THE LATEST INSTALLMENT IN THE SOLAR AND WIND ENERGY HOAX
A SEC filing on behalf of SunEdison announced “due to SunEdison’s liquidity difficulties, there is a substantial risk that SunEdison will soon filed Bankruptcy. SunEdison shares have declined more than 95% in the last 12 months, and its market value has fallen from $10 billion dollars in July, 2015 to about $400 million dollars in March, 2016. SunEdison’s illusory success appears to be primarily the result of massive federal government subsidies. A report by Good Jobs states that SunEdison and its subsidiaries have received over $650 million dollars in subsidies from the federal government since the year 2000.
SunEdison is not the only solar company that has been the recipient of federal government wastefulness. Solyndra is perhaps the more infamous example, along with Abengoa, SolarServe, and numerous other companies have received many millions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
George Kaiser was one of Solyndra’s biggest investors and a prominent Obama supporter, having raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama’s initial presidential campaign. Kaiser donated $53,500 himself to Obama’s 2008 election effort. Solyndra executives and board members donated approximately $30,000, in addition to Kaiser’s contributions to Obama 2008 effort.
The Department of Energy, subsequent to Obama’s election, made a $535 million dollar loan to Solyndra. The loan was essentially made through Executive Order, as Congress Legislation authorizing such a loan was not present.
When Solyndra defaulted on the loan, the Department of Energy restructured the loan, the Department of Energy placed the private investors, such as Kaiser, ahead of the taxpayers, for repayment. This arrangement appears to be unprecedented among government officials.
The Kaiser Foundation, a non-profit group headed by George Kaiser, was an ardent supporter of Obama’s disastrous and poorly named, Affordable Health Care Act. The Kaiser Foundation provided a barrage of polls, studies, and published articles supporting Obamacare.
As Solyndra began its inevitable collapse, accusations were made that the company, for political purposes, refrained from most of its layoffs until after Obama’s reelection. Even the mainstream media could not overlook the corruption oozing from the Solyndra imbroglio. ABC News:
“While Energy Department officials steadfastly vouched for Solyndra-even after an earlier round of layoffs raised eyebrows-other federal agencies and industry analysts for months questioned the viability of the company. Peter Lynch, a solar industry analyst, told ABC News the company’s fate should have been obvious from the start. ‘Here’s the bottom line, Lynch said. ‘It costs them $6 to make a unit. They’re selling it for $3. In order to be competitive today, they have to sell it for between $1.5 and $2. That is not a viable business plan’.
The ABC report and Center for Public Integrity further reported that Department of Energy officials announced support for Solyndra before any marketing or legal reviews were completed.
The Department of Energy also tendered a $737 million dollar loan to Solarserve to finance the construction of its Crescent Dunes project. Among the investors in Solarserve were Pacific Corporate Group who second in command was Ronald Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s brother in law.
Abound Solar also received a $400 million dollar loan guarantee from the Department of Energy Pat Stryker, a large Abound Solar Investor, has contributed approximately $500,000 to Democrats, as of 2012, and was a large contributor to Obama’s 2008 election, his inaugural fund, and his 2012 election.
The icing on the cake is the estimated $2.9 billion dollars that the Department of Energy provided to Abengoa, a company based in Spain, to undergo solar projects in three States in the United States. That is correct, the Department of Education tendered these benefits to a foreign company.
Abengoa is another failed enterprise. Abengoa stock was floating at around $29.32 in 2015 and in March of 2016, sits at $1.33.
Derrick Wilburn in a May 27, 2015 Article entitled, “New Energy Vs The Birds”:
Obama is fulfilling his promise to bankrupt coal power plant operators and introduce policies that would make American household’s electricity costs skyrocket. None of these measure could be passed through Congress so they’re being implemented via federal agencies like the EPA and BLM and/or through executive order. So damaging are Obama’s actions that on May 5th several state attorneys generals testified before a Senate panel that the latest Obama EPA proposals will have a ‘devastating impact’ on their States.
According to Derrick Wilburn, the Today Show on NBC had a report on a solar plant in which engineers at the plant referred to “streamers”, which are birds that catch fire and who leave a stream of smoke as they fall to the ground.
Wind farms are also destructive to birds. Derrick Wilburn:
Many of the affected birds are some of America’s most majestic, including eagles, hawks, falcons and other birds of prey. A report by American Bird Conservancy claims that more than 30,000 turbines have been installed nationwide and 50,000 more are planned in areas where birds are particularly vulnerable to fatal collisions.
PacificCorp, the operator of 13 wind farms, sued the federal government to stop the release of bird death information, in 2014. The company sought an Injunction in the District Court to stop the Interior Department from releasing the information, subject to Freedom of Information Act request, on the basis that the information is confidential.
In December of 2014, PacificCorp paid a $2.5 million dollar fine resulting from the death of birds at its wind farms.
A Study in July, 2008 by the Alameda County Community Development Agency found that approximately 10,000 birds are killed annually by the Altamont Pass wind farm. The Golden Gate Audubon Society found that the same farm was responsible for the annual deaths of 75-110 Golden Eagles, 380 Burrowing Owls, 300 Red-tailed Hawks and 333 Falcons.
According to an Article in American Thinker by Bill Gunderson, the Ivanpah solar project in California, costing $2.2 billion dollars to build, and is producing only 25 percent of the promised electricity production.
An August 29, 2015 Article in American Thinker titled, Energy Delusions by Norman Rogers:
Solar only works during part of the day and only when it is not cloudy. Less electricity is generated in winter. Outside of the sunny desert southwest solar is more useless, if that is possible. Solar is heavily subsidized by the federal government and by some state governments. Since the electric grid cannot depend on erratically delivered solar electricity, solar power plants don’t displace conventional power plants.
Viv Forbes in a July 25, 2014 Article titled “Five Fatal Flaws Of Solar Energy” writes that solar panels only produce significant energy between the hours of 9 AM and 3 PM, which translates to a maximum of 25% each day. Solar panels are only beneficial in providing air conditioning in the hot afternoons, but energy demand is at its highest at 6:30 pm, which is when solar production is near zero.
Furthermore, solar energy requires batteries for continuous power, and to charge the batteries for usable power, the resultant efficiency of the solar power is usually around 25%, or less.
Industrial scale solar energy generation also consumes large areas of land. A Graham Parker estimated in a paper published in 2013, according to the Viv Forbes Article, that it would require a square with 31 km sides, completely carpeted with solar panels, to garner enough energy to accomplish the annual energy needs of Australia. To charge the batteries in order to maintain the steady supply of energy from the facility would require an area of land four times the area blanketed by the solar plant, meaning an additional 3,844 square kilometers of collectors.
According to Viv Forbes Article, solar panels lose significant capacity in as little as three years because of natural forces such as rain, sunshine and hail. Unless the panels are washed on a regular basis, the panels will further degrade.
A fourth flaw with solar panels, according to Viv Forbes and other detractors, is the uneven generation of energy by solar energy. Utilities are required by Federal Law to purchase energy generated by the solar plants, which creates additional problems. When the solar energy site is producing more energy, the backup station must reduce its production of energy, and alternately when the solar site is producing little or no energy, the backup station must compensate, and produce more. This creates inefficiencies in the production of energy. A more efficient model would be to scrap the solar site and strive to improve the efficiencies of the “backup station”.
Writes Viv Forbes:
Large-scale solar power will create environmental damage over large areas of land. Solar collectors may manage to convert only about 10% of the sun’s energy into electricity. The remainder is either reflected or turned into heat. For solar thermal, where solar mirrors direct heat to a container of water in order to generate steam, the birds unlucky to fly into the heat beams are fried. Why would a true environmentalist support such a method of generating solar energy.
According to Otis A Glazebrook IV in his Article titled “Not So Green Solar Energy”, solar panels have a maximum lifespan of 25 years, which he says is an optimistic view of their real lifespan. The manufacturing and disposal of solar panels is associated with 50 different chemicals, including most ominously, Arsenic, Cadmium, Chromium, Hexafluoroethane, Nitrogen Trifluoride, Selenium, Silane, and Tetrobromo Bisphenol A. All of these chemicals, in varying degrees, are toxic to humans.
Solar energy, within the technology available today, does have its uses. Solar energy is useful in growing plants and trees, evaporating sea water to extract salt, drying clothes, heating water for domestic use, solar powered calculators, and powering remote locations. Solar energy may run your air conditioner for a few hours per day.
Image credit: visdia
