Could EVs Compete In A True Free Market?  It seems we've reached "peak EV," with sales in trouble and assembly line workers losing their jobs.  The hard truth is electric vehicle sales would have never reached the level they have if the government had not trespassed into private matters.  The EV troubles are all around.  Sales are slowing.  Unsold cars have piled up in lots.  Surveys plainly indicate that fewer Americans want them.  In response to dramatically slowing sales, Ford announced last fall that it was delaying $12 billion in EV investments.  Which should surprise no one, considering that the company lost nearly $73,000 on each EV it sold in the second quarter of 2023.  At roughly the same time, General Motors walked away from its EV strategy.  Mercedes was excited about its new EVs just a few months back but learned that customers weren't thrilled about about them.  Earlier this year Hertz decided it would dump as many as 20,000 of its EVs.  Now Tesla is laying off 10% of its global workforce, meaning around 14,000 former employees will be looking for new jobs.

Ford to trim workforce at plant that builds its F-150 Lightning as sales of electric vehicles slow.  Ford will drastically cut the number of hourly workers at its factory that builds the Ford F-150 Lightning as sales of electric vehicles slow, according to a media report.  Ford began the year by cutting production of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup after weaker-than-expected electric vehicle sales growth.  While EV sales are growing in the U.S., the pace is falling well short of the industry's ambitious timetable and many consumers are turning to hybrid vehicles instead.

Ford "Drastically" Cutting EV Lightning Workforce Hours.  On a serious note, my heart goes out to the workers who put their faith in Ford Management's defective strategic vision, and retrained as EV production line workers.  This is not the prosperous future they were promised.

Southern California bus factory shuts, 425 jobs lost, latest victim of green-vehicle slump.  In an era when clean public transportation has seemingly huge support, how can the makers of low-emission buses fail?  The latest casualty is a Southern California factory where environmentally friendly buses were made.  It's being shut down by its Wisconsin-based owners.  REV Group — which makes everything from RVs to fire trucks — decided in January to exit the mass transit business, announcing the closure of its ENC bus business and its plant in Jurupa Valley.  State documents show 425 jobs will be lost after the business winds down after completing outstanding orders.  Now, you probably don't know ENC, but you've likely ridden in one of their products.  Their legacy product was the ubiquitous airport shuttle.  The manufacturer then evolved into manufacturing mass-transit buses.

The myth of affordable green energy is over.  The pervasive narrative about offshore wind in recent years has been that costs are falling and that wind power is cheap.  But scratch below the surface and you find that things are not quite so rosy.  Turbine manufacturers have been losing money hand over fist in recent years.  Collectively over the past five years the top four turbine producers outside China have lost almost US$7 billion — and over US$5 billion in 2022 alone.  Last year the chief executive of turbine-maker Vestas said that the company lost eight per cent on every turbine sold.  Some of these losses are down to warranty issues — this means the turbines have not performed as expected requiring the manufacturers to compensate windfarm developers and rectify problems.  Privately this is attributed to the pressure for ever larger windmills which are harder to get right.  Insiders now suggest that the growth in capacity per turbine has peaked, at least for the time being.

No, Wind Power is Not Cheaper Than Gas.  Advocates of Net Zero policies repeatedly reassure the public that they are advancing cheap, green energy with the promise of vast numbers of lucrative green jobs and world leadership for the U.K. in selected green technologies.  Unfortunately for the hard pressed British electorate, 'cheap, green energy' is nothing more than an empty political slogan arrived at by a dishonest sleight of hand.  Specifically, the politicians simply ignore the true costs of the 'cheap, green energy' which soon becomes very expensive when factoring in all costs.

Why Offshore Wind Jobs May Just Be a Lot of Hot Air.  Offshore wind developers in the U.S. have promised to create thousands of "million-dollar" jobs.  But those dollars won't flow into New York workers' paychecks.  Rather, they're just the sum total of the subsidies local taxpayers and utility ratepayers will expend to keep offshore wind afloat — as if New Yorkers' electric bills aren't high enough.  Consider Ørsted, the Danish government-owned company that is developing the 12-turbine, 132-megawatt Southfork Wind and the 84-turbine, 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind projects, which will be built 30 miles east of Montauk Point, Long Island.  Ørsted is also behind the 98-turbine, 1,100 megawatt Ocean Wind project along the southern New Jersey shore, which just rewarded it with several billion dollars in tax credits that were supposed to have been returned to New Jersey ratepayers[.]

Joe Biden's bus to nowhere.  It's amazing how Democrats tout certain green companies to the public, pump government billions into them, buy the stock, cash out the stock ... and then watch them go bust.  It happened with Solyndra under the Obama administration.  Now it's happened with Proterra.  Seems the corrupt, impunity-laden Biden administration is no stranger to pump-and-dump stock schemes, which is what Fox News's Jesse Watters said was happening.  [Video clip]  Apparently these companies exist to benefit Democrats, to give them some of the cash stream that comes of these monster government spending bills that are done in the name of 'going green.'  Without this government money, these green vessels wouldn't get out of the harbor.

"Green" Jobs At Ford And GM Will Cost Taxpayers As Much As $7.7 Million Each.  Thanks to the staggering amounts of money that's being doled out under the Inflation Reduction Act to incentivize the production of electric vehicles, America's biggest automakers — General Motors and Ford Motor Company — are building battery factories.  Those new factories, one in Spring Hill, Tennessee (GM) and the other in Marshall, Michigan (Ford), will create a total of about 4,200 new jobs.  But creating those jobs will cost federal and state taxpayers nearly $22 billion.  Thus, each new "green" job at the GM plant (which the company is developing with Korea's LG) will cost taxpayers $7.7 million.  Each job at the Ford plant will cost some $3.4 million.

Offshore wind delivers one tenth of jobs promised by ministers.  The latest official estimates show that 3100 full time jobs in offshore wind in 2021.  Ten years ago the Scottish Government were championing the desire to be the green energy capital of Europe with around 28,000 jobs in offshore wind alone.  It comes as GMB Scotland has written to energy secretary Neil Gray asking for an urgent summit to ensure that the nation does not continue to get the green jobs revolution wrong.

Have unions finally figured out that the Green movement is a jobs killer?  Could it be that union bosses are finally waking up to the cold reality that the greatest threat to steel workers, the United Auto Workers, miners, machinists and the Teamsters is the radical climate change agenda of the environmentalists?  The green movement has taken the Democratic Party hostage — and President Joe Biden's all-in embrace of far-left green policies is wreaking havoc on rank-and-file union jobs.  The United Auto Workers recently announced it would withhold its endorsement of Biden as he runs for a second term.  "The federal government is pouring billions into the electric vehicle transition, with no strings attached and no commitment to workers," UAW President Shawn Fain recently declared.  "The EV transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom" for America's workers.  My only question:  Why did it take five years to figure this out?

Utility Scale Solar Kills Jobs.  Does it matter that utility scale solar has a negative effect on the environment — destroying farmland, forests, wetland, recreational land?  Does it matter that property values are driven down?  Does it matter that the mining of cobalt, lithium, rare earths and copper to build solar panels and battery energy storage systems is done by slave labor in the Congo and China?

Subsidised Green Jobs are Killing Real Jobs.  Since at least 2009, politicians of all stripes have been calling for variants of a Green Job Revolution.  Gordon Brown promised to add 400,000 new "green" jobs, taking the total to 1.3m by 2017.  More recently, the Labour Party has called for a Green Prosperity Plan to make Britain a green growth superpower.  The Liberal Democrats have their own plans for green energy and a transport revolution.  The Conservative Government has a 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution.  Of course, for the Green Party no plan from any other party is ever enough and they always urge more action more quickly.  Others, such as Ben Pile have covered the abject failure of these policies to deliver their objectives.  Suffice to say, according to the ONS, there were only 207,000 people working in the "green" sector in 2020, fewer than even the increase promised by Gordon Brown in 2009.  As was shown in earlier articles, there are lots of hidden costs to renewables and expensive electricity leads to lower productivity and economic growth.

US Offshore Wind Jobs are Highly Exaggerated.  Offshore wind supporters like to quote a Wood Mackenzie research study that says building 29,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind electric generating capacity on the Atlantic seaboard by 2030 will create 80,000 annual full-time US jobs between 2025 and 2030.  Extrapolating from an actual approved project leads to an estimate of only about 5,500 jobs, and even that number may be high.  Further, the study ignores possibly over 25,600 jobs potentially lost from huge electric premiums that redirect consumer and business spending elsewhere in the economy.  The Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) recently approved the 846 MW Skipjack 2 offshore wind project off Delaware's coast.  A review[i] of the project by the PSC consultant indicates there will be 857 temporary construction jobs and 25 permanent Operational & Maintenance jobs.

The New Greenwashing — False Advertising about Green Energy Jobs.  In the private sector, false advertising can get you into legal trouble.  In the public sector, it's often good politics.  Supporters of renewable energy want you to believe that green jobs at union wages are a benefit of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).  For example, NYSERDA CEO Doreen Harris recently boasted that for every job lost because of the green-energy transition, ten will be created.  And Governor Hochul pledged last week to prioritize union labor in the green-energy transition, and the CLCPA mandates the application of New York's prevailing wage law, which essentially requires union-standard wages and benefits be paid to workers on public construction projects, even when they far exceed market rates.  But Harris and Hochul are wrong — these jobs are a cost of the public policy, not a benefit.  And expensive prevailing wage jobs only increase the cost.

The green industrial revolution is a lie.  The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published data earlier this month which showed that the UK's 'low-carbon and renewable-energy economy' (LCREE) had not grown significantly between 2014 and 2020. This performance is a far cry from the promises of plentiful 'green jobs' and a 'green industrial revolution' that have echoed around Westminster for the past decade and more.  It turns out that the much heralded green growth was nothing more than mould.  This news should surprise no one.  As I have argued elsewhere on spiked, the green industrial revolution is a lie.  Since the 2008 Climate Change Act, successive governments have embraced the fantasy of leading the world in the 'transition' to a low-carbon economy.  And it's all been to no avail.  The rest of the world continues to increase its consumption of fossil fuels despite endless COP meetings, and Britain's green industrial revolution stubbornly fails to materialise.

Household energy bills will rise when homes are forced to switch to hydrogen heating, energy minister admits.  Household energy bills are expected to rise amid plans to force homes into using hydrogen heating.  The starting gun for a new 'dash for gas' was fired yesterday [8/15/2021] as the Government launched its strategy for Britain to burn hydrogen and create a £900 million industry in the next five years.  Energy Strategy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said that creating a UK hydrogen industry would lead to 9,000 jobs by 2030, by which time the sector's economy would be worth £4 billion.  This would rise to 100,000 jobs and £13 billion in economic benefits by 2050, he said. [...] Hydrogen is considered a 'key pillar' in the quest to make Britain 'net zero' — or emitting zero greenhouse gases — by 2050.

The Editor says...
[#1] Any time a politician promises to create 100,000 "green" jobs, in an industry where no such jobs existed before, you can bet the farm that the actual number of jobs created in the remainder of this century will be about a thousand.  Probably less.  [#2] There is very little energy available from hydrogen gas, as opposed to methane (natural gas) or hydrocarbon fuels (coal, oil, diesel, gasoline).  The government of the U.K. has set as its primary goal the elimination of carbon dioxide.  This is futile, of course, because China and India are making no such effort.  It is also expensive.  Why not let the customers decide which fuel to use for home heating?  We call that free-market capitalism.

South Dakota rocked again as a wind turbine plant shuts its doors.  John F. Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said only months ago that those losing fossil fuel jobs in coal and hydraulic fracturing will find they have a better choice of jobs in either the solar industry or as wind turbine technicians.  That was then.  Now, a wind blade manufacturing plant located in Aberdeen, South Dakota, has announced it is shutting its doors permanently in less than two months.  The disappearance of Molded Fiber Glass will displace over 300 workers and their families.  It marks another major loss of energy jobs in the state following President Joe Biden's halting of the Keystone pipeline on the first day of his administration.  MFG said in a news release that the closure will happen because of changing market conditions, foreign competition, and proposed revisions to tax policies affecting the wind energy industry in the United States.

SD wind turbine plant to shut doors, 300 jobs lost.  A major wind blade manufacturing plant is closing its doors in Aberdeen, South Dakota despite Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry claiming there would be plentiful jobs in the solar and wind turbine industries.  Kerry made those claims just months ago as the Keystone Pipeline was nixed by President Joe Biden and many jobs were lost in the coal and hydraulic fracturing markets.  The Molded Fiber Glass company will shut its doors permanently in less than two months and roughly 300 jobs will be lost.  The plant, open since 2007, produces wind turbine blades.  It will remain in operation until August 6, fulfilling existing orders here in the United States.

Biden and 'elitist environmentalists' lost at least 1,000 steel jobs in Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania State Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward argued on "Fox & Friends" on Thursday that Scranton native Joe Biden and his administration are "partially responsible" for the cancelation of a $1.5 billion steel project, which would cost "at least 1,000 blue collar jobs" because "of their focus on only green energy."  Late last month, Pittsburgh-based United States Steel Corp. said that it is canceling the project to bring a state-of-the-art improvement to its Mon Valley Works operations in western Pennsylvania, citing the fact that the landscape has changed in the two years since the company announced its intentions.  According to the company, project permits initially stalled by the coronavirus pandemic never materialized, U.S. Steel has added capacity elsewhere and now it must shift its focus to its goal of getting rid of greenhouse gas emissions from its facilities by 2050.  [Video clip]

Green investing 'is definitely not going to work'.  From his desk in midtown Manhattan Tariq Fancy once oversaw the beginning of arguably the biggest, most ambitious, effort ever to turn Wall Street "green".  Now, as environmentally friendly investing grows at an exponential rate, Fancy has come to a stark conclusion:  "This is definitely not going to work."  As the former chief investment officer for sustainable investing at BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, Fancy was charged with embedding environmental, social and governance (ESG) corporate policies across the investment giant's portfolio.

Biden's union allies wonder where they fit in with green energy future.  President Joe Biden touted his $2 trillion infrastructure plan as a "once-in-a-generation" effort to tackle climate change while creating millions of "good paying jobs."  Some unions warn that it may ultimately cost a lot of jobs, too.  Labor groups, echoed by Republicans in Congress, are cautioning that Biden's plan to hitch the jobs recovery to massive green energy investment could backfire because of the quality of employment it will create and the economic devastation it could cause on rural communities.  The president's push to decarbonize the economy will mean eliminating the kind of steady, fixed-location jobs that come with coal mines or fossil fuel power plants.  The Biden plan would require the construction of vast numbers of solar, wind and battery projects, along with potentially new pipelines for carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

The Editor says...
Pipelines for carbon dioxide?  Is there a demand for carbon dioxide somewhere?  Pipelines for hydrogen?  Where?  Remember, even if half the voters are clamoring for this nonsense, the rest of the voters are not.

Democrats Introduce New Green New Deal Bill Calling Fossil Fuels 'Racist'.  The Hill reports that Rep. Always On-Camera (D-New York) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Not An Actual Cherokee) have introduced a new bill that would "invest" $500 billion to "create" "green jobs."  Use of multiple scare quotes is intentional.  Neither the race-hustling professor nor AOC know much about job creation, having never created any meaningful number of non-government jobs.  Government "investing" necessarily entails government taxing, or government just printing more money, which neither the Democrats nor The Hill note.  Those green jobs supposedly already exist anyway; why else would John Kerry tell the Keystone XL pipeline workers whose jobs his boss destroyed to go build solar panels?

Those millions of new 'green' jobs are going to China and India.  When U.S. "Special Envoy" for Climate John Kerry recently urged workers upset by the Biden administration's decision to scuttle the Keystone XL pipeline to "learn to make solar panels", he was oblivious to the fact that China and India dominate the solar panel manufacturing market.  President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Recovery Plan is to build a modern, resilient climate infrastructure that will create millions of good-paying union jobs, but Biden, like Kerry, may not be aware of America being unable to financially compete with the world's solar panel manufacturing markets without huge government subsidies.  China and India not only control the supply chain of materials for solar panels, wind turbines, and EV batteries, but also have the least stringent environmental controls for the mining of the renewable materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, copper, and many others, and minimal labor laws for their low-cost labor supply.

Green Jobs Are A Myth:  A Myth Intended to Distract Attention.  During the 2020 election campaign, Joe Biden asserted that more than 3 million Americans are already "employed in the clean energy economy."  He then boasted that, "if executed strategically, our response to climate change can create more than 10 million well-paying jobs in the United States that will grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class ... and not just in cities along the coasts."  That would make Joe twice as boastful as his former boss, who promised the 2009 $787 billion stimulus package would create "over five million" green jobs.  Four years later, the Brookings Institution reported that, "of the nearly 2.7 million 'green jobs' [the Obama-Biden Administration] identifies, most were bus drivers, sewage workers and other types of work that don't fit the 'green jobs of the future'" description.

Renewables Sector Reels As 150,000 German 'Green' Jobs Evaporate.  The great 'green' jobs 'bonanza' is being revealed for the hoax that it truly is.  And nowhere is that reality harsher, than in Mutti Merkel's Germany.  Plastered in solar panels (albeit blanketed in snow and ice at the moment) and overrun with 30,000 of these things, Deutschland has been held up as a renewable energy 'superpower' by the wind and solar cult, across the globe.  A bitter, breathless winter has left them scrambling for the only reliable power source in town:  coal-fired power from their own remaining plants and from Poland, and nuclear power from France.  One of the promises of its 'transition' to an all wind and sun powered future — aka the 'Energiewende' — was an endless sea of 'groovy' sustainable employment in the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines.

Green Jobs Collapse in Germany and Go to China Instead.  What a Surprise!.  'Green jobs' in the German renewables sector have collapsed by 50 per cent in less than a decade.  No prizes for guessing where they've gone instead — but here's a clue: it begins with 'C' and ends with '-hina'. [...] There are two key points to be made here.  First, China is not remotely interested in green issues — or 'clean' energy — except insofar as it enables it to gain a competitive advantage over the West while it continues full steam ahead with its fossil fuel-powered industries.  Second, the 'green jobs' promised by everyone from President Joe Biden to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as one of the benefits of their proposed Net Zero revolutions are a myth.  Or, if you prefer, a blatant lie.

Peter Doocy Blasts Jen Psaki: 'When Do [Union Workers] Get Their Green Jobs?'.  During Monday's [2/8/2021] White House press conference, Fox News's Peter Doocy asked the White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, where are the Biden administration's so-called "green jobs" for unemployed union and construction workers.  On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that revoked a key permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was designed to more efficiently move oil from Canada to the United States.  The Biden administration's proposed green jobs plan has promised to create more than 10 million "well-paying jobs in the United States," though no immediate legislation or executive order has been proposed to create such jobs.  In a tense exchange, Doocy asked the press secretary where these "green jobs" are and when unemployed Keystone XL Pipeline workers can expect to apply for them.

Jen Psaki mocks reporter when asked about Keystone pipeline job losses.  White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday [2/8/2021] mocked a reporter who asked when workers on the canceled Keystone XL pipeline would get "green jobs" promised by President Biden.  It's expected that up to 11,000 jobs will be lost following Biden's day-one decision to immediately shut down construction of the pipeline that was supposed to carry oil from Canada to Texas — leaving South Dakotans reeling and 1,000 people immediately out of work.  "Where is it that they can go for their green job?"  Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Psaki at her Monday afternoon press briefing, referring to Biden's promise to create good-paying union jobs in the green energy sector as his administration attempts to end the nation's reliance on fossil fuels.

Biden's Rapidly Deflating Honeymoon Balloon.  The administration has been buffeted by the incongruity of shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline and throwing 11,000 Americans out of work (and up to 40,000 Canadians, with whom Biden has committed to "rebuild alliances"), throwing another 10,000 Americans out of work by shutting down oil and gas exploration in federal lands, accepting the backbreaking yoke of the Paris climate undertakings that involve the disemployment of scores of thousands of other Americans; all while promising to open up the borders, raise the minimum wage, and recycle all the displaced energy industry workers into the manufacture of solar panels and windmills.  Some may remember the Obama promises of "green, American, union jobs," (which never materialized and won't now).

John Kerry, Global Warming Ghoul.  Presidential climate envoy John Kerry stirred up a black cloud last week when he said the workers who lost their jobs over the administration's decision to shut down Keystone XL pipeline construction could just make solar panels instead.  At least he didn't tell them they should learn to code.  But it was a cruel comment nonetheless, and representative of the political left's careless destruction of livelihoods in service of their climate god.  At a news conference last week, Kerry said "what President Biden wants to do is make sure that those folks" who lost jobs "have better choices, that they have alternatives, that they can be the people who go to work to make the solar panels."  Unsaid yet clearly understood is the Democrats' contempt for calloused-hand working class Americans — these "deplorables" just can't make good decisions and need the guiding hand of government to help them avoid the briar patches and potholes of life.

WaPo: Two Pinocchios For Kerry's Wind-And-Solar Jobs Claims.  If you missed John Kerry's remarks on the job-destruction impact from Joe Biden's executive orders on climate change, let's refresh memories first.  Reporters asked Kerry how the new administration would explain to hundreds of thousands of energy workers about the necessity of making them unemployed, Kerry suggested that they could "make better choices," and told reporters that they should learn to build solar panels instead. [...] Obama, Kerry, and Biden had eight years to prove the assertion that massive government subsidies in renewable energy would pay off with "millions" of green-tech jobs.  Remind us again how many wind and solar installer jobs America currently has 12 years after the massive Porkulus bill?  The most significant lie here isn't Kerry's statistical claims.  It's that this administration cares one whit about energy-sector jobs while they take every step they can to destroy them without viable employment or energy options.

One week in, Biden administration shows its exquisite cruelty.  [Scroll down]  President Trump energized our economy, made us energy independent.  Biden has in the span of a week tanked it in order to make us dependent on Saudi Arabia again.  He is about to ban coal-mining, too.  What will happen to those miners?  These green jobs he claims all those suddenly unemployed workers are going to transition to do not exist.  The arrogant Buttigieg, the new transportation secretary, a job he is uniquely unqualifed for, when Ted Cruz asked what would happen to those people, snarkily replied, "They'll get other union jobs."  Exactly where and when he did not say.  He can't.  Those jobs do not exist.  This is a nasty group of radicals, this Biden Cabinet of now out-of-the-closet communists.  They are wildly overreaching in a country that is based on individual liberty.

Get ready for more Obama-era green energy scams.  With Democrats about to control all the levers of power in Washington, the biggest winners might be the wind and solar companies.  These firms' stocks continue to surge mostly because President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to invest several hundred billion dollars in green energy through a pipeline of taxpayer-funded grants, loans, tax credits and loan guarantees.  This game plan looks suspiciously like a replay of the litany of green "stimulus" fiascoes that Biden piloted as vice president back in 2009 with the $800 billion Obama stimulus plan.  The experiment in the government as an investment banker belly-flopped with embarrassing failures from Solyndra, Fisker Automotive and Abound Solar.  Taxpayers lost billions of dollars on these lemons.

Green Jobs?  What Green Jobs?  On the campaign trail in 2008, candidate Barack Obama promised he would create 5 million new green jobs.  Months later, the Obama-Biden Administration took office supported by a majority in the House and a nearly filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  The $800 billion stimulus package they passed focused on fulfilling the 5-million-job promise.  It was a tragi-comedic disaster.  Together, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Department of Labor's inspector general issued four reports on green jobs.  The Obama-Biden green-jobs programs failed so spectacularly the administration defunded all future reports.  Not only did Obama-Biden not create 5 million new green jobs, they could not document even half that many total (new and pre-existing).  Even this failure was after the BLS broadened the definition of a green job in an attempt to get bigger totals. [...] Though the jobs promise was broken, the spending promise was not.  The big, green chunk of the $800 billion stimulus package went to a list of projects of which no one would be proud and that were owned by a group of corporations not needing subsidies.

Clean energy has shed nearly 600,000 U.S. jobs due to pandemic: report.  The U.S. clean energy sector has lost 17% of its work force, or nearly 600,000 jobs, as stay-at-home orders halt production of components from solar panels to electric cars and slow installations at homes and businesses, according to a report released on Wednesday [5/13/2020].

The Billionaire And The 'Moderates' Are Socialists Too.  Socialism vs. centrism is a charade.  The only choice among all these candidates is between Bernie and Bernie Lite. [...] The Vermont socialist also tried to assuage worries about the Green New Deal, the cost of which could exceed $90 trillion, by promising it would provide "up to 20 million good-paying jobs as we move our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy," adding, "this is a moral issue, my friends."

The Editor says...
Yes, I would say "20 million good-paying jobs" is right, aside from the atrocious grammar, because spending $90 trillion to produce 20 million jobs means the jobs cost $4,500,000 each, paid for by the rest of us.

Joe Biden is coming for your job.  Seems it's not enough for the such leftists to come for your toilet paper, your salt shaker, your meat, your SUV, or your air conditioner, Biden wants your job, too.  Your livelihood.  All for your own good.  Oh sure, he promises to replace it with something else, something green, see, as the state central planners dictate.  We all know well that worked out last time Biden got his way and did what he could in the Obama administration to put coal miners out of business.

Barack Obama, the real king of the quid pro quo.  It's only with Trump that Democrats seem to have gleaned a sense of conscientiously objecting to what they perceive as abusing one's high office to obtain political or personal favors.  Where were they with Obama? [...] The Westly Group funded, among other companies, Tesla Motors.  And all the while he was visiting the White House, serving as a member of the Obama administration's advisory board on energy policy, and so forth and so on, he was raking in half a billion dollars in loans, grants and stimulus bucks for his green companies.  That was money from the Obama Energy Department to [Steve] Westly, the guy who wined and dined with Obama et al with eyebrow-raising frequency.

California raises the caution flag on 'green jobs'.  California's mixed record of using public investments and environmental mandates to create "green jobs" raises serious questions about the promises of some Democratic presidential candidates to use economy-transforming investments in environmentally friendly technologies to put millions of people to work.  Many of the initiatives touted by the candidates in their environmental plans are already in place in California, and some of them having been promoted as important engines of job creation.  But California stopped counting green jobs in 2013, struggling to separate truly new jobs from existing employment growth.

Sanders puts out massive plan to fight climate change.  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 White House hopeful, on Thursday [8/22/2019] unveiled his sweeping Green New Deal to tackle climate change, a plan he says would take on "the single greatest challenge facing our country" and create 20 million jobs.  "This is a pivotal moment in the history of America — and really, in the history of humanity.  The climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately," said Sanders.

The Editor says...
Can Bernie Sanders prove there is a "climate crisis," or any extraordinary change in world-wide weather?  Yes, it's a lot hotter than it was six months ago, but that's a condition called, "summer."  What exactly will 20 million people do, that will stop the climate from changing?  Who will pay these 20 million people?  What are those 20 million people doing today?  Must they all earn a "living wage?"  Will they all qualify for paternity leave, taxpayer-funded abortions, and sex-change operations?  Must they all be U.S. citizens?  Will they all be unionized, so that a large portion of their dues will go straight to the Abortion Party?  Is the weather really the "the single greatest challenge facing our country?"  Not China, Iran, or North Korea?  Not Islam, Antifa, or Fake News?  The answers should be obvious.

Green Jobs:  The Antithesis of Efficiency.  The best way to measure the usefulness of energy sources is not by the number of jobs they create, but by the benefits they provide.  Getting the biggest gain for the least resources should always be the goal, meaning we should measure energy by its output, not the size of its payroll.  Current green energy literature shows us why.  A recent Clean Jobs America report claims there are 3.3 million clean energy jobs nationwide.  That number is nearly three times the 1.15 million jobs in the fossil fuel industry.  It's a big and impressive statistic, but it's misleading for a couple of reasons.  First, unless clean energy jobs were providing at least triple the output of traditional sources, it wouldn't make sense to say that having 3 million jobs is necessarily better than 1 million.

Liz Warren Pitches Climate Change 'Jobs' Plan.  It Costs $2 Million Per Job.  Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren laid out her $2 trillion plan to fight global warming while creating jobs, mirroring the goals of the highly-publicized Green New Deal.  Warren, who's running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, proposed Tuesday [6/4/2019] three major policy programs to spend $2 trillion over a decade to create one million jobs — that comes out to one job for every $2 million spent.

Warren unveils $2 trillion "Green Manufacturing Plan".  2020 candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren released her "Green Manufacturing Plan" Tuesday [6/4/2019], a $2 trillion proposal to develop the technology needed to power the Green New Deal over the next decade.  Warren is seeking to strike a progressive tone that focuses less on regulations and explicit goals and more on manufacturing and jobs than some other Democratic candidates as divisions emerge between the party and labor unions over the Green New Deal.

AOC's Green New Deal could have Dems facing blue-collar backlash at polls, some say.  California knows about fault lines.  And political observers in the Golden State say the Democrats' proposed Green New Deal may be a fault line that splits the party's support — in California and elsewhere.  The environmental high-mindedness of the plan for combatting climate change — put forth by Democratic U.S. Reps.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ed Markey of Massachusetts — appeals to the "elite" professionals the party has been courting for years.  But the potential disruption for the American labor, in which untold numbers of employees might have to transition from "old economy" jobs to "green economy" jobs, may be offputting for many blue-collar workers — potentially turning many of them away from Democratic candidates at the polls, some political observers say.

8 Times Barack Obama Abused His Power To Appease His Base.  [#7] Obama's failed "green energy" loans:  Obama was so committed to creating a new "green economy" that he earmarked $80 billion for clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits as part of his economic stimulus for green energy companies in a highly politicized process benefiting companies that supported him.  We all know how that turned out.  At least fifty Obama-backed clean energy companies went bankrupt or found themselves in major financial trouble.  The most well-known example is Solyndra, which received more than a half-billion dollar loan despite the fact the Department of Energy (DOE) knew they were on the verge of bankruptcy.  Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden were personally involved in the decision-making process to determine who got loans.

Green New Deal Is Bad Deal for All Americans.  Any time the government tries to "provide jobs," you can expect a boondoggle at best (especially when the number promised is 16 million).  The most successful way to create jobs is a business-friendly environment, which is the exact opposite of the Green New Deal's massive regulations, spending, taxes, and all other anti-free-market strategies.

China Exposes the Recycling Scam's Dirty Secret.  The huge dirty secret of recycling was also one of the world's worst polluters.  Every branch of government from Washington D.C. to your local town council had spent a fortune convincing people that recycling is a magical process that turns your old pizza boxes into new pizza boxes while creating those imaginary "green jobs" in the community.  The reality was a lot dirtier.

Green Job Hazards:  Wind Energy, Wind Farms, Wind Turbines, Fire and Crane Safety.  Wind Energy workers are exposed to hazards that can result in fatalities and serious injuries.  Many incidents involving falls, severe burns from electrical shocks and arc flashes/fires, and crushing injuries have been reported to OSHA.

Here are 1,366 well sourced examples of Barack Obama's lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc..  [#25] In 2009 the Obama administration gave $535 million to Solyndra, claiming that it would create 4,000 new jobs.  However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt.  It was later revealed that the company's shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama's campaign, that the company had spent a large sum of money on lobbying, and that Solyndra executives had had many meetings with White House officials.  It was also revealed that the Obama administration had already been aware of Solyndra's financial troubles.  For example, according to the company's security filings in 2009, the company had been selling its product for less than the cost of production.  In 2010, Obama visited the Solyndra factory and cited it as a role model for his "stimulus" program, saying "It's here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future."

Twenty-One Bad Things About Wind Energy.  [#8]  Knowing full well that the assertions used to date were specious, wind proponents manufactured still another claim: green jobs.  This was carefully selected to coincide with widespread employment concerns.  Unfortunately, when independent qualified parties examined the situation more closely, they found that the claims were wildly exaggerated.

Inconvenient energy fact:  It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker.  In an April 25 New York Times article ("Today's Energy Jobs Are in Solar, Not Coal") reporter Nadja Popovich wrote that "Last year, the solar industry employed many more Americans [373,807] than coal [160,119], while wind power topped 100,000 jobs."  Those energy employment figures are based on a Department of Energy report released earlier this year that provides the most complete analysis available of employment in the energy economy.  But simply reporting rather enthusiastically (see the NYT headline again) that the solar industry employs lots of Americans, more than twice as many as the number of coal miners and utility workers at electric power plants using coal, is only telling a small part of the story.

The left's misleading green jobs claims.  In absolute numbers, the U.S. Department of Energy reports solar power employed 43 percent of the electric power generation sector's workforce in 2016, employing more than 374,000 workers who construct, assemble, sell or install solar panels.  Fossil fuels combined accounted for just 22 percent (187,000) of the jobs directly tied to generating electric power.  Although there are a significant number of solar-related jobs, the often-repeated figures above are very misleading for numerous reasons, of which I'll name a few.

Axing Wasteful EPA Program that Gave Leftist Groups Millions "Racist".  Over the years, heaps of taxpayer dollars have filled the coffers of leftwing groups — including some dedicated to helping illegal immigrants — that teach black, Latino and indigenous folks how to recycle, reduce carbon emissions through "weatherization" and participate in "green jobs."  The cash flowed freely through the EPA's special environmental justice office, which the Trump administration plans to get rid of as part of a broader budget cut for the famously bloated agency.  This is great news for American taxpayers who were forced to fund this nonsense.

Green Energy is a Charter For Crooks And Liars.  The Scam Must End Now.  When is the rest of the Western world going to catch up with Donald Trump and point out that the green emperor is wearing no clothes?  I ask as a concerned UK taxpayer absolutely sick to death of the vast sums of money that continue to be funnelled into the pockets of crooks, liars, spivs, chancers, con-artists and fantasists in the name of solving the non-existent problem of "climate change."

DOD Is Leasing Land To Green Energy Companies For Free.  The Department of Defense (DOD) allowed private companies to build green energy projects on federal lands for little or no compensation, according to an audit of the Pentagon's green energy efforts.  Government Accountability Office (GAO) auditors reviewed 17 green energy projects on DOD land and found 14 of those projects were, "not always clear about the value of the land used and the compensation DOD received for granting such use."  "Specifically, for 8 projects, DOD received little or no financial compensation for the use of its land, but the documentation did not clearly compare the value for granting use of DOD land to the value of what DOD received for it," GAO found.  "As a result, DOD contributed potentially valuable land — in some cases, over 100 acres — for the development of a project without including this as a cost in project documentation."

Crony Capitalism and the Spigot of Government Subsidies.  Tesla secured nearly $1.3 billion in benefits from a variety of sources, including money from Nevada to set up a car battery factory, federal subsidies through the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program, and a number of federal and state tax breaks for the purchase of Tesla vehicles (such as the $7,500 federal tax credit and a $2,500 California rebate).  Why would so much in government subsidies go to produce a car that only a few Americans can afford?  The new Tesla Model S ranges from $80,000 to nearly $115,000 before tax credits and rebates.

Climate Activists Push Study Showing 3.8 Million Lost Jobs from Renewable Energy Transition.  A recent study outlining a "roadmap" for transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy would cause a significant loss of permanent jobs, based on a review by Energy In Depth.  The research has been widely cited by anti-fossil fuel activists, whose advocacy includes the supposed job benefits of replacing oil, natural gas, and coal with renewable technologies like wind and solar.  The study, whose lead author is Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson, was published last summer in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

Mega-solar company slashing jobs despite gov't benefits.  The solar industry seemed to be looking at a bright future in 2016 as Congress renewed an endangered tax break for another five years.  Yet, in a troubling sign for a business continuously infused with such government benefits, America's largest solar contractor may be facing its worst year on record.  SolarCity, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, is now contending with mass layoffs, plummeting stock and mounting debt.  "This is what happens when you have a government that artificially props up a sector with subsidies so it can generate more production than they otherwise would," said energy analyst Nick Loris, a research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

SolarCity Is Slashing 550 Jobs.  Solar panel installer SolarCity said it would cut 550 jobs in Nevada, two weeks after the state's utilities commission approved changes that would reduce credits customers receive for selling excess solar power to the grid.

'Four Times Greater Than Solyndra': DOE Drops 1,200 Pages Of Heavily Redacted Docs On Green Energy Loans.  The Department of Energy recently turned over more than 1,200 pages of heavily redacted documents in response to a records request about a subsidized biofuels company from The Daily Caller News Foundation.  In October, TheDCNF filed a FOIA request with the Energy Department, asking for email records from government officials regarding federal loan guarantees given to Abengoa, a Spanish-based green energy company.  The request came on the heels of reports Abengoa was running into big financial problems, despite being given generous taxpayer-backed loans.  The DOE gave TheDCNF the records it requested Dec. 18, and after spending time reviewing the documents, it's apparent there's a lot of information the department did not want the public to see.  The DOE redacted virtually all information specific to Abengoa — in many cases whole pages were blacked out.

Another Obama Clean Energy Fiasco, Potentially Involving Largest Bankruptcy in Spanish History.  On the clean energy front, team Obama keeps plugging away with failure after failure.  This go around involves a clean energy company in Spain that increasingly appears as if it will become the largest bankruptcy in Spanish history.

Congressman on Going Green: Minorities Won't Be Hurt by Eschewing Fossil Fuels.  Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, pushed back against politicians who argue that hurting the fossil fuel industry would adversely impact the poor, saying a "minimal" amount of minorities are working in the industry. [...] Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, advocated for the implementation of zero waste policies.  "Did you know that no animal other than us creates waste?  We're the only ones who have waste.  Nobody else has garbage cans because everything else is usable in some kind of way but we throw stuff in garbage cans like it's useless.

The Editor says...
Anyone who has ever shoveled muck out of a barn, cleaned a bird cage, or maintained an aquarium, knows that all animals create waste.

Politicians Keep Chasing the Green Jobs Fantasy.  In the famous children's story, Jack and the Beanstalk, a young boy plants "magic" seeds and overnight a beanstalk grows as high as the sky.  The obvious fantasy has a surprising real world counterpart through politicians who claim that by spending billions of taxpayer dollars on "green energy projects," some will take off and magically create millions of jobs.  Like the story, those claims are more fiction than reality, yet politicians continue to tell the tale over and over again.  President Barack Obama pledged during his campaign to "invest" $150 billion in alternative energy companies, promising that it would create five million new jobs.  But when the smoke cleared all that remained was crony handouts to the politically connected.

Green energy company fights for life after getting billions from feds.  Abengoa, a renewable energy multinational company headquartered in Spain, has been a favorite of the Obama administration in getting federal tax money for clean energy projects.  Since 2009, Abengoa and its subsidiaries, according to estimates, have received $2.9 billion in grants and loan guarantees through the Department of Energy to undertake solar projects in California and Arizona — as well as the construction of a cellulosic ethanol plant in Kansas.  But in the space of less than a year, Abengoa's financial health has become critical, leading investors to worry whether the company can survive.

In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale.  [The Daily Mail] has uncovered the distinctly dirty truth about the process used to extract neodymium:  it has an appalling environmental impact that raises serious questions over the credibility of so-called green technology.  The reality is that, as Britain flaunts its environmental credentials by speckling its coastlines and unspoiled moors and mountains with thousands of wind turbines, it is contributing to a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China.  This is the deadly and sinister side of the massively profitable rare-earths industry that the 'green' companies profiting from the demand for wind turbines would prefer you knew nothing about.

The President's Clean Energy Farce.  Green energy investments are a guaranteed flop, the kind of failure only a shady Broadway producer could envision.  This current green energy production really got underway when the economic "stimulus" set aside $80 billion to subsidize politically connected energy projects, according to the Heritage Foundation.  Since the halcyon days of the stimulus, 1,900 investigations have been opened to probe stimulus fraud and about 600 convictions have been secured by prosecutors.  What is more, about 10 percent of the Obama-backed green companies have gone bankrupt or out of business.  But Obama does not let the facts get in the way of a good, green story.

No one showed up for California's green jobs rush.  In 2012, California voters were peppered with grandiose promises, such that they could not resist approving Proposition 39. [...] Naturally, it did not work at all.  On Monday, the Associated Press reported that the program has "created" just 1,700 jobs in three years — just under 600 jobs per year or roughly five percent of what was promised, at the cost of $175,000 per job.  Even that paltry figure fails to account for opportunity costs — i.e. jobs lost statewide because of the forced diversion of economic resources away from productive industries and toward green energy.  The number of net jobs created is likely zero or less than zero, which is to say that probably a few hundred or a few thousand jobs have been destroyed so far at a cost of $300 million.

California measure fails to create green jobs.  Three years after California voters passed a ballot measure to raise taxes on corporations and generate clean energy jobs by funding energy-efficiency projects in schools, barely one-tenth of the promised jobs have been created, and the state has no comprehensive list to show how much work has been done or how much energy has been saved.

Feds pour $32 million more into beleaguered solar industry.  This latest funding is dedicated to training a workforce of solar technicians, developing new technology and implementing a database to share performance data, the DOE announced in a press release last week.  The training goal is 75,000 workers by 2020 and an undisclosed amount of "other professionals" in other fields such as real estate, finance, insurance and fire and safety.  What the release didn't say was that the Obama Administration has spent $150 billion on green initiatives between 2009 and 2014, yet the industry cannot survive without government giveaways, a Brookings Institution study found.

Obama-backed green energy failures leave taxpayers with $2.2 billion tab.  Taxpayers are on the hook for more than $2.2 billion in expected costs from the federal government's energy loan guarantee programs, according to a new audit Monday [4/27/2015] that suggests the controversial projects may not pay for themselves, as officials had promised.  Nearly $1 billion in loans have already defaulted under the Energy Department program, which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration has approved, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in its audit.

Pres. Obama announces solar program to employ veterans.  Standing next to an array of solar panels at Hill Air Force Base, President Barack Obama announced Friday [4/3/2015] the base will participate in a new program aimed at employing veterans in the solar energy industry.  The Solar Ready Vets is part of the administration's overall goal of employing 75,000 people around the country in the solar energy industry by 2020. HAFB will join four other military installations already participating in a pilot program.

Obama Announces Plan to Train 75,000 Solar Workers.  The White House has announced a goal to train 75,000 workers in the solar industry by 2020, many of them veterans.  "These are good-paying jobs that are helping folks enter the middle-class," President Barack Obama said on Friday [4/3/2015] at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.  The plan will expand on the Department of Energy SunShot Initiative's Solar Instructor Training Network currently running at more than 400 community colleges.

Obama misleads students about climate and energy.  The International Renewable Energy Agency reports that worldwide investment in renewables (not counting large hydropower) amounted to an incredible $214 billion in 2013 alone!  IRENA insists that these expenditures need to more than double by 2030, to achieve the impossible goal of restricting average global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.  However, results to date show that those investments have brought few benefits, and much harm.  European studies have found that expensive, unreliable wind and solar power kills two to four jobs for each "renewable" energy job this heavily subsidized industry creates.

The 5 Million Green Jobs That Weren't.  In 2008 candidate Barack Obama promised to create 5 million green jobs. [...] The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 set aside $90 billion in renewable energy grants and loans for a grab bag of thousands of projects -- wind farms, solar installations, natural gas fueling stations, biofuel research, and a $5 billion weatherization project for low-income homes.  Digging into the public records of the $21 billion spent so far through 19 U.S. Department of Energy programs reveals 3,960 projects that employ 28,854 people.  That's not 5 million.

Unemployed take their case to Fed officials at Jackson Hole.  Reginald Rounds was among those present at the Federal Reserve's high-flying monetary conference here, enjoying the chance to button hole two top officials of the U.S. central bank.  The St. Louis resident is neither an economist nor a central banker.  He's a 57-year-old unemployed worker, who said he is trained in the green technology field and can't find a job.

Where Have All the Green Jobs Gone?  Five years ago, "green jobs" were all the rage in Washington.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was rolled out with a win-win agenda aimed at fixing the economy and healing the environment at once.  Candidate Obama touted a "blueprint" for a green economy, with plans to create 5 million green jobs.  Then the stimulus sparked hopes of a Green New Deal -- direct job creation to transition the workforce to a low-carbon economy, plus industrial policy to drive investment in green infrastructure and solar and wind sectors.  Today, the green has begun to wilt.

'Clean Energy' Ruined Spain; now Obama is Dragging the US Over the Same Green Precipice.  "Feeding the masses on unicorn ribs".  That was how Walter Russell Mead once poured scorn on Obama's misbegotten attempts to revive the US economy by creating five million "green jobs."  Mead was quite right, of course.  And there was plenty of evidence to back him up, such as the 2009 report by a Madrid university professor Gabriel Calzada Alvarez that for every expensive "green job" created by government subsidy, 2.2 jobs were destroyed in the real economy.  The Obama administration responded as only the Obama administration knows how:  by calling in its left-wing attack dogs.

Another Obama-backed 'green' company leaves a trail of unpaid bills and broken promises.  "Come see what's going on at Smith Electric," the president said, inspecting a table full of bright green truck batteries in what was once a maintenance hangar for TWA.  "I think they're going to be hard-pressed to tell you that you're not better off than you would be if we hadn't made the investments in this plant."  The skeptics turned out to be right.  Despite $32 million in federal stimulus funds and status as one of Obama's favorite "green" companies, the firm has halted production, having built just 439 of the promised 510 vehicles.

Greens Are Reds.  Environmentalists used to fantasize that their policy mandates would lead to "green jobs" for working men and women, but that bubble popped awfully fast.  Just ask the Germans, who are ditching expensive green wind and solar projects as fast as they can to save their flagging economy.

A Tale of Two Cities.  The U.S. metro area with the lowest unemployment rate is a shale oil boomtown.  The one with the highest unemployment rate houses the world's largest solar plant.  Energy policy experts are pointing to that dichotomy as evidence that job creation potential in the energy industry lies primarily with fossil fuels, despite the administration's insistence on creating a "clean energy economy."  According to data released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Midland, Texas, has a 2.9 percent unemployment rate, the lowest in the country. [...] In contrast to the successes of those oil and gas boomtowns, Yuma, Ariz., is facing the highest unemployment rate of any U.S. metro area at a whopping 26.1 percent.  Yuma is the site of the Agua Caliente solar plant — the largest photovoltaic solar generation facility in the world.

Washington State Senate Reexamines Solar Power Incentives.  The Washington Senate Energy, Environment & Telecommunications Committee held a January 30 session to examine federal, state, and local incentives given to the solar power industry.  James M. Taylor [...] noted jobs created in the solar power industry by government subsidies or market share carve-outs are not jobs created at all.  Instead, he noted, they are merely jobs shifted away from the conventional power sector, where the workers would be producing more-affordable electricity that leaves more money in people's pockets to purchase goods and services across the entire economy and produce additional jobs there.

The myth of green-job creation.  The concept of green jobs and a green economy is popular among politicians and policy-makers.  That is understandable, as they want to be perceived as doing something about the environment or climate change while simultaneously protecting jobs and the economy.  Green jobs are considered to be a way of addressing two policy issues at once:  employment and the environment.  Policy-makers can argue that green-job creation will compensate for jobs lost due to more stringent environmental policy.  But what are "green jobs"?

Energy Dept. failed to report concerns as green-tech firm was heading for bankruptcy.  The Department of Energy failed to disclose concerns about a green-technology company that won $135 million in federal funding but ended up filing for bankruptcy in September, according to a watchdog report released this week.  DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman noted that the firm, San Francisco-based Ecotality, is still due to receive $26 million from the agency for testing electric vehicles.

The Green Jobs Scam.  Although the Solyndra bankruptcy served as a glimpse into the use of tax dollars for political purposes in order to benefit Obama's cronies, the story is not over.  In total, $150 billion, including $80 billion from the stimulus, is supposed to be spent on "green energy" projects between 2009 and 2014.  So far, 33 companies that were provided $7.4 billion in tax dollars have either gone bankrupt, are declaring bankruptcy or are on the edge.  And this is just the beginning.  Even The Washington Post agrees that the entire "green energy" program has been "infused with politics," with Obama supporters invested in green energy companies selected for stimulus funds, and others joining the administration to oversee the program.

Our Cash For Obama's Clunkers.  The last five years of American economic policy has been a sad and expensive replay of what governments should never do.  Amidst the uproar over the pathetic ObamaCare website rollout, many Americans missed the stinging report about Obama's Cash for Clunkers program.  Not surprisingly, it was a failed program that cost us $1.4 million for each job allegedly created — a perfect representation of the failure of government-led economies.

Shades of Solyndra: Team Obama mum as another green energy firm went bust.  Failing to heed the lessons of the Solyndra debacle, Energy Department officials kept quiet about their knowledge that a government-backed electric car charger company was sliding toward bankruptcy and putting taxpayer money at risk, the agency's chief watchdog has found.  Inspector General Greg Friedman admonished department officials for failing to disclose during an audit this summer what they knew about San Francisco-based Ecotality's financial troubles and the possibility that the firm might not meet the terms of its taxpayer funding.  The company received $100 million in aid from the 2009 stimulus.

U.S. sells $50 million green-tech loan at sharp discount.  The U.S. Department of Energy recovered only about one-sixth of its $50 million green-technology loan to Vehicle Production Group LLC, a maker of wheelchair-accessible vans now under new ownership.

Obama's Middle-Class 'Mission Accomplished'.  Obama's idea of a "durable industry" seems to be solar companies like Solyndra and electric car suppliers like A123 Systems.  Both of these "durable" companies filed for bankruptcy after obtaining generous loans from the Obama administration.  Taxpayer money that would otherwise have been invested to create good jobs in the private sector was squandered so the president could pretend he was a green energy pioneer.  In reality, he has never been a pioneer at anything.  He is an old-fashioned radical who still harbors the adolescent fantasy of a Marxist utopia.

State Dept. to Spend $450K for Green Jobs — in Morocco.  The State Department through its Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs plans to spend $450,000 to create green jobs in Morocco.  "Morocco has set the goal to become one of the world's largest sustainable economies by 2020, with an emphasis on creating green jobs in:  renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, environmental and natural resource management, and improvement in environmental technologies," the grant announcement said.

Going Green Fails Yet Again: Siemens CEO Loses His Job.  The CEO of Siemens AG, the German manufacturing giant, has been sent packing.  Seems the board had it with his stewardship.  Instead of making solid gains, he took the company down a green energy hole.

Green Jobs: Surely You're Joking, Mr. President.  In a series of green jobs reports — which was mercifully ended by sequestration after only two reports — the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published tables that provide mirth beyond measure in the form of comical comparisons. [...] The BLS found 33 times as many green jobs in the septic tank and portable toilet servicing industry as in solar electricity utilities.  The BLS determined that there were more green jobs collecting trash (not processing but simply collecting) than in either architectural services or engineering services.

Obama's Green Jobs Promise: 355 Jobs and Counting.  [Scroll down]  Congressional Research Services expert, Dr. Molly Sherlock, deflected direct questions regarding the total jobs created by the 1603 program. [...] According to the Washington Free Beacon, Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) pressed on:  "I just want to know how many jobs were created" Sherlock admitted:  355 jobs created a year, for $10 billion — which comes out to about $28 million per job.  These two programs have created a combined total of 2733 jobs (a recent Bloomberg Business Week tally of all green jobs through any program cites a total of 28,854 jobs) and are spending an approximate average of $9.1 million per job.

The Green Job Myth.  President Obama spent $90 billion of his stimulus package on green energy projects, but according to the Labor Department, just 9,245 people landed new jobs in the "green energy" industry by the end of the third quarter of last year, well short of the 200,000 jobs that President Obama told the American people would be generated each year.

Fleming Amendment Ends Another Taxpayer Bailout.  The Obama 2009 stimulus bill cost taxpayers about $830 billion, and much of it was wasted on growing government and administration giveaways, like a $3.25 billion loan program that put taxpayers on the hook for failed green energy projects.  A company could take a government loan and walk away from a project without paying taxpayers back, even if the company remained in business.

Global Warming: There's Nothing To Fight Against.  The junkyard of failed green energy efforts is stacked high with the carcasses of Solyndra, A123 Systems Inc., Ener1, Abound Solar, Beacon Power, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt and AES subsidiary Eastern Energy, to name some of the many defeats.  Making the losses sting even more is the fact there has been no reason to hurry the development of green energy.  The feared warming predicted by models simply hasn't materialized.

Obama Launches New Global Warming Video as Phony "Consensus" Crumbles.  [Scroll down]  Spain has already shown us the destruction that can be wrought by the kind of government-mandated "green jobs" President Obama is proposing. [...]
  •   For every 1 green job financed by Spanish taxpayers, 2.2 jobs were lost as an opportunity cost.
  •   Only 1 out of 10 green job contracts were in maintenance and operation of already installed plants, and most of the rest of the working positions are only sustainable in an expansive environment related to high subsidies.
  •   Since 2000, Spain has committed €571,138 ($753,778) per each "green job,"
  •   Those programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,500 jobs.
  •   Each "green" megawatt installed on average destroyed 5.39 jobs elsewhere in the economy, and in the case of solar photovoltaics, the number reaches 8.99 jobs per megawatt hour installed.

Whatever Happened to "Green Jobs"?  If you watched President Obama's major speech on climate change, you may have noticed a recurrent phrase:  "our children."  The president said the word "children" fifteen separate times in the speech. [...] When you stop and think about it for a minute, the messaging change here is pretty extraordinary.  After all, four years ago the administration's central talking point on climate change did not mention climate change.  Rather, the idea was that greening our economy would confer a major benefit in the form of a profusion of green jobs.

Feeding The Masses On Unicorn Ribs.  Many liberals want green jobs to exist so badly that they don't fully grasp how otherworldly and ineffectual this advocacy makes the President look to unemployed meat packers and truck drivers.

Green jobs? Wot green jobs?  [Scroll down]  Yep, it seems like there's one rule for the political class and its cronies — and another one for the rest of us.  If, say, you're Sir Reginald Sheffield Bt the father-in-law of the British prime minister you can make getting on for a £1000 a week from the wind farms on your estates; if you're the wife of the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg you can make hundreds of thousands of pounds as a legal adviser to the Spanish wind farm company whose unsightly bat-chomping eco-crucifixes are going to be wrecking the British countryside.

The data is in: more Green jobs means less real ones.  Might as well bury bottles of money I say.  More jobs.  Less cost.  No infrasound, and no dead bats.  Each green job in Britain costs £100,000 (and 3.7 other jobs):  The Telegraph points out how expensive it is to support a wind-industry job.  My plan to bury bottles with £50,000 apiece in them could halve the cost and employ just as many people.

The Green Jobs Fairy Tale.  Environmentalists love to talk about green jobs.  If only society would follow their advice, we'd apparently be swimming in green employment opportunities. [...] You see the problem, of course.  Welders and sheet metal workers are the sort of skilled tradespeople that most societies could use more of.  But by what flourish of what magic wand have those jobs suddenly become green?  If construction work is now classified as a green job, it becomes distressingly obvious that little new employment has actually been created.  This is an accounting trick, nothing more — an example of juvenile, wishful thinking at its most breathtaking.

True cost of Britain's wind farm industry revealed.  A new analysis of government and industry figures shows that wind turbine owners received £1.2 billion in the form of a consumer subsidy, paid by a supplement on electricity bills last year.  They employed 12,000 people, to produce an effective £100,000 subsidy on each job.  The disclosure is potentially embarrassing for the wind industry, which claims it is an economically dynamic sector that creates jobs.  It was described by critics as proof the sector was not economically viable, with one calling it evidence of "soft jobs" that depended on the taxpayer.

The Department of Energy Committed $11 Million Per Job.  Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, there were no press conferences or stump speeches.  But the data are nonetheless revealing:  for the over $26 billion committed since 2009, DOE Section 1703 and 1705 loan guarantees have created only 2,298 permanent jobs — that's $11.45 million per job.

The President's Ruinous Energy Policy: Once More with Feeling.  The sad irony is that this administration has practically doubled the Department of Energy's budget (including a supplemental $38 billion from the 2009 stimulus bill) but that much of that revenue has been squandered on failed green energy projects.  The cost of each one of the president's green energy jobs has been estimated at $23 million per permanent employee.

Second Obama Green Venture in Weeks Folds after Getting Millions.  Another one of President Obama's brilliant clean-energy ventures has collapsed after taking tens of millions of dollars from American taxpayers, in this case to develop a special wheelchair-accessible "green" van.  The news comes just weeks after a separate company that got nearly $200 million from the government to develop hybrid vehicles folded.

Green energy triumph: $11,000,000.00 spent per job created.  "Without much fanfare, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated the list of loan guarantee projects on its website," the Institute for Energy Research noticed on Wednesday.  "Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, there were no press conferences or stump speeches."  Uh-oh.  Why weren't there any celebrations?  President Obama loves a good celebration. [...] Maybe it's because the IER divided the $26 billion spent on "green jobs" by the Energy Department since 2009, divided it by the 2,298 permanent jobs created, and came up with a cost of $11.45 million per job.

Get Uncle Sam out of the green startup loan business.  Meet the Solyndra of the electric car industry:  Fisker Automotive.  In 2009, the company was awarded a $529 million loan through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program.  It is in bankruptcy, and has now fired 75 percent of its workforce.  The reality, however failed to meet this goal.  It did produce — at least until last year — the Karma sedan, a $104,000 plug-in electric hybrid car.  But the car wasn't just exclusive and expensive, it didn't even work.

Obama's crony capitalism posts more pitiful results.  It's more than a little disheartening when the chief executive officer of one of America's most storied Fortune 500 corporations is "comfortable" with the fact that his company created a mere 10 jobs with a $25 million grant under President Obama's economic stimulus program in 2010.  The CEO in question is Honeywell's David Cote, and the stimulus grant involved came from the Department of Energy to advance Obama's green energy agenda.

Terry McAuliffe's Solyndra.  Turn over any green-energy rock, and wiggling underneath will be the usual creepy mix of political favoritism and taxpayer-funded handouts. [...] GreenTech is the latest proof (after Solyndra, Fisker, A123 and others) that the political class is adept at hooking up cronies and investors with taxpayer dollars.  But creating jobs?  No can do.

The BLS Green Jobs Count.  On March 22, 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued a news release to report the results of their green jobs count. [...] According to the BLS, there are 400 green jobs in the solar utility industry.  So, if this number is used to support subsidies to solar power, we would have to conclude that the more than three decades of support for solar power has generated about one job per month in the solar utility industry. [...] Adding all the green jobs from solar to those in the wind, biomass, and other renewable power utilities (excluding hydroelectric) gives a total of 4,700 green jobs.  This is less than one-seventh the number of green jobs in the nuclear power industry (35,800).

Garbage Collecting a Green Job? According to Government, Yes!  [T]he BLS definition of green jobs is so bizarre that the total counts are meaningless.  For instance, according to the BLS, the septic-tank and portable-toilet servicing industry has nearly three times as many green jobs as are in the solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass power utilities combined.  Not only that, but the lead appears to be widening.

BLS Releases Another Phony 'Green Jobs' Report.  The second annual Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on "Employment in Green Goods and Services," released Tuesday, will be the last, allegedly a casualty of the same sequestration that claimed the White House tours and may doom the Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn.  That is probably a good thing, for if it were published as a book, it would deserve a place at the top of the New York Times best-seller fiction list.

The Countless Shades of Green Jobs.  Green jobs — or, as our president calls them, the "jobs of the future" — have been notoriously tough to define and count.  The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics recently did it, though, and now it's the result that's notorious.  Facing an admittedly difficult project, the BLS created a definition that is so broad as to make it a meaningless measure of the green economy.  Here's a sneak preview:  There are 33 times as many green jobs in the septic tank and portable toilet servicing industry as there are in solar electricity utilities.

California's Green Jobs: Where Did They Go?  Green jobs were supposed to be the next big thing.  On the campaign trail, President Obama promised to create 5 million new green-collar jobs.  But where the rest of the nation has rejected all or most of these proposals, California has embraced them all.  Unfortunately, it hasn't turned out well, says Conn Carroll in the Washington Examiner.

Jobs of the Future?  [Scroll down]  President Obama refers to green jobs as "jobs of the future."  If so, some comparisons in the BLS green jobs report show a future that looks pretty old.  Engineering services (100,847 green jobs) and architectural services (71,891 green jobs) each has fewer green jobs than used merchandise stores (106,865), waste collection (116,293), and school and employee bus transportation (160,896).  Using the BLS metric, Obama's "jobs of the future" are more likely to be found in trash collection, the Salvation Army, and driving school buses than in engineering and architectural services.

Obama to call for $2 billion green energy fund.  President Obama in Illinois Friday will call for the creation of a $2 billion Energy Security Trust, which would take government royalties from offshore oil and gas leasing and use the money for research in green-energy technologies. [...] The initiative comes as Republicans pressure Obama to approve construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, a project that would carry oil from Canada to refineries in Texas.  The president has delayed construction of the pipeline because of environmental concerns.

Obama Must Drop Green For Real Energy.  Electricity from natural gas, of which America has a 200-year supply, is less expensive than electricity produced from alternative fuels.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration has estimated that the average levelized cost for natural gas-fired plants entering service in 2017 is $66 per megawatt hour, compared to $153 per megawatt hour for solar-powered plants, $96 per megawatt hour for wind power, and $115 per megawatt hour for biomass.  The bottom line:  households have far higher electricity bills using alternative energy than natural gas.

Seven Myths About Green Jobs.  [This] is a summary of a larger study analyzing green jobs claims made by various special interest groups.  The authors find that the claims are based on myths.  Fundamental questions about what is at stake in this massive program need to be addressed before billions in additional deficit spending can be justified.  The authors discuss the economic defects in the green jobs proposals and show that not only is the price tag of the programs unjustified, but that the costly implications to society could be even greater.

Golden State's green jobs bust.  President Obama, of course, has completely failed to deliver on this promise of 5 million new green-collar jobs.  The entire U.S. economy has created only 1.2 million jobs since Obama was sworn into office, many of them in the fossil fuel extraction, production and distribution sector.  But in Obama's defense, most of his green jobs agenda was killed.  Cap-and-trade and renewable electricity mandates never made it through Congress.  High-speed rail was killed off by governors in Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin.  But where the rest of the nation has rejected all or most of these proposals, California has embraced them all.

Controversial green jobs program to get axed in sequester.  A controversial Bureau of Labor Statistics program that tracks U.S. green jobs will get the axe, according to Bloomberg News, because of the automatic budget cuts, called the sequester, which are set to take effect today if lawmakers can't reach an alternative agreement.  Bloomberg reports that a Feb. 26 email sent to Labor Department employees said a clean-energy survey would be one of three data reports cut due to sequestration, according to Bloomberg's anonymous source.

The Logic of Liberalism.  Green energy solutions have become a centerpiece of the current administration.  Hundreds of millions have been poured into green energy programs, many without a single measurable result.  Yet, the administration is convinced of the importance of green energy and is committed to further investment in this venue.

DOE confirms LG Chem battery plant workers were paid not to make Chevy Volt batteries.  After a big announcement in 2010 that the plant would open and hire over 400 people, the first batteries were supposed to start being made in 2012.  Unfortunately, the plant has been sitting idle even though the company received $142 million in federal funds and was granted $175 million in tax breaks.  Only half of the 400 job have been filled, and those workers were paid about $842,000 to do other things in late 2012, including watching movies and playing board, card and video games.

Obama still chasing 'green jobs' will-o'-the-wisp.  It's one thing to say we have to throw a lot of money at solving global warming to save the planet.  It's quite another to pretend that there is a "green economy" just waiting to happen, filled with hundreds of thousands or even millions of good jobs, as Obama has often promised.  The new "green energy economy" that Obama has repeatedly spoken of — a future of lower ocean levels in which Americans work at good-paying jobs manufacturing windmills and solar panels — has always been among the most optimistic features of his vision for America.  But given that it is an economically impossible pipe dream, it is also one of the biggest flops of his presidency.

Tracking President Obama's Green-Energy Failures, the List.  Despite eliminating AES Energy (which I am still not sure of) from my list and adding ReVolt Technology, the numbers remain the same:  23 bankrupt, 29 troubled, equals a new "Obama green-energy failure" list total of 52.  While billions of "green-energy taxpayer money is gone, and we know that the majority of the loans (90 percent) were funneled to Obama and high-ranking Democrat cronies, the "troubled list is a moving target."

Federally Funded Chevy Volt Battery Plant Paid Workers to Play, Not Make Batteries.  It was supposed to be the center of a resurgent domestic lithium ion battery industry.  A shiny new factory in Holland, Michigan, that by the end of 2013 would produce enough energy cells to power 60,000 electric or hybrid electric cars — and the Chevy Volt would be its highest-profile customer.  Instead, after spending $142 million of a $151 million federal Recovery Act grant to set up the factory, LG Chem Michigan has yet to produce a single battery cell that can be used in an electric car sold to the public.  It gets worse.  Two of five planned production lines remain unfinished.  And rather than the 440 jobs the plant was supposed to create, less than half exist today.

No Batteries, Just Playtime: Another $150M Strike for Green-Tech Stimulus.  In February 2010, LG Chem Michigan Inc., a subsidiary of the Korean corporation, was awarded more than $150 million in Recovery Act funding to help construct a $304 million manufacturing plant in Holland, Mich., for lithium-ion polymer batteries to be used in electric cars.  The goal was to manufacture enough electric-car batteries to equip 60,000 vehicles annually by the end of this year. [...] While employees were goofing off, the plant hadn't even reached the capability to manufacture batteries beyond test cells that couldn't be sold to the public. [...] Additionally, a project that was supposed to create more than 440 jobs didn't even reach half that goal.

Investing in Foreign Countries.  The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a report Thursday [1/17/2013] that shows much of the money in a Department of Energy renewable-energy grant program has gone to foreign companies and has failed to produce many jobs.  "American Taxpayer Investment, Foreign Corporation Benefit" examined the grants the Department of Energy has awarded through its "Section 1603" green-energy grant program.  "Nearly one-quarter of this federal grant funding went to the U.S. operations of a handful of large European and Asian renewable energy corporations," the report said.

Ex-Im Bank Funds Green Jobs Overseas.  The U.S. Export-Import Bank recently steered hundreds of millions of dollars in federal loans to Spanish green energy conglomerate Abengoa, which happens to share an advisory board member with the bank.  The Ex-Im Bank approved a $78.6 million direct loan to Spain-based Abengoa in December.  It also approved a $73.6 million direct loan to a wind farm in Uruguay, which is owned by Abengoa.

Will Fisker Be Sold to the Chinese Now Too?  Fisker Automotive finally received a good review for the only model it has produced — the highly subsidized, widely panned and sometimes burned extended-range electric Karma — from automobile aficionado Jay Leno.  But that didn't prevent the recipient of $193 million out of President Obama's green stimulus from laying off another 40 workers.

Is the wind industry entering panic mode?  The wind lobby is working like their livelihoods depend on it — which is mainly because, they do — to convince Congress to extend the production tax credit, set to expire at the start of the new year, that has diverted taxpayer money their way for decades now. Without the guarantee of continued federal assistance, the wind industry is already starting to bleed jobs [...]

Green Graveyard: 19 Taxpayer-Funded Failures.  While there's speculation over which federally supported green energy company may be the next to declare bankruptcy, plenty have already gone belly up.  In one of the most extensive compilations to date, Heritage has identified 19 bankrupt green energy companies — unable to make it even with the $2.6 billion in financial assistance and incentives the government promised.

Campaigning at a diesel engine factory, Obama made no mention 'green energy' or 'green jobs'.  What happened to the green President?  In the past, Obama traveled to Michigan to celebrate projects such as the Chevy Volt, green energy and green manufacturing jobs, but on Monday [12/10/2012] he was in the state campaigning for diesel engines for use in heavy trucks.

Bankrupt Obama-stimulus recipient goes to the highest bidder, the highest bidder being China.  The problem here is that in the case of A123 Systems, a manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries for electric cards, the Obama administration spoon-fed hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money into what they assured us was a guaranteed-successful endeavor at ushering in the glorious green-energy revolution and leading us down the path of ostensibly necessary energy independence.

So, how's your green energy stock doing?  RENIXX® World, the Renewable Energy Industrial Index of the world's top green energy companies, hit an all-time low below 146 on November 21, down more than 90 percent from the December 2007 peak.  The RENIXX index was established in 2006.  It's composed of the world's 30 largest renewable energy companies with more than 50 percent of revenues coming from wind, solar, biofuel, or geothermal energy, or the hydropower or fuel cell sector.

China bids today on yet another failed Obama energy loan recipient.  You won't hear much about it elsewhere today.  But from some downtown Chicago law offices will come the distinct sound of one more nail being driven into the coffin of Barack Obama's green energy giveaway loans.  A123 Systems will be auctioned off.  It's a Michigan lithium ion battery maker which declared bankruptcy back in October, the same day it cashed another $1 million check from the crack Obama investment team.

Battery maker that received stimulus money could be sold to Chinese company.  A bankrupt battery manufacturer that was a cornerstone of President Obama's effort to make the United States a global leader in clean-energy technology could end up in the hands of a Chinese company when it goes on the auction block Thursday [12/6/2012].

Green Jobs Go 0-for-4.  [Scroll down]  The single largest green job category is "janitors and cleaners, except maids and housekeeping cleaners," which had 56,700 green jobs.  This is nearly 10 times as many green jobs as in "civil engineers," which has the highest number of green jobs in the "architecture and engineering occupations" super category.

Did the U.S. Constitution Promise a Chicken in Every Pot?  [Scroll down]  So every time the liberals like Obama try to regulate an industry, they intentionally try to stop the flow of commerce.  Obama thought he could make Green energy rise from the oceans and eliminate oil and coal and natural gas.  Obama thought he could make an electric car that would run on hot air rather than coal, natural gas, and nuclear.  Cap and trade is a tax on commerce.  Obama and the commies want to hinder U.S. Commerce in the name of carbon emissions.

Visit to Boomtown.  For now, the 5 million "green-collar jobs" that Obama promised have not materialized, and the million electric cars he vowed to put on the roads are rarely seen.  What's going to spark our economic recovery is traditional energy — that is, the proven energy sources that transformed America into an industrial powerhouse.