Washington Post. In a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast in January, Khosla boasted of the company’s “magic catalyst.”

Now, however, the spell has been broken. On Nov. 10, KiOR filed for bankruptcy, leaving behind 2,067 creditors, including the state of Mississippi, which had given KiOR a $75 million, 20-year, no-interest loan after the company assured officials that it would invest $500 million in the plant and create 1,000 jobs by December 2015.

Shareholders — including Khosla Ventures, which had a 28 percent stake — absorbed the blow. The stock peaked at more than $20 a share in September 2011, giving it a market value of $1.7 billion. At the time of the bankruptcy, KiOR stock closed at 2.5 cents a share, essentially worthless.

[john]

The Navy's Use of Biofuels is Inefficient and Costly
The Navy is wasting taxpayer money by pursuing biofuels as an energy source.


http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/on-energy/2012/07/19/the-navys-use-of-biofuels-is-inefficient-and-costly

This week, the Navy embarked on a costly and pointless exercise—using "advanced" biofuels that cost $26 per galon in some naval exercises. At a time when the federal budget and military budgets are tight, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus claims that it is important to spend millions of dollars on an exotic biofuel to "enhance our national security." That is ridiculous. Spending $26 a gallon on exotic biofuel does not "enhance natural security" as it reduces our security by wasting taxpayer's dollars on yet another renewable boondoggle and diverts funds from necessary readiness.

=======

'Great Green Fleet' using biofuels deployed by U.S. Navy

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-defense-greenfleet-idUSKCN0UY2U4

The U.S. Navy formally deployed its "Great Green Fleet" on Wednesday, sending warships powered by alternative energy to conduct operations in the Pacific three years after controversy over the price of developing new fuels provoked a fight in Congress.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack kicked off the deployment in a ceremony at Naval Air Station North Island near San Diego, saying the use of biofuels would improve the Navy's operational flexibility while boosting the U.S. rural economy.

The Navy's focus on developing alternative fuel sources comes despite a 70 percent drop in oil prices since it first tested its Great Green Fleet in exercises in 2012.

[Howard Lauther]

All right, so who's the villain? Private industry for its competence? Or the government for its misplaced trust?

[john]

Canada just scrapped its oldest wind farm after 23 years of intermittent operation. Here in the US we have many farms which have reached or passed their expiration date. Many have faulty equipment and others poor O&M. The PPA's that yieldco's rely on will be, imho, jeopardized sooner rather than later. We cannot and should not bail them out.