80% of ‘Green Energy’ Loans Went to Top Obama Donors

[The Vorlon]

Would want to do a little fact checking before jumping up and down, but on the surface this stinks like a rotten fish... if true...

80% of ‘Green Energy’ Loans Went to Top Obama Donors

by Wynton Hall

With Energy Secretary Steven Chu set to testify Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the government’s $573 million loan to failed solar panel maker Solyndra, an explosive new list of energy loan amounts to President Obama’s top fundraisers, bundlers, and supporters has been released by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out.

http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/16/80-of-green-energy-loans-went-to-obamas-top-donors/

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

And is there evidence of GOP Green Energy advocates?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

It's because the vast majority of companies that specialize in "green energy" know which party/ideology will benefit them the most, not because Obama is corrupt.

[Meeker]

Do you mean to say that those in the clean energy sector give money to politicians who support the clean energy sector?!?

Next you'll tell me that Jews give money to politicians who support Israel!

[Reginald]

Yeah, what's really fishy about this is that it's only 80%...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Do you mean to say that those in the clean energy sector give money to politicians who support the clean energy sector?!?

IMPEACH OBAMA NOW

[Sbane]

Yeah, I'm not surprised neither am I appalled. As long as money is allowed in politics, companies should be able to look after their best interests. For the green companies that would be the Democrats. If we can provide subsidies to big oil, we can provide subsidies to these guys as well. (no should be getting them of course, but they need to be paid back for their political donations somehow)

[Torie]

Obama has done a service to the nation by virtue of his antics, of impeaching the Green movement, and reducing its influence. Thank you Barack!

[BigSkyBob]

The corrupt government is an evergrowing government. The political class needs to generate marginal spending as a honeypot for letting the connected have a taste.

[Likely Voter]

Its a good thing that Republicans and the last president have no ties to the oil and coal industries. Otherwise bringing up this issue would seem petty and kind of silly.

[King]

These donors are idiots for giving to Dems.  Don't they realize the Republicans will do whatever the money says and the Democrats will do whatever the Republicans want?

If you pay them, they will come.

[Sbane]

Obama has done a service to the nation by virtue of his antics, of impeaching the Green movement, and reducing its influence. Thank you Barack!

I don't see what's wrong with the entire green movement. You do realize wind farms in the great plains are quite effective? Solar is still behind, and then you have clusters like Solyndra, but it's still just a few cases, and everyone admits solar technology is still being perfected. Natural gas is what should be developed right now, but nothing wrong with investing a miniscule amount in renewable energy now. Better than subsidizing oil companies! We know that oil is going to run out one day. The economy needs to be transitioned to natural gas first and then hopefully cheaper nuclear and renewable power will take over from them. If we give up on renewable power, we are completely f'ed in the long term. And those innovations should be done in America, don't you think? Imagine how much green research could be done if we gave up one aircraft carrier. Priorities need to be re-evaluated.

[Torie]

Yes, yes sbane, although those windmills are way overhyped, ugly as hell, desecrate the landscape, and kill all those birds that we are supposed to be protecting with wetlands, here, there and everywhere, by the truck load. None of that has much to do with the green scam. Natural gas (which is in our future big time since the new supplies have and will make it dirt cheap) is not part of the green agenda. It's too tied to the big oil companies and lacks sex appeal.

The markets should just be allowed to work here.  They are not being allowed to.

[Brittain33]

The markets should just be allowed to work here.  They are not being allowed to.

The #1 way to do this is to price in the externalities of coal, which then makes other power sources economical. The market isn't allowed to work. We know what happened with the BTU tax.

[Jacobtm]

Unsurprising.

Subsidies should be completely abandoned.

In this situation, a Carbon Tax would have the effect of making alternatives relatively cheaper without handing out checks to politically connected companies.

[Torie]

The markets should just be allowed to work here.  They are not being allowed to.

The #1 way to do this is to price in the externalities of coal, which then makes other power sources economical. The market isn't allowed to work. We know what happened with the BTU tax.

Sure, that is the correct analysis. One just needs to be able to value the cost of the negative externalities correctly, in order to get the most efficient mix of energy sources. Presumably the proceeds would be used to mitigate those negative externalities, not run around building windmills, and other stuff to help the politically connected get rich while wasting a ton of money, and corrupting the political process. That seems to be our current policy. Maybe a nice long chill spell for planet earth that snowguy predicts will cool all of this all down.

[Sbane]

Yes, yes sbane, although those windmills are way overhyped, ugly as hell, desecrate the landscape, and kill all those birds that we are supposed to be protecting with wetlands, here, there and everywhere, by the truck load. None of that has much to do with the green scam. Natural gas (which is in our future big time since the new supplies have and will make it dirt cheap) is not part of the green agenda. It's too tied to the big oil companies and lacks sex appeal.

The markets should just be allowed to work here.  They are not being allowed to.

Actually the newer, slower rotating windmills don't kill birds. It's a function of size. A larger windmill needs to rotate more slowly. And of course natural gas is not in the green agenda. Just pointing out that it is where we need to look to for the medium term, not what the environmentalists say.

If windmills aren't included in the green "scam", then what is? I don' t see a larger scam out there, outside of Solyndra. And yeah, we should helpl pay for R&D, but beyond that we should just let the market decide what to do. A lot of the windmills in the great plains are market based and look just fine!

[Sbane]

The markets should just be allowed to work here.  They are not being allowed to.

The #1 way to do this is to price in the externalities of coal, which then makes other power sources economical. The market isn't allowed to work. We know what happened with the BTU tax.

Sure, that is the correct analysis. One just needs to be able to value the cost of the negative externalities correctly, in order to get the most efficient mix of energy sources. Presumably the proceeds would be used to mitigate those negative externalities, not run around building windmills, and other stuff to help the politically connected get rich while wasting a ton of money, and corrupting the political process. That seems to be our current policy. Maybe a nice long chill spell for planet earth that snowguy predicts will cool all of this all down.

The problem is that we will be running out of oil. That is for sure. We won't drown, but we will run out of oil. And actually coal is another resource we MUST use. Along with natural gas. Emissions standards should be looked at carefully though. But even those are not renewable and one day will run out with higher prices coming before that day.

And before you say, higher prices will pay for more extraction of oil in tougher locations, ask yourself whether that is a price we can afford.

[Torie]

You assume sbane that somehow the substitute to oil will be cheaper sooner or something if government just keeps doing what it is doing. I suspect actually that what it is doing has and will have the overall effect of in fact making such substitute, or substitutes, more expensive as the segue into the new energy paradigm somewhere out there over the rainbow occurs.

It is good to hear that windmills new are supposedly less offensive than windmills old. Have a pic of a phalanx of these windmills new to share? Please?  

[Jacobtm]

. I suspect actually that what it is doing has and will have the overall effect of in fact making such substitute, or substitutes, more expensive as the segue into the new energy paradigm somewhere out there over the rainbow occurs.

Well I don't know what school of economics you subscribe to, but most Economists believe that subsidies reduce prices.

The point though, is that subsidies are of course handed out to politically connected people, and have nothing to do with what is the best source of energy or anything like that.

To generally help new industries develop to replace fossil fuels, just tax fossil fuels, making other forms of energy more price-competitive without handing out checks to anyone.

[Torie]

The problem is not the subsidies (that just mostly wastes money), it is the regulations and so forth that are slowing down less fashionable sources of production, both in the immediate to near term, and longer term (aka oil shale, tar sands, and so forth). They even screw around with natural gas, and how to get it around cheaply. 

[Sbane]

You assume sbane that somehow the substitute to oil will be cheaper sooner or something if government just keeps doing what it is doing. I suspect actually that what it is doing has and will have the overall effect of in fact making such substitute, or substitutes, more expensive as the segue into the new energy paradigm somewhere out there over the rainbow occurs.

It is good to hear that windmills new are supposedly less offensive than windmills old. Have a pic of a phalanx of these windmills new to share? Please?  

Why would R&D in new sources of energy, or subsidizing new technology to a certain extent, make the substitutes to oil more expensive? If it's regulations, I don't really agree with a lot of them. Stringent air pollution standards should remain though (but carbon isn't a pollutant lol). The government does have a role in providing some cash for R&D into new technologies. Yes, it does. A lot of it will amount to nothing, but we might end up with the internet.

Some sort of renewable energy will be required in the future. The thing about solar is that it can be implemented in every household basically if we can get on board with that idea, with all of them connected to the grid. Windmills can be built in more areas if people can get over their aesthetic sensibilities. Oil will run out soon enough, coal and natural gas will be around a little longer. Nuclear has the obvious problems with storage and transport of the wastes. Wind technology we have already started to perfect. Solar not so much yet. I just don't understand why you are so opposed to them. Really don't get it.

[Torie]

I think we are down to just how necessary and efficacious government subsidized research is on energy, aren't we sbane?  We seem to agree on everything else regarding this little matter don't we? 

[Sbane]

I guess the thing is that we need research. Perhaps the oil or electric companies could do it more efficiently. I am not sure about that, since it's not some bureaucrat doing the research, but the question really is whether those companies would do the research. Considering just how focused companies these days are on short term profits, they would rather just do research based on existing technologies, or just throw some petty cash at green research and then run an ad campaign that costs more to advertise that fact and make them seem cute and fuzzy. They don't really feel the need to look ahead 10-15 years, or even longer. Profits a few years down the line is more important. And that's fine, they can operate however they want, but someone needs to be thinking about the longer term picture.