Government & Green Energy Debacle

[bhunter]

Why government isn't good at selecting investments.

Failing and Failed Green Companies and Government Support:

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

Evergreen Solar ($24 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($69 million)*
AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.5 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
Abound Solar ($374 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Schneider Electric ($86 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 ($6.4 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)*
UniSolar ($100 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($120 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($150 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($10 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/18/...ergy-failures/

And then the inefficiency and waste,

HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) - Workers at LG Chem, a $300 million lithium-ion battery plant heavily funded by taxpayers, tell Target 8 that they have so little work to do that they spend hours playing cards and board games, reading magazines or watching movies.

They say it's been going on for months.
http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/targe...employees-idle

[barbara]

It would be nice to have a list if failed businesses that were funded privately for comparison.

[Boreas]

Too many for me to fact check but, given the vested interests of the Heritage Foundation, its founders and backers, I think it's best to view this information with a huge degree of skepticism.

John

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by barbara

It would be nice to have a list if failed businesses that were funded privately for comparison.

Not really. Private money is entirely different than government money. The point is that if these were good investments money would already be there without government's inept intervention and its concomitant spectre of cronyism.

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Too many for me to fact check but, given the vested interests of the Heritage Foundation, its founders and backers, I think it's best to view this information with a huge degree of skepticism.

John

Policy research centers might stretch things to their favored political position, but a lot is still good research and can easliy be verified and/or refuted by opposing policy centers. I think you really need to look at their references and bibliography before discounting the worth of their positions. Do you trust academic research papers from ostensibly neutral academic institutions without checking the bibliography?

[barbara]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Too many for me to fact check but, given the vested interests of the Heritage Foundation, its founders and backers, I think it's best to view this information with a huge degree of skepticism.

John

Boreas
After some googleing, I found that at least 50% of small business fail in the first year and 95% in the first five years. Businesses with less than 20 employees have a 37% chance of surviving four years.

I'm guessing the failure rate for publicly funded businesses is not so different than the failure rate for privately funded businesses.

[barbara]

Originally Posted by bhunter

Not really. Private money is entirely different than government money. The point is that if these were good investments money would already be there without government's inept intervention and its concomitant spectre of cronyism.

There is no cronyism in the public sector!! How naive can you be!

And, While the public money is handled differently than private money, in the end, money is money.

I have owned several businesses and I have worked in the public sector managing your hard earned tax dollars.
In the past four years there has been far more scrutiny of gov spending than there has been in the previous decade.
(which has increased my job duties threefold while at the same time I have been forced to take a cut in pay due to the economy..... But.... At least I still have a job when many of my co workers were laid off)

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by bhunter

Policy research centers might stretch things to their favored political position, but a lot is still good research and can easliy be verified and/or refuted by opposing policy centers. I think you really need to look at their references and bibliography before discounting the worth of their positions. Do you trust academic research papers from ostensibly neutral academic institutions without checking the bibliography?

What bibliography?

The first link I clicked on took me to a Fox News story.

John

[barbara]

Lol.... My bad..... I meant to feign surprise at the thought of there being no cronyism in the PRIVATE sector!!
Oh well..... Guess this gov worker's brain is a bit mushy this morning!

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by barbara

Boreas
After some googleing, I found that at least 50% of small business fail in the first year and 95% in the first five years. Businesses with less than 20 employees have a 37% chance of surviving four years.

I'm guessing the failure rate for publicly funded businesses is not so different than the failure rate for privately funded businesses.

We all know that, but thanks for the numbers. Every one of those private businesses lost their own money and they chose where to invest it. Moreover, inadequate starting capital is the most common failure mode for small businesses. There never was, and never will be, a mechanism better than the market to allocate scarce resources. When private money will not invest, it is usually a good sign that there is something wrong with the purported investment.

Here's a quick summary of how those green "investments" are doing:
http://jeffreystedfast.blogspot.com/...-stimulus.html

Obviously, the government has other reasons for promoting one business over another, but that is not the purpose of government in a free market economy.