I have two books open at this time. After Virtue by Alasdair Macintyre and Super Fuel by Richard Martin.

Here is a list of many failed or near failed green energy companies that have received tax payer dollars the past several years.  Today,  green energy supplies less than 1/2% of the total power used by the United States... maybe we should have built a Thorium Reactor instead.  China is in the process of building the first.

Take a look at the list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies that have funded the past few years.

 

1.Evergreen Solar ($24 million)
2.SpectraWatt ($500,000)
3.Solyndra ($535 million)
4.Beacon Power ($69 million)
5.AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
6.Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
7.SunPower ($1.5 billion)
8.First Solar ($1.46 billion)
9.Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
10.EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)
11.Amonix ($5.9 million)
12.National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
13.Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
14.Abound Solar ($374 million)
15.A123 Systems ($279 million)
16.Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
17.Johnson Controls ($299 million)
18.Schneider Electric ($86 million)
19.Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
20.ECOtality ($126.2 million)
21.Raser Technologies ($33 million)
22.Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)
23.Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)
24.Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)
25.Range Fuels ($80 million)
26.Thompson River Power ($6.4 million)
27.Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)
28.LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)
29.UniSolar ($100 million)
30.Azure Dynamics ($120 million)
31.GreenVolts ($500,000)
32.Vestas ($50 million)
33.LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($150 million)
34.Nordic Windpower ($16 million)
35.Navistar ($10 million)
36.Satcon ($3 million)

  

It amounts to billions of dollars of wasted taxpayer money.

Categories: Dave's Rants
Tags: economics  |  economy  |  environmental toxins

7 Comments     Comments

Mr. Shankly, United States , November 9, 2012 at 4:06 PM | Reply You may want to check your source for #12 in the list. It is not a faltering or bankrupt company. It is not a company at all. It is one of your Dept. of Energy National Laboratories. It has and always will run almost exclusively on government funds, as it is part of the government.

Carrie, Pennyslvania , October 23, 2012 at 8:47 AM | Reply Writing from the totally fracked out state of Pennsylvania, where the Governor has sold the state to the natural gas industry....thorium is still a finite resource. What we need is renewable energy sources. This planet is facing a huge crisis; too many people depleting too many non-renewable energy sources. We just can't keep living like we have been. reading the book, a couple handfuls of sand off the beaches in parts of India would generate enough power to provide Mumbai 100% of its needs for x years... i don't recall the number... i'll try to bring my book for the exact quote...

Gary, Florida , October 20, 2012 at 7:37 AM | Reply China is going forward with plans to build a thorium reactor...google: china thorium reactor It was annouced in June of this year that U.S. is partnering with them, but too bad we don't have the foresight and will to take the lead as we were pioneers of this technology back in the 1960s. However, military-industrial complex won out...they wanted urarium by-products for bomb making and thorium was moth-balled. If thorium reactors pan out, it will be a game changer for the planet as cheap, available, clean energy would likely signify the dawn of a new era.

Nanci Garon, Tucson, AZ , October 18, 2012 at 4:22 PM | Reply You said it - inexpensive..... Our country runs on greed with need for huge profits.....

Alan, Fremont, CA , October 18, 2012 at 3:58 PM | Reply If you are interested in this you might enjoy the TED talk from Krik Sornenson on this topic. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw Actually the U.S. has a big buried cache of already mined thorium for use in reactors. 3200 metric tons. See 8:25 in that video. It was collected back in the cold war days before they were committed to uranium/plutonium based reactors, but then they thought they had no use for it so they buried it. Although the prospects are intriguing the molten-salt reactor design is not without its problems. The problems associated with containing highly corrosive molten salt at high pressure are not trivial. I suspect that this is going to be first developed outside the United States where they aren't beholden to deeply entrenched political organizations.

CC, Indianola Iowa , October 18, 2012 at 3:02 PM | Reply There are valid reasons why the world has not been able to use Thorium yet. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html It doesn't work, they have been trying for years. Why would this make you angry? _________ it is a quote from the book...it is not me speaking. i have not finished the book, just started and thought it was worthy of discussion Bonniegal, Tucson, Az USA , November 4, 2012 at 8:10 PM | Reply Just beginning to read about thorium...personally I know nothing about it, am intent to see where the information goes. My son and daughter-in-love live in Indianolal. You ever run into Jerry or Jody Gallimore....tell 'em his mom contacted you on this site! (they don't visit this site, but he says I'd talk to a tree stump...chuckle) _________ i have not....this thorium things looks to be a real possibility.