Secretary Chu’s ‘Clean Energy Race’ Blather
The House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee grilled Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu for four hours yesterday about his role in approving and managing a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra. The solar technology company — celebrated by President Obama and other top administration officials as a “green jobs” and Stimulus success story in 2009 and 2010 — closed its doors and filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2011.
Yesterday’s hearing was part of a nine-month investigation. The Committee reviewed 186,000 pages of documents from DOE, 10,000 pages from the White House, and another 1,000 from Treasury. Oversight Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and other GOP Members charge that Obama officials rushed the Solyndra loan out the door without due diligence, ignored the company’s significant financial problems, and illegally gave investors first dibs over taxpayers in collecting $75 million loaned to the company in early 2011.
The Committee developed this case in several briefing memos (Sep. 12, Sep. 23, Oct. 12, Nov. 17) and published collections of supporting emails and documentation (here, here, here). Allegations — as yet unproven — have also been raised claiming the DOE loan and taxpayer subordination were political payoffs to George Kaiser, a big-time bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign who was also a major investor in Solyndra.
As expected, Chu denied that DOE officials acted incompetently or improperly, or that politics intruded in any of the decisions DOE made in reviewing, approving, and restructuring the Solyndra loan. However, Chu had so little to say about specific emails, most of which he had not seen until published by the Committee, that he came across as a man out of the loop at his own agency.
Chu probably failed to persuade any Republican on the Committee that Solyndra was just a good bet gone sour. On the other hand, GOP Committee members did not produce smoking-gun evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Chu’s written testimony — barely three pages long — recycled his customary spiel about the promise and peril of the global “clean energy race.” The argument has become a staple of green rhetoric: China is spending billions subsidizing its clean tech sector, if we don’t “invest” in “our” clean tech firms America will lose the race and China will “eat our lunch.”
Talk of a clean energy race harkens to the “space race” and “arms race” of the Cold War era. But although those races had economic spinoffs, they were first and foremost geopolitical, not commercial. Renewable energy advocates now try to recreate a Cold War sense of drama about companies like Solyndra. Nukes and missiles had an obvious potential to affect the outcome of a global power struggle. But wind turbines and solar panels?
The global marketplace comprises countless races, because each firm typically faces competition from many others. Dannon, Yoplait, General Mills, Kraft Foods, and Chobani, for example, are engaged in a global yogurt race, and by all accounts “we” (General Mills, Kraft) are losing. Yet you probably won’t read about the yogurt race in the Washington Post.
Chu has probably done more than any other official to popularize the notion of a clean energy race. A testimony he gave in November 2009 offers a more complete explanation than the one he gave yesterday.
Chu argued that the world would need to invest $2.1 trillion in wind turbines and $1.5 trillion in solar panels to meet global emission reduction targets. Thus, to his mind: “The only question is … who will invent, manufacture, and export these clean technologies and which countries will become dependent on foreign products.”
Chu warned that China was investing “about $9 billion a month on clean energy” and lamented that America had “fallen behind” other countries in global market share, but said the Stimulus was helping U.S. firms make a comeback. However, he cautioned the only way to ensure our clean tech companies can compete is to put a steadily tightening “cap” on carbon emissions. “That critical step will drive investment decisions toward clean energy.”
This does not compute.
“ only way to ensure our clean tech companies can compete is to put a steadily tightening ‘cap’ on carbon emissions. ‘That critical step will drive investment decisions toward clean energy.’ ”
Oh. The same drill that they’ve used for fighting joblessless? Destroy the economy and all this stuff won’t be a problem any more.
Chu is the one of the most vile, corrupt and insidious human beings to ever hold power in Washington. If ever there were a Wormtongue among us whispering sweet, crippling insane nothings, here he be.
Cass Sunstien. Lisa Jackson. Mark Lloyd. Kevin Jennings. Valerie Jared. Eric Holder. I could go on……
You forget the biggest wormtongue of them all the Document hiding, life story inventing, Terrorist and Criminal consorting but virtually uninvestigated and Lame Stream EneMedia PROTECTED Barrack HUSSEIN Obama the USURPER , Affirmative Action, Teleprompter Kid and Anchor Baby.
“…the biggest wormtongue of them all the Document hiding, life story inventing, Terrorist and Criminal consorting but virtually uninvestigated and Lame Stream EneMedia PROTECTED Barrack HUSSEIN Obama the USURPER , Affirmative Action, Teleprompter Kid and Anchor Baby.”
Bravo!!! Best example I’ve seen of Poe’s Law in action on this site today.
Keep ‘em coming, Pragmatist!! We all need a good laugh!
Amen. For his duplicitous advocacy of the end of 100-watt incandescent bulbs alone, Chu should be indicted, tried and found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the American public. We may not all have Nobel Prizes in physics, but that doesn’t make us complete idiots.
The Republicans should keep poring over those 186,000 pages from DOE. Even absent a smoking gun, and even if Chu was, indeed, “out of the loop,” that itself is grounds for his removal.
What kind of Cabinet Secretary doesn’t know what’s going on in his department? Either a perjuriously guilty one or an honestly clueless one. Either way, we American citizens lose.
Seems that’s all we have in this administration. Holder didn’t see, didn’t read, wasn’t told….even though he supposedly was in charge. Same with Chu. What an utter failure this entire administration is. And they believe it won’t hurt their standing one bit. Well, I guess it won’t as the o won’t take any action to call them down from their positions.
Sec. Chu’s own words are sufficient to have him fired (if he does not resign.) We are indeed in economic competition with China for survival. China is a dictatorship which uses slave labor. Dr. Chu’s answer is to force American industry into a dictatorship in which government chooses the winners and losers, where he is king investment banker. However the key, for all people who invest their own money, is to have a laser fine definition on their product versus market trends. If the product price falls 70% during the months taken to give away 1/2 billion dollars, thus bankrupting a start up, then people, in the private sector, are summarily fired. He called it a tsunami, I call it rank stupidity. It is not hard to make electricity; it is very hard to make it cheaply.
Cost effectiveness is not a basis for a Noble prize, but it is crucial to competitive survival.
The prime purpose of the Department of Energy is to assure that our hydrogen bombs go off when we want them to, and not at any other time. This is Dr. Chu’s job. It is not to give our money away on green energy ideas that are proven worthless within months.
He is not a crook, he is just a dumb egg head way over his head. But he is correct on one point on energy, “America can be defeated.” He is destroying our freedom, and economy.
I still back Obama on his clean energy proposal to spend four trillion dollars over the next 15 years on fuel from unicorn urine. Now that he has broken the log jam by authorizing DofE to issue waivers on the virginity requirements for unicorn handlers, the other problems should work out.
But when the unicorns gore the non-virgin handlers (as they are traditionally wont to do), the DofJ will want to use the resulting violence and deaths as evidence that we need to ban unicorn-ownership, a la Fast and Furious.
It’s ALL smoke and mirrors! Unicorn’s have been shown to produce as much methane as cows…thus negating any benefit from their urine, not to mention the costs in corn feed and water. Let’s face facts…green energy is a fantasy!
I read and hear a lot of nonsence about this and that. Global warming, scratch that Global Change, Democracy is great, scratch that, Democracy is bad. The USA is good and powerful, scratch that, weak spinless nasty and greedy. The list of garbage goes on and on. STOP AND LOOK AT THE DOCUMENTS THE FORE FATHERS PREPARED FOR US TO LEARN FROM.END THE CORRUPTION OF THE NATION NOW.
Definitions. high Treason, Sedition et al.
tyrant
In common usage, the word “tyrant” carries connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who places his or her own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population, which the tyrant governs or controls.
treason
· Violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one’s country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.
· A betrayal of trust or confidence.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/treason#ixzz1QsLrbdUd
Oran’s Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as “…[a]…citizen’s actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation].” In many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aided or involved by such an endeavour.
sedition In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.
High crimes and misdemeanors is a phrase from Section 4 of Article Two of the United States Constitution: “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“High” in the legal parlance of the 18th century means “against the State”. A high crime is one which seeks the overthrow of the country, which gives aid or comfort to its enemies, or which injures the country to the profit of an individual or group. In democracies and similar societies it also includes crimes which attempt to alter the outcome of elections.
An alien who is present in a country (which is foreign to him/her) unlawfully or without the country’s authorization is known as an illegal alien of that country.[2] An illegal alien commonly refers to a foreign national who resides in another country unlawfully, either by entering that country at a place other than a designated port-of-entry or as result of the expiration of a non-immigrant visa. An enemy alien is an alien who is a national of an enemy country.
Malfeasance the performance by a public official of an act that is legally unjustified, harmful, or contrary to law; wrongdoing (used especially of an act in violation of a public trust).
Nonfeasance is to ignore and take no indicated action – neglect. Misfeasance is to take inappropriate action or give intentionally incorrect advice. Malfeasance is hostile, aggressive action taken to injure the client’s interests.
Example: A company hires a catering company to provide drinks and food for a retirement party. If the catering company doesn’t show up, it’s considered nonfeasance. If the catering company shows up but only provides drinks (and not the food, which was also paid for), it’s considered misfeasance. If the catering company accepts a bribe from its client’s competitor to undercook the meat, thereby giving those present food poisoning, it’s considered malfeasance.
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is a saboteur.
The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows for the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them, closing a perceived loophole that allowed someone who told a man to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because they did not actually do it.
RICO is codified as Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968. While its original use was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its application has been more widespread.
It has been speculated that the name and acronym were selected in a sly reference to the movie Little Caesar, which featured a notorious gangster named Rico.
LET NO MAN SAY, HE DOES NOT KNOW!
What happened to the FBI’s investigation of Solyndra? Where are all those records? Their silence is deafening! Has the FBI been politicized?
Is there a time it wasn’t?
I wonder what role Van Jones (Green Jobs Czar) had in directing funds to Solyndra? What doesn’t anyone ever comment on that?
If memory serves, Solyndra and Van Jones are both based in the East Bay (Oakland) area.
I suspect that’s what Van Jones role is/was…funnel government money to communist cronies under the banner of “Green Jobs”.
No need to look any further than here at this man for responsibility. Van Jones is President Barack Obama’s newly appointed “Green Jobs Czar.” Van Jones, ‘Green Jobs Czar’, a self-described ‘communist’ arrested during Rodney King riots. July 17, 2009 http://www.examiner.com/conservative-politics-in-…
“. Spain’s Industry Ministry announced it intends to cut the feed-in tariff for wind turbines by 40%. Britain too may cut subsidies for wind farms and household solar panels. Japan, worried about the billions it is paying other countries for carbon credits, is reconsidering its commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions 25% by 2020. Even the European Union acknowledges a “trade-off between climate change policies and competitiveness,” and is questioning whether it should press ahead with decarbonization if other countries don’t follow suit.”
Maybe that’s because all of this “renewable energy” junk is just that, JUNK! Serious research in solar energy has been going on since the 1970s and ever since thing nothing much has come of it. The problem is always the same. Sure, you can get the energy, but at a very high cost and not in an efficient way that would be able to heat any large town or city. They’ve always done it, they just can’t do it on a large, economical, scale. So we’ve known this now for about 40 years, yet we keep beating the same dead horse. But I guess now even the Europeans, the Europeans mind you, are coming around to the idea that it just will not work. Too bad the liberals here don’t, too. Unless of course, they don’t want to becaue they’re making a buck off of it.
The greens continually lie that sooner or later there will be a breakthrough, if only we give enough time and pour enough money into it. You are right. Research into wind and solar power has been going on for 30 years, and has been stalled for the last 15 to 20 without major advances. The only advances have been in reduced labor costs, where China has the edge, and is why they’ve cornered the market. They also subsidize their industry in a more direct way. After all, what else will they do with the interest money the US pays them for their loans.
I think you can add the Netherlands to that group of countries about to wake up to the realization that they can’t afford this cheap electricity.
From Drudge “Dutch fall out of love with windmills”.
An excellent article, Marlo.
The whole reason for Obama’s “green energy” push is global warming. If it weren’t for that, nobody would be pushing solar and wind over natural gas.
Obama and Chu are convinced that global warming is going to force abandonment of fossil fuels in the next 25 years or so. And that if the U.S. does nothing to prepare for that day, we’ll have to scramble to develop the capability to do so then.
But Obama and Chu can’t sell that proposition to the American people. They tried and failed. Cap-and-trade failed in Congress.
So then they tried to sell “green energy” as a jobs program, promising “millions of green jobs” and “China is eating our lunch in these jobs of the future.”
Chu knows that’s a crock. But they’re trying to find some way to sneak a global warming initiative past the American people if necessary.
“The whole reason for Obama’s “green energy” push is global warming.”
No. You are making it sound like Obama is an uninformed altruist with good intentions. One reason he is pushing these fiascos is to appease his environmentalist supporters who contributed substantially to his campaigns. The other is to make guys like Al Gore and other politically-connected Democrats very rich, who also contributed to Obama’s campaigns, to become rich.
“As expected, Chu denied that DOE officials acted incompetently or improperly, or that politics intruded in any of the decisions DOE made in reviewing, approving, and restructuring the Solyndra loan. However, Chu had so little to say about specific emails, most of which he had not seen until published by the Committee, that he came across as a man out of the loop at his own agency.”
Apparently. Dr. Chu intends to use the same Schultz Defense as Mr. Holder at Justice re Fast & Furious. “I know nothing! I see nothing!”
“Chu argued that the world would need to invest $2.1 trillion in wind turbines and $1.5 trillion in solar panels to meet global emission reduction targets. Thus, to his mind: “The only question is … who will invent, manufacture, and export these clean technologies and which countries will become dependent on foreign products.””
Or we could spend that 3.6 trillion on nuclear and hydroelectric plants that are not likely be deadlined up 24 hours out of 24 due to insufficient wind, or guaranteed to be so for 12 out of 24 due to darkness, and will not require 24/7 conventional (coal-or-oil-fired) backup.
The fact that Chu is anti-nuclear to a fault, pro-AGW propaganda no matter what, and dreams of bankrupting the American people (which $8/gallon gasoline would do), in the pursuit of the deep-ecology dream of an “energy-free” society (i.e., one that “lives gently on the land”), tells me that he was hired for his ideology, not his competence.
His behavior re Solyndra, etc., tells me his honesty wasn’t a factor, either. Just his willingness to parrot the party line no matter what.
I wouldn’t give Obama a chance to throw Chu under the bus. I would charge him with malfeasance in office re Solyndra right now, and tell him that unless he wants to spend the next twenty-to-twenty-five in the Iron Bar Hotel, he’d be best advised to come clean about all the other memos about “green energy” company startups he supposedly “wasn’t aware of”.
And do it pronto.
clear ether
eon
Consider for just a moment that Obama’s goal is to destroy what we know of as the United States of America (in other words “fundamentally transform” it).
Obamas policies, actions, directives, and appointments (cabinet, judicial and others) would be no different.
The Obama Admiinistration and Chu have not been clear on clean energy policy with the American people. Judging from the comments here everyone is focused on the U.S. market. And so has Obama. The reality is that the global energy market is $6 trillion and growing by 20%. Much of that growth is in clean tech. Soon the clean tech market will be $2 trillion. We can either compete or not. It appears many of th PJ commenters would rather suck on coal and oil and fatten the pockets of middle east enemies. So much for vision. At least the military gets it – but I assume the knuckledraggers want to get them back to diesel on the front lines even though its the cause of the heaviest casulty rates. Time for some people to wake up and look at the future.
Nice bunch of non-specifics and bumper sticker exclamations. Now where is the underlying scientific support for what you have written? You say “We can either compete or not”. How, when, where, or most importantly, why? If there is a buck to be made I am most sure that American free enterprise will be at the head of the line in the world competition. However, if there is a buck to be squandered, wasted, directed to the pockets of cronies, or otherwise pissed away then the Obama administration will lead the charge. Where are the facts? Or is that we’ve got to go green because every other state-directed bureaucrat is hot for the idea? Kind of reminds me of Robert Reich and his “we’ve gotta have a national industrial policy because Japan does!” exhortations.
The only reason cleantech market is showing any signs of life is because it’s artificially propped up by governmental subsidies and regulations. It can not last, so it will collapse, probably very soon. Spending money on it is stupid. China will lose its shirt on it, and our government should not be wasting our money on that idiocy.
“It appears many of th PJ commenters would rather suck on coal and oil and fatten the pockets of middle east enemies”
Huh? Coal is mainly domestic product, in any event it is not being bought from middle east. And majority of PJ commenters support idea of domestic oil production.
A very timely post, with numbers that prove that all these cleantech spendings are total bubble, propped up by government subsidies:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/make-29-on-your-money-guaranteed/#more-51396
Note that while investors in a project cited above will earn 29% on their investment in first year, they would have to go bankrupt without tax subsidies.
If you want to invest your own money into that scam, be my guest. Just don’t expect me to be happy when you use my hard-earned cash on it.
“It appears many of th PJ commenters would rather suck on coal and oil and fatten the pockets of middle east enemies. So much for vision.”
Actually (as I stated above- you did read it before posting, didn’t you?) I’d rather be building nuclear plants, and stop dismantling hydroelectric dams to “make rivers wild again”.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. If your definition of a “green energy” future is restricted to Holy Wind and Holy Sun, in spite of all the evidence that they can never handle the load, you are an ideologue, and are not looking at the situation realistically.
Unless and until you accept that nuclear and hydroelectric power (the latter including tide power) must be a major component of any “post-oil/post-coal” energy structure for the developed world, you are badly under-informed.
If you still prate of the “dangers” of nuclear energy, you are badly under-educated. (Or else over-educated in dogmas, as opposed to facts.)
And if you think the world can support a population of 7 billion in an ecologically “correct” way that failed miserably when the population was under 2 billion (in the late Bronze Age), you are as detached from reality as Obama and Chu.
clear ether
eon
“……suck on coal and oil and fatten the pockets of middle east enemies.”
Not much of our oil comes from the Middle East. Most comes from Canada, then Mexico, then Venezuela, and soon Brazil. Even less would come from the Middle East if Obama and the greens would lighten up on the feeding frenzy regarding the proposed pipeline from Canada to Texas. As far as “Soon the clean tech market will be $2 trillion” is BS. The “clean energy” market is only about 3% of the total electrical energy production in the US. Spain is getting out of their investment in wind and solar. Their renewable energy industry has folded. It cost them $240K per worker to sustain. They can’t afford it. Other countries are significantly cutting back on wind and solar power, because they are not as efficient as carbon energy, are sporadic in electrical production, and many have started to question AGW claims.
“Time for some people to wake up and look at the future” ?
Time for some people to get a clue and stop being useful idiots for those who are using this nonsensical green power ideology to make a massive grab for money, power and control.
Oil, Gas, Hydro and Nuclear form a pallet of resources that have provided mankind with ever growing prosperity. We may not always have been the best stewards for these resources but we have learned steadily and they are now largely safe, efficient and friendly to the environment. As we prosper, largely due to these affordable, easily portable and highly concentrated forms of energy, we will only get more and more responsible with their usage.
Millions of square feet of solar panels covering our open spaces and our roof tops and acres covered with dangerous and hard to maintain wind turbines is a major step backwards for mankind. Just because you don’t pay for photons or for moving air doesn’t mean the energy you derive is free or even cheaper. But this doesn’t occur to simple minded ideologues like Gordo. “Wake up and look at the future” indeed!
It goes like this. As long as we buy oil from the middle east we are funding both sides of the war on terrorism. We do not have the oil resources even when tapped to displace foreign oil which is fungible. Therefore we will continue to fund both sides of the wars while we drill baby drill. Natural gas can replace a lot of energy needs but not enough to displace oil, and gas prices are volatile. If we dispense with clean tech we also walk away from the largest and fastest growing global market. Convoy security of transporting diesel to the front lines has the highest casualty rates which is why the Marines have three FOBs powered by solar and micro-wind. We need all the energy resources for security and economic hegemony reasons. Chu should be fired, Obama voted out, and a sane, long term energy policy put in place.
He’s right! I see it now. President Obama has no choice but to hold a gun to the head of American energy consumers. Otherwise Green Energy will not be able to compete with clean-burning, abundant, domestic natural gas. We all need to sacrifice. We all need to get some skin in the game. We all need to be prepared to accept significant cuts in our standards of living, just like Mr. Chu and the First Family.
This is starting to remind me of the scene in “Dr Strangelove” where they were panicking over the “mine shaft gap”.
After forty years practicing engineering, mostly in energy; a score of nukes, two score fossil fuel power plants, spent fuel back end storage schemes, and a decade assessing advanced technologies (e.g. nanotechnology, super conductivity, ultracapcitors, etc.), my advice to any bright teen, who likes math and science, is to forgo engineering and learn Dr. Chu’s first language, Chinese. From personal experience, I know that twenty years of concentrated effort, can be wholly destroyed by some court litigation, regulation, or a fat subsidy to a competitor. Engineers have been terminated by the tens of thousands, in mid career, by these processes. Talent and contribution are worthless, when cost effective energy decisions have been politicized.
Our electric grid is supported by roughly 800 coal fired power plants and 100 nukes. They date to the Korean war. Excluding “government plants”, facilities that rest on some paragraph in the federal code, all of our good units were engineered by talent which is now dead, or retired. It takes perhaps twenty years to develop a smart engineer into an expert. For those capable of comprehending time, we have none, or perhaps a tiny vestige of a once robust profession. Thus energy decisions are, and will be made, by people, e.g Dr. Chu, who have authority, but no bases for judgment. The people beneath him who promote the “smart grid” a buzz work for taking control of residential appliances, so as to avoid building new power plants, or Solyndra, a worthless investment of 1/2 billion dollars, are lobbyist type people, promoters. The technical people in DoE are gray hairs, near retirement. The energy corporations have one common bed rock policy: so long as the costs are welded to others, we will build whatever the politicians and regulators demand. Or build nothing.
This has been America’s energy policy for decades. The equipment is now junk, and we can not continue. The grid may collapse, not for days, but for years. What happens to a major city if it loses power for years? The technical term is grid reliability. This Administration will not discuss grid reliability. This is dangerous.
The question to any candidate is: What are the chances my furnace blower will work in January and what will it cost me, in my taxes and my power bill?