{"id":65307,"date":"2016-04-19T07:30:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T11:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=65307"},"modified":"2016-04-19T05:59:29","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T09:59:29","slug":"more-green-energy-good-news-for-us-taxpayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=65307","title":{"rendered":"More Green Energy \u201cGood News\u201d for US Taxpayers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, Spanish \u201cgreen\u201d energy giant Abengoa went bankrupt<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 For Abengoa’s stockholders, that\u2019s unfortunate.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also unfortunate for US taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Why, you ask?\u00a0 After all, isn’t Abengoa a foreign corporation?<\/p>\n

Well, yes it is.\u00a0 But it also seems that Abengoa was a major recipient of the current US Administration\u2019s \u201cgreen energy\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 irresponsible and wasteful giveaways<\/del>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 financial incentives.\u00a0 Since 2010, they received approximately $2.7 billion in US subsidies \u2013 in the form of DoE loan guarantees.<\/p>\n

In fact, Abengoa is presently the single largest creditor<\/em> of the Treasury Department\u2019s Federal Financing Bank (FFB).\u00a0 They currently owe the FFB $2.34 billion<\/strong>.\u00a0 No word on who loaned them the other $360 million.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all. \u00a0Abengoa also appears to have received an additional $605 million in tax credits and \u201cgreen energy\u201d grants – over and above their loan guarantees.<\/p>\n

Abengoa took the money, all right \u2013 while running up a total corporate debt of around $17 billion.\u00a0 But their production – financial or actual – doesn\u2019t seem to have exactly been stellar.\u00a0 One of their star projects was a massive biofuel plant in the US that has yet to announce production levels or sell any products<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 In fairness, Abengoa did indeed pay off the loan associated with that project – a loan that had been guaranteed by the US government. \u00a0But they elected to do so \u201cfrom other revenues\u201d, not from the proceeds of biofuel sales.\u00a0 In fact, they paid of the loan before ever selling a drop of biofuel produced by the facility<\/em>.\u00a0 Any biofuels produced at that facility are apparently still all stored at the facility – or were at the time the loan was repaid.<\/p>\n

But hey \u2013 what\u2019s $3.305 billion between friends, eh?\u00a0 It\u2019s all \u201cfor the cause\u201d.\u00a0 Its \u201csaving the planet\u201d!<\/p>\n

Yeah, right.\u00a0 \u201cScam designed to enrich a select few\u201d sounds far more like what\u2019s going on here.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong; I\u2019m in favor of basic research on how to make energy production cleaner and more efficient.\u00a0 “Cleaner” is definitely good; add \u201cmore efficient\u201d and eventually that translates into \u201ceconomically viable clean energy sources\u201d.\u00a0 Mankind does have the responsibility to be a good caretaker for planet Earth – if for no other reason than self-preservation.<\/p>\n

But regarding economically-viable “green” energy:\u00a0 in general we\u2019re simply not there today.\u00a0 I do<\/u> have a problem with a group of conceited fools in DC thinking that they can order the laws of physics, engineering, and economics to change overnight simply because they say so.\u00a0 And I have a huge problem<\/u> with those same arrogant fools p!ssing away literally billions of the US taxpayer’s money in a Quixotic effort to do just that.<\/p>\n

Oh, and it turns out that Abengoa might not be the only \u201chit\u201d the taxpayer takes on the \u201cgreen energy company goes belly-up\u201d ledger this year.<\/p>\n

Another huge player in the current Administration\u2019s \u201cgreen energy subsidy giveaway\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 scams<\/del>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 games\u201d may well declare bankruptcy soon.\u00a0 That would be SunEdison \u2013 which has received nearly $650 million in Federal \u201cgreen energy\u201d subsidies and tax credits.\u00a0 They\u2019re the 13th most heavily subsidized corporation in the US.\u00a0 And they are facing a serious liquidity crisis<\/a><\/em> that many experts expect will force them to declare bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

Hmm.\u00a0 First Solyndra. \u00a0Then Abound Solar.\u00a0 Then Abengoa.\u00a0 Now, possibly, SunEdison.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m seeing a couple of trends here.\u00a0 The first trend isn\u2019t<\/u> any indication that economically viable green energy is “just around the corner”.\u00a0 And the second indication isn\u2019t<\/u> that the Administration\u2019s officials managing the Administration’s solar giveaway sweepstakes seem to know their butts from a hole in the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, Spanish \u201cgreen\u201d energy giant Abengoa went bankrupt.\u00a0 For Abengoa’s stockholders, that\u2019s unfortunate. It\u2019s also unfortunate … More Green Energy \u201cGood News\u201d for US Taxpayers<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,220,213,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teh-stoopid","category-the-floggings-will-continue-until-morale-improves","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-global-warming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}