Obama publicly touted the facility a year ago for creating 'green jobs.' Turns out, propping up a bad business model with federal funds does not a good job creator make. Out of all the alternative energy technologies, photovoltaics are one of my favorites. But I do not support massive subsidies to a technology that needs more R&D. Nor environmental propaganda behind the tech. Everything- everything - has a negative environmental impact and it can be no other way because of the fundamental laws of nature (in this case the 2nd law of thermodynamics). Propaganda behind forced green jobs and misapplications of otherwise good technology is something I have opposed in this blog since day 1. This is the predictable result:
Solyndra to Declare Bankruptcy ...An NBC Bay Area photographer on the scene reports security guards are not letting visitors on campus. He says "people are standing around in disbelief." The employees have been given yellow envelopes with instructions on how to get their last checks.
Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs.
If Solyndra sounds familiar to regular readers of this blog, it's because of this absurd situation last year:
Obama tours solar panel plant in CA to tout jobs, workers FORCED TO STAY HOME WITHOUT PAY! Executives got to stay and cheer the President on. Workers were forced to stay home. Without pay. From my prior post:
Solyndra received a $535 million federal loan guarantee last year to build a new solar panel manufacturing plant that now employs 1,000 workers, according to the White House. The Obama administration has touted the project as a major success story of the economic stimulus bill, which provided the funding. A second phase is expected to employ an additional 1,000 people, Solyndra officials have said.
The employees got screwed by Obama a year ago:
Union workers have been told not to come back until Thursday because of security concerns associated with the President’s visit. Workers tell KRON 4’s Kate Thompson this day off means they won’t get paid.
"It’s with no pay and we have no choice," construction worker Adam Bracamontes told Kate. "We have to take a day off and come back Thursday. We don’t get to meet the President. We’re the workers and we don’t get to see him."
One year later, this:
More from the current piece:
The President visited the facility in May of last year and said "it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. And you guys all represent that. "
The GOP response was appropriate:
Some Republicans have been very critical of the loans. "I am concerned that the DOE is providing loans and loan guarantees to firms that aren't capable of competing in the global market, even with government subsidies" Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns told the New York Times.
If there is no business plan for a sustainable operation outside of massive subsides, then
IT'S NOT A BUSINESS!
UPDATE:
Solar Plant That Obama Visited Files For Bankruptcy, Fires Over 1,000 WorkersUPDATE #2:Via
memeorandum:
Solyndra Filing a Disaster for Obama President Obama faces political catastrophe in the form of Solyndra -- a San Francisco Bay area solar company that he touted as a gleaming example of green technology. It has announced it will declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. More than 1,100 people will lose their jobs.
...It's not his statements the administration will regret; it's the loan guarantees. The President was celebrating $535 million in federal promises from the Department of Energy to the solar startup. The administration didn't do its due diligence, says the Government Accountability Office. "There's a consequence if you don't follow a rigorous process that's transparent," Franklin Rusco of GAO told the website iWatch News.
The President touted the federally back money as a way to create jobs. The President's opponents immediately jumped on the deal as Solyndra made its first layoffs.
Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida warned, "I am concerned that the DOE is providing loans and loan guarantees to firms that aren't capable of competing in the global market, even with government subsidies."
Another critic, Fred Upton of Michigan: "The unfortunate reality is that loan guarantee highlights many of the systemic flaws associated with the stimulus in the mad dash to spend hundreds of billions of dollars."
More from
iOwnTheWorld.com, Campaign 2012, Weasel Zippers and Gateway Pundit. Recently from The New York Times of all places: Number of Green Jobs Fails to Live Up to Promises. And from Byron York: Key Dems: Obama's ‘green jobs’ plan a bust. And via
Instapundit:
SHOCKER:
Green Jobs Revealed As Fiscal Black Hole. “Pipe dreams eventually are revealed for what they are – unrealistic, wishful thinking. It didn’t take long for Spain’s touted green-job revolution to be revealed as a financial disaster, siphoning taxpayer subsidies and destroying 2.2 real jobs for every green job created. Domestic green-job pipe dreams similarly drain U.S. taxpayers’ money into economic sink holes. The millions of so-called green jobs promised by President Barack Obama and other champions of taxpayer-subsidized energy schemes not only haven’t materialized, many that did, already are disappearing. It’s truly a bad sign for the green-job revolution when failure becomes obvious even to acolytes.”
Plenty more from
Pajamas Media, Hit & Run, Hot Air, Power Line, American Spectator and Gateway Pundit. Finally, I'll leave you with this video: GO GREEN NOW!! (Crazy Pete Returns)UPDATE #3: From across the pond, this was so totally predictable:
Power bills to soar by 30% in 'green’ reformsHousehold electricity bills will soar by 30 per cent to pay for “green” measures being announced this week by Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, according to experts.
UPDATE #4: A flashback from Jennifer Granholm, of whom former MI Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop said "Jennifer Granholm was Barack Obama before Barack Obama was Barack Obama":
A Clean Energy Triple PlayOther companies are following Dow Corning and Hemlock Semiconductor's lead. In Midland, Evergreen Solar opened a new solar plant last year, and is ramping up production of its new "string ribbon solar wafer" technology.
Evergreen Solar also went bankrupt after getting a buttload of stimulus money...
UPDATE #5: Via
Instapundit:
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD ON “GREEN” SCIENCE FICTION:
To Boldly Go Where Lots Have Gone Before. “The weak link in McKibben’s strategy is that like many greens he still seems to be trying to scare the public so badly that it will overlook the many obvious and frequently fatal flaws in the hodgepodge of dubious policy ideas the green movement floats. It’s all been done before, better, and it failed.”
