Category Archives: Environment

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

Posted on October 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in Energy, Environment, Opinion, Political polemics

Tagged , , ,

LET’S CALL IT A DRAW

Posted on October 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

President Obama needed a clear win to stem the slide.  He didn’t get it.  As in the Biden-Ryan debate, the Republican came across as a gentleman, the Democrat as more articulate and assertive.  It is difficult to judge the net effect on the election without knowing how well informed the undecided are.  Polls show unwavering support for each candidate at around the 47% level.  It is the relatively small group of undecided voters who will determine who the next president will be.

Right out of the box Obama painted his administration as one that gave strong support to the increased use of coal, the pipeline to Canada and made expansion of exploration and drilling for domestic oil and gas a priority.  Every one of those assertions is exactly the opposite of the truth.  But how many of the undecided viewers know that?  Obama also said that what we need is efficient energy.  How many undecided voters know that wind and solar are the least efficient and that’s why they need government subsidies to exist?  How many know the Solyndra story, not just the headlines but the full story?

Two down, one to go.  If the third is anywhere close to a draw, Obama’s record on the economy will cost him the election as well it should.

Leave a comment

Posted in Economy, Environment, Opinion, Political polemics

Tagged , , , , ,

A SNIPPET ABOUT THE CHEVROLET VOLT

Posted on October 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

voltshock.jpg

The snippet is from a serious blogger with a sense of humor, or at least a good sense of the ridiculous or he wouldn’t call himself Senator Blutarsky.  The moniker is fitting if you consider the Volt is somewhat of an Animal House product.  Here is the Senator’s bottom line.

THE BOTTOM LINE: even with generous assumptions, the first generation of the Chevrolet Volt will consume about $1 billion in federal tax credits, and STILL result in an economic loss to GM shareholders in excess of $600 million over its lifetime. Without the subsidies, the cumulative loss would triple to $1.8 billion.

Go to the Senator’s own words if you want to read the nitty-gritty above the Bottom Line.  Be forewarned, he uses a lot of numbers.  Why not simply divide $1 billion by the number of people who pay taxes to see how much of your money has been invested in the Government Volt.

Let it go at that, watch tonight’s debate and don’t neglect to vote.

Leave a comment

Posted in Environment, Humor, Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

IS THERE NO SHAME?

Posted on March 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

There comes a point when the bigger and bolder the lie the harder it is to disbelieve.  There was a movie made with a scene that illustrates the point very well.  It may have been How to Cheat On your Wife with Bobby Morse, I’m not sure.  The scene starts with a man and woman enjoying each other’s company naked in bed.  The man’s wife comes home unexpectedly with grocery bags in hand and catches the pair before they can get out of bed.

The wife launches into a series of furious tirades.  Without returning a glance or uttering a word the cheating pair fly out of the sack, dress, and make up the bed.  All the time this is happening, the wife is right there screaming bloody murder at the two of them.  Shortly the bed is made, the woman is gone and the husband is relaxing in his usual chair reading the evening paper as his wife continues her angry rant.  He lowers the paper and asks “What’s the matter dear?”  His wife comes down an octave and yells something about “That #%&*  woman…” “What woman?” he asks.  “There’s no other woman here.”

The episode ends with the wife taking a puzzled look into the bedroom which appears completely undisturbed, heaving a sigh and calmly asking “What would you like for dinner dear?”  The point is if you are bold enough to tell a lie that is big enough with a face that is blank enough to a person who is gullible enough and wants to believe you enough, and then if you are dishonest enough to try it, you just may get away with it with many people.

Anyone who knows Barack Obama is President of the United States knows he has been adamantly opposed to completion of the Keystone Pipeline.  He still is.  He gave a speech in Cushing, Oklahoma declaring he is giving a fast tract to the project but the truth is he is blocking it.  Obama has approved a portion of the line over which his approval is not needed and continues to deny approval for the portion where his approval is needed.

There are sufficient oil reserves on U.S. territory to meet 100% of our domestic demand for 200 years.  Obama says repeatedly that we have just 2% of the world’s reserves and use 20% of the supply.

The Obama administration has not laid down one inch of pipeline.  Obama says he has lain so much pipeline that it would reach around the world.

Obama says domestic oil production has risen during his tenure.  That’s true.  It has risen in spite of his efforts to stop it.  Production from land subject to Federal leases has declined.  The only increase has been on private lands over which Obama has no control.

Obama specifically chose Solyndra to be the poster boy for his administration’s government green energy program.  He flew to California to give a long speech at a Solyndra plant holding the company up as one of the finest examples of what his administration is doing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  Now he says “this was not our program” then blames the Chinese for its failure.

Let’s hope the lies are told often enough that voters will see through them enough to throw the bum out of office.  We have had enough!

Leave a comment

Posted in Energy, Environment, Political polemics, Videos

Tagged , , , ,

GLOBAL WARMING’S LAST GASPS

Posted on January 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

Poor Al Gore, his schtick is losing its oomph.  The temperature stats are in for 2011 are in.  NASA has declared that global warming ended in 1997.  And a report from the British meteorological authorities at the infamous East Anglia University laboratories agrees.  For the alarmists out there I would point out these reports are not from Rush Limbaugh.  They are from NASA and East Anglia, the United Nation’s most favored source for climate change data.

The UK Daily Mail reports,

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met [Meteorological] Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997. 

There were some warming deniers but the serious debate over the last decade or more was about the cause, not the temperatures.  The cautionary side said “We think the reason the planet is warming is because the sun is emitting more heat.  It’s a cycle.  It’s not because there are too many lawn mowers and farting cows.  We know that scientists disagree over whether or not the warming is anthropological.  Let us not be rash lest we wind up playing Don Quixote to the sun.

The alarmists, on the other hand, stated flatly that the warming was man-made.  They said the science is settled, which it is not.  The warming alarmists also claimed there is a consensus and that proves their point of view.  But consensus has no standing in science.  Consensus once held that the sun revolves around a world that is flat.  Science politicized is science polluted.

The hoax is still running.  There is still money to be made.  But when the mantra changes from the Global Warming Crisis to the Climate Change Crisis it’s a sign the easy money has already been made.

Leave a comment

Posted in Environment, Political polemics

Tagged , , , , , ,

ALIEN’S MAY STRIKE IF WE DON’T CURB GREENHOUSE GASES, SCIENTISTS WARN

Posted on August 22, 2011 | Leave a comment
Measuring greenhouse gases on conservation agr...

MEASURING GREENHOUSE GASES

Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a NASA affiliated scientist, joined with colleagues at Pennsylvania State University to complete a study that warns of possible dire consequences from extra extraterrestrials if they sense how we are destroying the planet.  I kid you not; it’s in the report.

From the UK Guardian

Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI [Extra Territorial Intelligence] because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states.

“Green” aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. “These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets,” the authors write.

Are there any sane scientists left or have they all gone Gore?

Leave a comment

Posted in Environment

Tagged , , , , , , ,