Green Energy and the Old Deal
During the Obama Administration, the federal government took taxpayer money and used it to invest in so called Green Energy.
Here follows complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:
- Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
- SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
- Solyndra ($535 million)*
- Beacon Power ($43 million)*
- Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
- SunPower ($1.2 billion)
- First Solar ($1.46 billion)
- Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
- EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
- Amonix ($5.9 million)
- Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
- Abound Solar ($400 million)*
- A123 Systems ($279 million)*
- Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
- Johnson Controls ($299 million)
- Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
- ECOtality ($126.2 million)
- Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
- Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
- Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
- Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
- Range Fuels ($80 million)*
- Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
- Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
- Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
- GreenVolts ($500,000)
- Vestas ($50 million)
- LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
- Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
- Navistar ($39 million)
- Satcon ($3 million)*
- Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
- Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
The unmitigated loss to the taxpayer — this is, money wasted with absolutely nothing to show for it — is 2 to 4 billion dollars.
As a matter of Constitutional law, there is no legitimate interpretation of any of the ennumerated powers in Article I, Sect 8, which authorizes the general government to do any of this, or anything like this.
If any of you are enamored of the Green New Deal, or even of the New Deal, and you see, with stardust in your eyes, a vision of the future where poverty is diminished and energy is abundant, and if the idea of a bold and nationwide effort akin to world war galvanizes your spirit, allow me to suggest that the Old Deal, known as the US Constitution, limited govenrment, and liberty, are a better venue for your efforts.
I propose, as our next national effort, as wondrous as a moonshot, to return the government to its Constitutional limits, to hang every activist judge from a lamppost as a traitor, to rip the lying brass tongue from the national news media machine, and to starve modern academia of every penny of public support, until such time as every last trace of Frankfurt School critical theory, of communism, socialism, feminism, identity politics and speech codes is eliminated from all campuses, sea to shining sea. Then we can start talking about repealing Amendment XVII.
I liked the Old Deal just fine.
We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
