A Government Gone Berserk!

The EPA is anticipated by the administration to outpace employment of the largest American governmental agency, Homeland Security that now employs over 220,000 people. The Department of Energy, which should be eliminated and is run by a mad man, Steven Chu, who just announced that they would be expanding loan guarantees to two more solar energy producers costing taxpayers another billion dollars. Mr. Chu comes to us from academia as a physicist, a field in which he excelled and that he should promptly return to, Chu seems incapable of understanding that green energy is the exact same sort of lie as global warming, changed to climate change when no warming could be proven. There is nothing green about this, its simply green politics.

Department of Energy solar loan guarantees have so far resulted in a string of failures unpresidented in modern history. Count them from Massachusetts to California one after another of Mr. Chu’s favorite solar energy projects have gone bust. Then along came Solyndra with a $ 535 million hit. Mr. Chu has not tended his resignation and neither has anyone else in the Department of Energy. In the mean time GE, the largest in America producer of bird swatters, that has paid no corporate taxes, kept 16 billion offshore to avoid American taxes; all the while “Uncle” from production to installation and even afterward through energy credits is subsidizing the bird swatter business. Then Obozo rewarded GE by appointing their chairman who has in the last two and a half years exported 29 American factories, to be his jobs Czar. Now at least you understand why we have over 20% unemployment. While all this is transpiring the ethanol industry is also subsidized from seed to pump. None, not a single one of these green energy projects is sustainable. If the government subsidies, i.e. taxpayers contribution to these systems were eliminated they would all go belly-up in a heartbeat. That is exactly why America is broke! Only lawyers, community organizers, the media and academics believe in funding industry that it totally uncompetitive on the marketplace. If that were the only problem we might survive but it is not. The worst part of this has been clearly demonstrated in Spain, which went all out in green energy and as a result is in the midst of bankruptcy. Part of the Spanish equation is that for every green job produced four are lost in other sectors; Spain today has the highest energy costs in Europe and the highest unemployment, the energy costs has driven manufacturing off-shore. .

The “Chu facto” that is now Obama-economics, of expanding losing technology can only be factored as all of Obozo’s jobs plans, that can be summed up with, “If it fails do it again and again”, or as Einstein said the definition of insanity is to repeat the same mistake over and over.

To writ: On September the 28th just days before they were due to expire, The Energy Department (Mr. Chu) approved two more loan guarantees worth over one billion dollars. One projects in Arizona another in California. Lord knows California is in dire need of more energy, the state legislature and governor’s office have been such ardent opposer’s to every possible California based electric utilities, expansion, new plants, and even maintenance of old plants that the state has become the largest energy and water importer in the nations. The loan guarantees consist of $ 737 million to Tonopah Solar Energy, for a 110-megawatt solar tower and 337 million for Mesquite Solar to develop a 150-megawatt solar plant near Phoenix.

So, research seems to indicate that Tonopah is a totally owned subsidiary, of Solar Reserve LLC, which is a licensee of United Technologies. (Pratt and Whitney Sikorski, who is the patent holder for the technology) No such plant as the loan guarantee is made for, has ever been built and Tonopah does not operate nor have they ever manufactured or built any electric utilities anyplace. Now I will not hesitate to advise that no sane person would commit to invest $737 million in a project of new unproven technology, which has not even seen a small operating demonstration unit, by a company that is new to the business of building plants, new in electric utilities operation, and electric generation, never mind power transmission. No wonder they need a federal loan guarantee they have tried but been found wanting in the private sector being unable to do a stock offering, or obtaining a loan. From the ridiculous to the sublime, Mesquite Solar characterizes their project with a study titled XXXXXXXX Solar Generating Facilities Project. I am confident that this proposal has infatuated politicians unfortunately I not only find it wanting, but would not authorize the expenditure of $ 5.00 for the information made available on the Internet. Well, at least Sempra Generation, which operates and owns Mesquite is in the energy production field with four gas fired plants in the southwest. These are San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Gas Company, and Sempra, Sempra LNG an importer of liquefied natural gas, and Sempra pipeline and storage, which obviously goes along with the import business.

Having been an executive and CEO of many companies and a supplier to the electric generating field, for 40 years I can clarify the reason for all those different companies, they are shields. Whenever a project is risky the investors want to shield their assets by creating another company, when that company is an LLC Limited Liability Company red flags go up. When the approved loans come out of the same package and same technology as three previous ones all of which went belly up the red flags begin to wave back and forth. And when the projects are given and administered by the same people I get very agitated.

Let’s all be realistic if this were proven technology and the companies involved were putting their money on the table I would consider joining in, but if the investors create a shell corporation to insulate themselves and then plan to do the entire project with taxpayers funds I would not even look at the proposal. If this were such a wonderful idea there would be Boone Pickens with cash in hand. That obviously is not happening.

DOE spokesman Damien LaVera who is the Director of Public Affairs National Nuclear Security Administration, whose qualifications are less than nondescript, but has a Facebook page, however advises us that the two projects had extensive reviews that included the finacial news of the parent companies. Little does Damien say about the contractual relationships between parent and child nor the huge gap in technical information relating to the project. His title indicates that he works for the AEC branch of the DOE the very worst operation run by DOE.

Friend Chu in a news release informs us that the project will create 900 temporary construction jobs (now to 2013) and whopping 52 permanent jobs. Let’s buy Mr. Chu (physicist I thought that required math?) a small calculator. 52 jobs one billion dollars works out to silly economies. He’d be better of pulling a Helicopter Ben Bernanke and just dump $100 bills over LA and Phoenix the impact on the economy would be greater and more lasting.

These loan guarantees are political payoffs for Democrat districts and states in effort to win the 2012 presidential election. They are so structured as to produce maximum employment just before the election that will collapse directly after the 2012 election. None with any common sense would invest in any of these green boondoggles none of them could exist in the private sector, they very much remind us all of the mid 70’s energy crisis constructed by Nixon and expanded by Carter that became the Hallmark of the Carter established Department of Energy, which should have been disbanded decades ago.

Instead DOE should offer loan guarantees for the construction of four coal liquefaction plants, whose technology is proven for over eight decades, and several large profitable operating plants in South Africa. (Sasol, RSA, Rev. $4.4 Billion, Operating profit $1.25 billion, total employment 33,928). This would go a long way toward American energy independence. If Mr. Chu then added loan guarantees for the construction of two additional modern nuclear energy electric plants per year we would be energy independent in fifteen years. But then, I’m only a certified manufacturing engineer with 20 patents four in nuclear technology and 15 books published, what the hell do I know?

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