The bankruptcy and inveterate stupidity of solar company Solyndra is not a lone case example. $535 million was wasted on a solar company whose main investor was a notable rich financier of Obama's campaign [Argonaut Venture Capital]. This same investor [Kaiser] and firm are now getting more Solar contracts worth nearly $ 1 billion. Ho ho ho, crime pays. Solyndra is hardly the first or last solar scam to go teats up. Evergreen solar is another case example and there are dozens of other misplaced investments that have ended up destroying tax money and resulted in a huge mound of public debt. This is crony capitalism and it is supposedly illegal. [See here for more details].
The Green Tech fraud is in full throttle and has been accelerating in corruption and irrationality in the past 10 years, especially as the GlobaloneyWarming scam has picked up pace in both government and lurid media accounts of the fantasy eco-lypse which will wipe out the hated human virus at any moment....In the past 20 years more than One Trillion [$1 Trillion] has been wasted on solar energy, wind turbines, battery powered cars and other Green Tech nonsense in Europe and North America [see here from a Mother Earth-IPCC report. $50 billion per annum x 20 years...]. Huge firms like GE and IBM are willing partners in this crime, with a sizeable chunk of their profit streams succoured by government transfers and subsidies for the Green fraud. Edison and Watson Sr would be displeased.
It costs $15.000 to 25.000 to build a solar energy grid for your home. The payback is around 20 years. It is thus uneconomical unless the worthies in government hand over money and subsidies of course. It is an absurd waste of money. The public solar farms are an even greater joke. The average cost is well over $20 million per solar farm, almost all of it subsidized and none of them producing much in the way of energy. In fact solar's share of electricity output is 0%.
US figures for electricity production 2010
Fiscal year 2010 electricity production subsidies and support
(EIA Table ES4 & ES5, million 2010 dollars)
|
Beneficiary |
Direct Exp |
Tax Exp |
R&D |
Federal Elect Support |
Loan G'tee |
Total |
Share of total subsidies & support |
Share of electricity generation in 2010 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Solar |
409 |
99 |
287 |
0 |
173 |
968 |
8.2% |
0% |
|
Wind |
3,556 |
1,178 |
166 |
1 |
85 |
4,986 |
42.0% |
2.3% |
|
Nuclear |
0 |
908 |
1,169 |
157 |
265 |
2,499 |
21.0% |
19.6% |
|
Renewables |
4,178 |
1,347 |
632 |
133 |
269 |
6,560 |
55.3% |
10.3% |
|
Biomass |
6 |
54 |
55 |
0 |
0 |
114 |
1.0% |
1.4% |
|
Geothermal |
115 |
1 |
72 |
0 |
12 |
200 |
1.7% |
0.4% |
|
Hydropower |
17 |
17 |
51 |
130 |
0 |
215 |
1.8% |
6.2% |
|
Unallocated Renewables |
75 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
75 |
0.6% |
0 |
|
Transmission & distribution |
461 |
58 |
222 |
211 |
20 |
971 |
8.2% |
NA |
|
Total |
4,677 |
3,382 |
2,613 |
648 |
555 |
11,873 |
100% |
100% |
Solar generates no power in the US but eats up $ 1 Trillion in subsidies, guarantees, loan supports and tax credits. Any sentient person looking at this must be aghast at the vast waste in real money, not to mention the massive bureaucracy needed to administer the dozens of programs which fund or grant money to solar firms. Tens of thousands of pensioned bureaucrats must be involved at an enormous public expense.
Consider this. The average cost 'per job' or welfare cheque in the solar sector is well over $200.000 and probably closer to $500.000. Studies in Europe and the USA confirm this [see here and here for example]. The average salary per annum is $60.000. That means that government, unions and the bureaucracy are sucking in $140.000. This money must come from somewhere. Either it comes from the private sector and needs to be repaid with interest; or it is borrowed from another sovereign state in the form of a bond sale; or it is printed money which causes future inflation; or it is taxed revenue which comes out of taxpayers and businesses. In any case it is an economic drain of absurd proportions.