THE PATIENT DIED BUT THE OPERATION WAS A SUCCESS or How to Measure Success Like a Community Organizer

Thanks to The Foundry for this report:

So far, 36 green companies that received federal support from taxpayers have either gone bankrupt or are laying off workers and are heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

1. Evergreen Solar ($24 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($69 million)*
5. AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
6. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
7. SunPower ($1.5 billion)
8. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
9. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
10. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
11. Amonix ($5.9 million)
12. National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
13. Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
14. Abound Solar ($374 million)*
15. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
16. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
17. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
18. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
19. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
20. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
21. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
22. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
23. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
24. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
25. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
26. Thompson River Power ($6.4 million)*
27. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
28. LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)*
29. UniSolar ($100 million)*
30. Azure Dynamics ($120 million)*
31. GreenVolts ($500,000)
32. Vestas ($50 million)
33. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($150 million)
34. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
35. Navistar ($10 million)
36. Satcon ($3 million)*

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

Only a government could compile such a list of economic failures.  Chalk it up to economic ignorance if you wish but that is being charitable.  Taking Solyndra and A123 as examples, considerable sums of money were legally channeled away from taxpayers, to the US Treasury, to Solyndra and A123 and their founders, to the coffers of Democratic campaign funds.  That money is not going back.

Community organizing activities are constantly in need of money to support their agenda.  We learned from the book Radical-In-Chief that community organizers consider any program that brings in money to support their activist  agenda is considered a success.  Whether or not the program accomplishes its ostensive goal, in this case green energy, is secondary.

Obama scored points for himself and all Democrats for showing moral responsibility and smart government when they heralded the financial support given these companies.  Very fewof those points were  lost when the companies and programs failed.

The Party solidified its base for at least trying to do something for the environment and raised some money for campaign funding.  It’s has been a win-win for the Party, a lose-lose for the taxpaying public.