Comments on: Alternative Energy Firms Don’t Have Power To Succeed

By: Zippo

Zippo — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:34:26 +0000

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.

By: Zippo

Zippo — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 09:50:55 +0000

NG Super Cheap!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444223104578036403362012318.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

By: Zippo

Zippo — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 06:33:55 +0000

And then the wind stopped blowing: http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/idaho-news-exergy-167583715.html

By: dog

dog — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:59:03 +0000

Let’s not forget to take the roads and highways off the subsidy too. People should pay tolls to privately owned roads so we don’t have to pay taxes because the govmt does such a crappy job of building and maintaining them. What about the military? Can’t really put my finger on the product they produce ie , freedom? Can you feel the freedom from the wars in Vietnam, Grenada (we won !), Iraq, Afghanistan? Love my Marmot, made in (commmunist) Vietnam ski jacket, so yeah, cozy warm feeling of that freedom. What about the communist made Chinese shoes you are wearing right now?

Has there ever been one watt of nuclear power created and sold to the public without a government subsidy? If so, very insignificant.
Most large hydro dams in the US were built with government money. Shasta was a defense project. All BPA hydro was built by the government.
Are you ready for private power in private hands? How quickly we forget what ERON did to rate payers.
Lets do the ERON thing again and monopolize even more utilities.

I worked for the Dept. Of Energy right after the energy crisis of the late 70’s. That was a manufactured crisis and did not resolve itself from drill baby drill. The alternative energy industry was effectively killed the day Reagan took office and we jumped in bed with Saudi Arabia in a big way since we got cut off the oil spigot with the hostage crisis in Iran under Carter. I was on one of the last planes out of Teheran in 78. Cheap imported oil killed the industry in the early 80″s.
Now cheap NG is killing the alternative energy industry. When Israel starts the hot war in Iran you will be paying dearly for every drop of fuel you use.
Since Reagan set us on the path of globalization, you can expect your wages to stagnate or go down as global wage equalization slowly evolves.
As long as oil companies can make big profits exporting US gasoline and NG, isn’t it anti capitalist to prevent them?

Bottom line is everyone wants cheap power except the power companies. If gas was $1.50/gal right now and heavily subsidized no one here would be complaining except that your taxes were too high. Never in history has anyone complained the their taxes were too low.

BTW, taxes paid for a large portion of G-mans career income. Soldier, cop, photos for school books. All subsidized by good old Uncle Sam and we appreciate that.

By: Clancy

Clancy — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 17:33:06 +0000

Don’t worry we got our money’s worth even though Transform Solar is now defunct. Transform Solar received more than $1.7 million in state training money

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/05/30/2135854/transform-solar-got-1-million.html#storylink=cpy

Transform Solar’s letter of thanks.
http://idaholabor.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/employees-transferrable-skills-will-take-them-beyond-transform-solar/

By: Zippo

Zippo — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 04:59:12 +0000

http://www.tiogaenergy.com/press/tioga-energy-and-energy-finance-company-go-to-the-beach-solar-power-for-wildwoods-convention-center

By: Zippo

Zippo — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 04:29:14 +0000

http://energyfinancecompany.com/potomac-energy-fund

By: Clancy

Clancy — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:43:37 +0000

I guess we all missed this presentation of Pete Johnson(Dyanmis) at last year’s Harvest Clean Energy conference in Boise.

http://wacleantech.org/2011/11/john-martin-goes-to-idaho/

“Another speaker was Pete Johnson of Dynamis Energy, which develops high-efficiency incinerators for eliminating landfill of municipal solid waste (MSM) by burning the rubbish to generate energy. Johnson said that while Northwest energy costs are among the lowest in the world, and demand for incineration power is low here, Brazil will be prohibiting MSM landfill by mid-decade and has skyrocketing energy demands. There, the market for responsible incineration is strong.”

It also looks like Dyanmis has some energy venture capitalist funding them. http://www.potomacenergyfund.com/portfolio.

EDITOR NOTE–thanks again for the research.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:09:05 +0000

I really don’t like any government subsidies in general, but where would we be if there were never any? You sure as heck would not see full size trucks that get 20 M.P.G. or full sized cars with 300 h.p. that get 30 M.P.G.
I live in Florida and many counties have huge waste to energy plants. They subsidize our power and slow the trash going into the ground, extending the life of our landfills by double. I just can’t believe that anyone would rather put garbage into the ground when there are multiple ways to use it as a fuel. Counties in Idaho keep buying land for dumps, burying the garbage and polluting the ground water. Where are we going to be in 20 years? I have looked at Solar, Wind and Tides as sources of power and none can actually deliver. Of all the new concepts, waste is the only one that has proven results. Some plants burn and produce ugly amounts of pollution but there are a few newer companies that are pretty darn clean and can make a profit.
Wind will never really make it. Tides have a shot if you live in a particular area and Solar will be a good thing in another 10 years. There are a number of new homes that are completely self sufficient… that means they use NO power from the grid and actually sell excess power back to the grid. Expensive? You bet. But so were flat screen’s 8 years ago. Now you can get a 55″ screen for 700.00… unfortunately none made here.
We all know we need a shock collar on Washington, but some (darn few) things do work and need to be pushed if we want our kids and grand kids to have a shot.
I have a solar charger for my GPS that I take with me whenever I am in the woods or boat. Ten years ago it would have been a grand. Last month they were under $60.00.
Ten years from now they will come with your cell phone for free.
It is our generations job to fix everything that has broken on our watch. Pick and choose wisely. We can’t afford any more mistakes.

If you don’t do anything else today, thank a Vet for giving us the opportunity to debate freely….

By: Zippo

Zippo — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 05:45:39 +0000

@Calvin Jones, Tell us more. List some welfare numbers when those power sources got started. I think you make a good point, but coal, NG, and Hydro were solid ideas.

The issue is that wind is 3x the cost of base-coal power with the govt welfare, without welfare the cost of wind will go nuts. This inability to compete is why the welfare is fading away and they are canceling wind projects. The middle man made a fast buck, just like a baseball stadium we don’t need. The workers building it think it’s a great idea too. Thinking ahead a few years, those wind farms are huge with lots of moving parts so the future upkeep will be huge too. Wind will make a comeback after the power companies have managed to creep the rates 3x higher and after they’ve figured out a better way to store energy.

It’s very hard to beat the current system of BASE-power from Coal, Nuke, Hydro (all huge steam boilers), and PEAK-power from Natural Gas (huge jet engines). North America has the Worlds largest reserves of coal and gas and we are nuke and hydro experts too. The stupidity of the American voter having let D.C. and the green freaks turn this into a crisis is amazing to me. D.C. will fix nothing, they just tax and regulate industries until demand falls. That’s why utility and phone bills are 2x-3x ten years ago… Taxes and regulation, not a fuel shortage. D.C. will not explore using Natural Gas as a surface fuel because the raw product is so plentiful nearby that they will not be able to have a gasoline crisis and related taxes.

By the way, America is a net exporter of refined gasoline and other fuels. Your gas price is so high because D.C. has allowed the oil companies to index your gasoline price to the World market even though they make it a few miles away. Forced ethanol mixing E-10 is also contributing and raising staple food prices.

So this is what ya get when you elect sales people to run the country. Just think what would our economy look like if gasoline/diesel was $1/gal.