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Rajjpuut's Folly: America's 2012 Energy Picture Bleak

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on January 30, 2012 at 9:40am

 

   Today, January, 2012, we now know those Spanish projections were outrageously positive for the President’s green energy programs.  The real results have been much, much worse according to the liberal Washington Post.

 

$5 Million for One

Obama Green-Tech Job

 

   In 2007-2008, candidate Barack Obama threatened “to create 5 million new green-tech jobs.”  Based upon green-energy experience in Spain where Europe’s strongest 1997 economy with only 4% unemployment became today’s second-weakest (Greece worst) with roughly 22% unemployment:  green-tech is 150 years ahead of its time:  just not practical.  Based upon Spain’s example expect 5 million subsidized green jobs to eliminate 11 million real jobs created by American free markets.  But only 10% of Spanish green jobs proved permanent meaning those 11 million real jobs would be lost for only 500,000 permanent green jobs paying $10-$14 per hour.  Spain’s permanent green jobs cost $676,000 each.

   Today, January, 2012, we now know that those projections were outrageously positive for the President’s green energy programs.  The real results have been much, much worse according to the liberal Washington Post, of all surprising news sources:   after Solyndra’s bankruptcy resulted in the loss of all 1,100 jobs at the heavily subsidized plant the scoreboard reads:  a mere 3,545 (so-far) permanent green jobs created at a cost of nearly $19.5 billion or roughly $5 million per permanent green job created. 

   Green research continues but it’s probably a dead end.   Fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) which Obama hates (his EPA is now closing down coal-powered plants) still account for 82.1% of all American energy (coal 46%).  Nuclear energy accounts for roughly 10.2%. Hydro-electric plants yield 2.8%, all renewable and clean, but environmentalist want to remove most to benefit fish spawning.  The next largest renewable energy is about 2.7% from burning wood.  All the rest of green energy put together still accounts for less than wood-burning.  In 2013, a G.H.W. Bush-era uranium deal with Russia expires potentially driving nuclear electricity costs sky high.   Russia’s not eager to renew; environmentalists strongly oppose nuclear energy. 

   Obama, of course,

     1) has refused to approve the Keystone Pipeline

     2) has refused to develop the Bakken Field oil fields in the Northern Missouri River Valley area.  With them the United States has larger oil resources than Saudi Arabia.  Thank God, some of that oil is beneath North Dakota Indian reservations.  The Native Americans don't have to follow Obama's stupid drilling moratoriums and they aren't.

     3) Still has a Gulf Drilling moratorium and a ban on Alaska's Anwar area

     4) Refuses to expand natural gas use (we have the largest deposits in the world)

     5) Refuses to consider use of marlstone a.k.a. "oil shale".  The Colorado, Utah and Wyoming deposits would yield enough gasoline to provide the entire world's needs for 600 years at present consumption levels.

    6) Refuses to quit his wasteful green-tech loan programs and will spend another $19.3 Billion in 2012 and 2013

    7) Listens to his environmental contingent and they want dams removed and their hydro-electricity with them; and oppose all nuclear-powered electricity generation.

 

Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

  

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Rajjpuut's Folly: After “Kiss of Death” Letter Obama Willfully Threw Money at Solyndra

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on September 26, 2011 at 1:27pm

  

Obama Ignores “Going Concern Doubt” Analysis
Before Cheerfully Subsidizing Solyndra
 
 
                Did you know that the recently bankrupt Solyndra, green-tech firm propped up with $535 million federal assistance wanted to go public? That they wanted to go public and sell stock in the company even before Mr. Obama began touting them? That the planned initial public offering (IPO) was abandoned. That one of the steps required before any IPO is an audit of the company finances and an examination of their business plan for the future? That the solar-power panel company’s finances were so awful that two months before an Obama visit to Solyndra the accounting firm of Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLC warned investors that Solyndra had financial problems so deep that they “raised substantial doubt about it ability to continue as a going concern?” Did you know that the standard wording from audits which use the word “doubt” and “going concern” in the same sentence is known in the business world as the “Kiss of Death” letter and means that over 80% of the firms so described will NOT be in business a year from now?
            Did you know that a day before Solyndra went belly-up that the Energy Department turned down a request to renegotiate the loan agreement because another “restructuring was not feasible.” Did you know that one month before that . . . Solyndra executives were allegedly telling California representative Henry Waxman that everything was going great and the company expected to “double revenues in 2012?  Does that mean they expected to lose twice as much money as well? Could it be they hoped Rep. Waxman would take their threat** as a promise? Did you know Solyndra spent more than $480,000 on lobbying in Washington in the last 365 days? Could it be they hoped Congress and the Obama administration could be cajoled into helping them endlessly?
            Three more questions?   Would you have been as cheerful knowing the financial status of the company as President Obama and Vice President Biden were during their many Solyndra photo op visits? Do you believe, as your blogger Rajjpuut does, that Mr. Obama’s proclivity for throwing money at problems (a mere cash infusion will make everything okey-dokey at Solyndra right away) blinded him to the reality that Solyndra was a losing proposition, a reality that any sensible person should have seen? Would Obama have invested HIS money as recklessly as he did YOURS? Does the FBI routinely raid bankrupt companies? Oooops, that’s four questions.
            On his May 2010 photo op when Obama told America that the Solyndra California factory he was visiting, subsidized by U.S. taxpayers displayed “the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith.” Despite the two month lead time to read over and understand the Pricewaterhouse financial analysis, it appears certain that Mr. Obama did believe that throwing money at Solyndra’s way would “turn the ugly duckling into a swan.” Mr. Obama also seems to be ignorant of the fact that good money can be sent after bad, but never should be. The inevitable abandonment of the IPO; the whole history of Solyndra’s existence (never once showing a single profitable quarter in five years); and then allowing a last-minute effort to refinance with taxpayers (the most important investors) taking a back seat to the new investors . . . none of these obvious red flags seemed to alarm the president about OUR money. Mr. Obama refused to accept what was obvious to anyone who chose to open their eyes and their mind.
            Eric Shultz, a Whitehouse spokesman, thinks we’re all stupid and that it’s still possible to pull the wool over our magnifying glasses and fool us about Solyndra and Obama’s green-tech initiatives. Schultz said in an e-mailed statement that selection of companies to receive U.S. backing are “merit- based decisions made by career staffers at the Department of Energy. He added that the process for this particular loan application had begun under President George W. Bush, not mentioning that the loan was denied for three consecutive years by the Bush administration.  “Every project that receives financing through the Energy Department goes through a rigorous financial, legal and technical review process.” WOW, really??? Really??? Let’s see now? 
The Obama $787 Billion stimulus was supposed to create jobs. So far the green-tech initiatives (Mr. Obama promised to create five million new green jobs in his first term) have created roughly 3,500 jobs total at an average cost of $10.88 MILLION per green job taking an average of 1.4 years to create each job. Solyndra just laid off 1,100 workers when it filed for bankruptcy. Exactly how “rigorous” is this financial, legal and technical review process anyway?  Could it be that government playing “venture capitalists” is a very bad, indeed ruinous idea? Could it be that the 72% of the Obama stimulus was aimed at Obama cronies and Obama campaign supporters without regard to ethics or financial reality?
Of course you’ve probably heard that Energy Secretary Steven Chu made a public commitment to “speed up the approval process” of green-tech applications for federal loans and subsidies. How wonderful!
Bottom line: Solyndra disclosed the “going concern” warning by PricewaterhouseCoopers, its accounting firm, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on March 16, 2010.  So it’s quite possible that Solyndra’s execs up until the time they told Rep. Waxman that everything was going great, etc. were dealing an honest hand . . . which makes the Obama administration criminally negligent with the taxpayer’s money. The warning read:
“The company has suffered recurring losses from operations, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders’ deficit,”
In June 2010, the month after the President Obama visit mentioned above, Solyndra executives withdrew their planned $300 million IPO.   Solyndra’s business model was based upon a supposedly strong competitive advantage employing thinner panels that could be used on virtually any roof and because they used less of the expensive silicone it was felt that the cost of their more expensive technology could be somewhat balanced by the lower cost of resources. Silicone prices have fallen recently and fell another 30% in the last year evaporating any hope of the company ever becoming competitive in the marketplace. Problems and temporary solutions for Solyndra kept taxpayer money slipping down a rat-hole after that. 
In February of this year House Republicans began investigating Solyndra’s loan-guarantee program and sent a letter to Energy Secretary Chu announcing their actions. The investigations so far point to crony-capitalism and a surprising new twist: socialist venture capitalism as the Obama administration sought to pick the winners and losers in the marketplace with foolish infusions of money into failing concerns in favored industries. The Republican investigations showed that Obama campaign fundraiser George Kaiser’s foundation (George Kaiser Family Foundation based in Tulsa, OK) owns 37% of Solyndra. Mr. Kaiser made 16 visits to the White House since 2009 according to visitor logs. 
Besides the statements allegedly made to Rep. Waxman that Solyndra “was in a strong financial position” a July 13 letter from Solyndra to the Energy Committee said revenue had increased to $140 million from just $6 million in 2008 and was projected to almost double in 2012.    Could it be that the Energy department doesn’t understand that if you’re selling more product but losing money on each sale . . . that doesn’t mean too much. The idea is to make a GASP “profit.” Yes, yes, we know that’s considered an ugly word in the liberal, progressive and socialist lexicon . . . but such are the facts of life.
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
** Rajjpuut strongly suspects that the good congressman may be throwing Solyndra’s execs under the infamous bus. Mr. Waxman is purportedly part of the gang that was pushing so hard for Solyndra to get the federal dough. It’s also possible he’s merely stupid. An awful lot of people do NOT actually listen too well . . . instead they tend to hear either what they fear; or what they want to hear. Being told revenues have gone up 23 times in three years and that revenues would almost double again in 2012 . . . is clearly NOT the same as being told that PROFITS have gone up 23 times and would almost double . . . sad but true but politicos seldom can be expected to sympathize with nor understand business jargon. So, Friend, what questions would you have asked here? Perhaps something silly like, “Wow, that sounds impressive, so how much money are you guys making? Perhaps the progressive politicians being in “over-their-heads” when dealing with business explains why it’s been 900 days since the Democratically-controlled Senate passed a budget? Or why the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives didn’t pass a 2011 budget?  It could explain a lot.  The fact is that despite Hollywood's eternal enthrallment with "lovable losers," in politics as in the rest of life:  incompetence (unlike absence) does NOT make the heart grow fonder.
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Rajjpuut's Folly: Obama Policies Killing Only Viable American Solar Company

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on May 4, 2011 at 9:30am

 

 
            Let us pray, for First Solar, Inc., may it prove to be the grand exception that truly tests (proves) the rule!
 
Accounting for only 1.3% of all energy provision in America, “Obama-approved” sources will never in the foreseeable future replace fossil fuels.  Of course, besides huge new fields (the Bakken Deposit) of oil and immense troves of natural gas . . . the United States has the world’s largest concentrations of Keragen (“oil shale”) with enough in Western Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to provide all the world’s energy needs for the next six and a half centuries. It goes without saying that petroleum, natural gas and keragen are all EVIL FOSSIL FUELS not to be considered by Barak the Bird-Brain.
 
 
#1 Detriment to Viable Alternatives
 for U.S. Energy? Expensive Unions!
 
 
            After forty-four years of unending subsidies and false starts, solar energy is not much further along than it was when Jimmy Carter first did the alternative energy foreplay routine on all his progressive friends. After all that time it’s getting harder and harder to build up their orgiastic excitement to the crescendo that used to bring progressives such a thrill back in the day . . . in short, like most of today’s alternative energy options, solar power is largely impotent when compared to the sheer power and virility that is petroleum, natural gas and coal which combined with nuclear and hydro-electric power yield 96.8% of America’s total energy. At present, no single alternative energy source produces more than the 1.6% of total energy provided by burning wood; and all of the documented alternatives taken together fail to match the 5.6% of total energy provided by hydro-electric power (which produces 20% of the world’s energy and 88% of the world’s renewable energy at present).
            When both transportation needs and home and industrial electricity are combined, the following information holds true:
 
RAE (Renewable “Alternative” Energy) –
            After all the hype and all the monetary drain, these sources (solar; wind; geo-thermal; tidal; waves; mirror) only amount to 1.3% of the nation’s total energy. The most ancient (and therefore NOT “alternative”) of our renewable energy sources, water-power and wood-burning 7.2% combined, still account for 84.7% of all renewable energy power usage in America in 2011. For the record, only water-power generation of electricity (hydro-electric power) among all the renewable forms is viable for large energy production. Also for the record, battery-powered cars get 47% of their electrical charges from coal furnaces . . .
Coal –
Coal, which provides nearly half -- 47.3% -- of the power providing the nation’s electricity, accounts for 22.6% of all energy (91% of all coal is used for electricity) expenditure.
Hydro-electric Power –
Is presently our major viable renewable energy source and accounts for 5.6% of all energy use in the country. Hydro-electricity is relatively new, (only 120 years old) but water-power for mills has been used for at least the last three thousand years. The failure of the other “alternative energy” ideas to catch on is graphically understood when you consider that 86% of all renewable energy comes from hydro-electric generating stations in dams and burning wood . . . and that the United States has one of the least expansive hydro-electric systems in the entire world.
Natural Gas –
Provides 23.8% of all energy used in the country.
Nuclear (electric) Power  --
Only provides 8.5% of America’s energy.
Petroleum –
36.6% of our total energy comes from oil; 71% of petroleum is used for transportation and 23% for industrial purposes.
Wood Burning –
            Still accounts for 1.6% of all American energy and a larger share of our energy use than any single “renewable energy source” except, of course hydro-electric power.  Only wood-burning and hydro-electric power are viable renewable energy sources at present.
            Solar energy has proved to be a huge disappointment and its future is very much in the dark. Wind power has also left our sails slack, while geo-thermal has left its proponents cold.  Accounting for only 1.3% of all energy provision in America, “Obama-approved” sources will never in the foreseeable future replace fossil fuels.  Of course, besides huge new fields (the Bakken Deposit) of oil and immense troves of natural gas . . . the United States has the world’s largest concentrations of Keragen (“oil shale”) with enough in Western Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to provide all the world’s energy needs for the next six and a half centuries. It goes without saying that petroleum, natural gas and keragen are all EVIL FOSSIL FUELS not to be considered as viable alternatives by Barak the Bird-Brain. 
Progressives in Washington, D.C. have destroyed the economy with the thirty-four year old plague of CRA ’77 on the one hand creating the sub-prime lending crisis and our ongoing financial meltdown; and on the other hand with deliberate and malicious energy-blockage (no new refinery has been built in this country since 1974) bankrupting the country. Until they put us back to the dark ages (literally!!) they will not be happy. The contradictions of the green-energy fanatics stand out clearly in this next little item . . . .
            At present all “independent” American solar panel manufacturers have failed save one: First Solar, Inc.  First Solar, an unsubsidized firm unlike 99.8% of its still viable competitors, has disappointed investors again as net income for the last quarter fell 33% in the face of strong Chinese competition. The Chinese, of course, are able to put cheaper labor in their shops, something not possible in a country whose wage structure is driven by union demands. In short, the fault presumably lies NOT with First Solar, but with the economic conditions that progressives have handcuffed us with over the last six decades.
There may still be hope -- First Solar has gone directly against the grain (shades of “Rearden Metal,” Mr. Galt!) and sacrificed energy production capability thus far in the interest of lighter weight, production- cost savings and versatility. The company specializes in bendable thin-film solar panels which capture sunlight and convert it to electricity. First Solar’s film is only able to capture around 11% of the sunlight shining on the panel which is less efficient than wafer-style solar panels, which can capture anywhere from 20 to 25 percent of the sunlight shining on the panel. The wafer-style panels meanwhile are all being manufactured in this country by firms heavily-subsidized by the Obama government. In its favor, First Solar was the first company to bring cost-per-watt of solar energy below $1 . . . a huge, indeed the critical, step in making solar energy more competitive with traditional energy sources from fossil fuels. 
In short, First Solar is the first nearly viable solar energy manufacturer in America, it’s innovative and even intransigent (refusing to follow the herd and trusting in their own vision) and thanks to First Solar, there really has been a breakthrough in solar energy viability.  While other companies have concentrated on solar energy, First Solar has concentrated on cost-viability so that its products while only about as efficient as the panels installed in 1980 . . . now cost about 1.25% as much as they did back then. In other words, except for the influence of the unions on wages, First Solar might already be the world’s leader in providing solar energy. As it stands, however, they’re probably going to need to triple their efficiency past the wafer-companies in order to compete with the Chinese. 
Then there’s the matter of patent infringement, we can expect the Chinese, if First Solar ever does make it . . . to just steal the process (none of these niceties of paying patent royalties) and again put the American economy between the sword and the wall.   Let us pray, for First Solar, Inc. Its Chinese competitors like SunTech and JA Solar are the main rivals. Sun Tech had been the last U.S. independent solar panel manufacturer other than First Solar but now the Chinese and French own it. The long-term viability of First Solar is at stake and reportedly the rats are leaving the sinking ship (huge amounts of insider sales and departure of many of these insiders). Meanwhile besides the Chinese, First Solar must compete against heavily-subsidized but less efficient American firms. These firms (which would have all gone bankrupt by now) are still alive and still fighting to keep First Solar’s share of the solar panel market low. Much as the federal auto-bailout has threatened Ford’s survival, federal solar subsidies are now threatening the only viable American solar panel manufacturer. Let us pray, for First Solar, Inc., may it prove to be the grand exception that truly tests the rule! 
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
 
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