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| Economy |
| Crony Socialism: Obama Gives $737 Million to Solar Firm Linked to the Pelosi Clan |
| 2011-09-29 |
| It's as if Solyndra never happened. The Obama Administration is giving $737 million to a Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. PCG is an investment partner with SolarReserve. Nancy Pelosi's brother-in-law happens to be the number two man at PCG. The $737 million loan guarantee will help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. Crescent Dunes is the latest solar project to receive a loan guarantee from the Energy Department in recent weeks. The department announced a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar for a solar generation project in California and a $150 million loan guarantee to 1366 Technologies for a Massachusetts solar manufacturing project earlier this month. |
| Posted by:Eohippus Phater7165 |
| #15 "There is a big difference between this and Solyndra. This is project financing for a solar-powered generating facility, something that will actually generate predictable cash flow. " Yes, but these are democrats. They do not build anything, they squirrel the money away hidden in offshore accounts and bankrupt the company. No democrat really understands business and they fail anyway. |
| Posted by: newc 2011-09-29 22:57 |
| #14 But, but, Dale. Whenever you burn something, it produces CARBON DIOXIDE! Which we all know, cuz Al Gore told us, causes GLOBAL WARMING! Which will kill us all! So we can't use natural gas for anything! It is evil and must be stopped. /sarcasm (if you can't figure it out) |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2011-09-29 21:22 |
| #13 Eohippus Phater7165 Thank you for your input. It's like global warming. You are not to question. I believe that "fossil fuel" as you have called it is the poor man's fuel. Without it modern civilization itself will be too expensive. I do not call this energy fossil fuel. I call it a renewable resource. Last year and the year before they have found new vast finds. Brazil has a plan to build an underwater city to tap an offshore reserve of trillions of barrels. Look to Norway and see what they have done this year alone. In my opinion NG is the next adventure. Burns clean, cheap, plentiful and bill H.R.1380 just might make it happen. |
| Posted by: Dale 2011-09-29 18:16 |
| #12 What is neat about green boodle is that when it fails there are all sorts of reasons which can be given for any product, unlike leeching civil projects which tend to leave people dramatically dead and raises concrete questions. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-09-29 15:27 |
| #11 It's a scam and will never be competitive w/ fossil fuel plants. The best this plant can achieve is a 50% utilization rate or 55MW (effective) over a 24 hour period. A coal plant has 95% utilization rate and costs $2/watt to build. The taxpayer portion of this plant alone is $13.4/watt (effective). A coal plant generates electricity at 3-4 cents/kWh depending on location and tech. This plant may produce 480,000MWh/year at 5 cents/kWh gives a revenue of only $24M/year. That wouldn't even cover the interest on capital for this plant. Not even enough to cover the interest on just the taxpayer subsidy, let alone private investment, operations and maintenance, or (gasp) profit. A solar plant needs at least 20 cents/kWh to be viable. If it wasn't for political corruption, a conventional coal fired plant or a gasified coal combined cycle plant would have been built. Instead at least $1 billion will be thrown down a rat hole. Even worse, Californians will be forced to pay 25-30 cents/kWh for this electricity that isn't even reliable (cloudy days). |
| Posted by: Eohippus Phater7165 2011-09-29 14:40 |
| #10 "Have I missed any?" I thought the bailout of the rich was 700 odd billion. I reckon its all stuffed into rent-seeking green crap. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-09-29 14:39 |
| #9 In the UK, Dave's father in law gets a thousand pounds a day for wind totems on his land. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-09-29 14:38 |
| #8 There is a big difference between this and Solyndra. This is project financing for a solar-powered generating facility, something that will actually generate predictable cash flow. It is not the type of risky bet that a loan for a production facility would be. Of course it still smells, but not anywhere in the same league. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2011-09-29 13:55 |
| #7 "Have I missed any?" very good point. This is only what we know of. My guess is anywhere they have been in power for forty years, you can bet sweet hart deals have metastasized into most governments and organizations of groups. Louisiana is a good example. All that money they were given for years to improve the levees most went elsewhere. Don't get me going on solar. Good old Tip O'Neil days. |
| Posted by: Dale 2011-09-29 12:14 |
| #6 "The Democratic party is ethically broken beyond repair." No, it's pure evil and is operating swimmingly. So, counting the scams we have: SOLYNDRA LIGHTSQUARED Evergreen SpectraWatt BrightSource Tonopah Solar Have I missed any? |
| Posted by: newc 2011-09-29 11:26 |
| #5 The Democratic party is ethically broken beyond repair. They need to start over. FDR's been dead for 66 years and the Dems just can't move beyond that agenda...and the blatant corruption that makes the Tweed machine in NY look like a two bit numbers runner. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2011-09-29 11:21 |
| #4 I doubt they realize this is a good part of the reason the French peasants rose up against the aristocracy. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2011-09-29 10:30 |
| #3 Great news! It means that these companies will soon be going bankrupt, right? |
| Posted by: Iblis 2011-09-29 10:05 |
| #2 Crony Socialism is a much better term than Crony Capitalism. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2011-09-29 09:40 |
| #1 When Obama and the like talk about 'green' - they are not talking about the ecology or the environment (some, like Gore, really don't give a crap about the environment) - more like 'green' [backs] for their cronies. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-09-29 08:09 |