“Green Jobs” … Just Not For America
By FITSNews || If there’s anyone who still believes the “Green Jobs” propaganda coming out of President Barack Obama’s White House (and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s office, for that matter), prepare yourself for a wake-up call.
That’s because (as expected) the only “Green Jobs” being created by the so-called “stimulus” are … wait for it … located in countries NOT named the United States of America.
From ABC News:
Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C.
Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines.
“Most of the jobs are going overseas,” said Russ Choma at the Investigative Reporting Workshop. He analyzed which foreign firms had accepted the most stimulus money. “According to our estimates, about 6,000 jobs have been created overseas, and maybe a couple hundred have been created in the U.S.”
Amazing … but it gets worse.
Despite taxpayers spending billions on wind power in 2009 (with billions more coming in 2010), a year-end press release from the industry’s leading association admitted to “net job losses in the (wind power) manufacturing sector” last year.
Wait … can that be right?
Taxpayers pumped $2 billion into this “new technology” and all we got in return was a few thousand temporary construction jobs and a couple hundred pencil pushers for foreign-owned firms?
They couldn’t even “create or save” permanent positions in the friggin’ wind power manufacturing sector?
Sheesh … another perfect example of government picking a LOSER in the marketplace … with your money, sort of like what’s happening here in South Carolina on a smaller scale.
Obviously, we support wind power, algae power, fuel cell power … you name it … but let the free market determine drive, not government.
For more info on this massive “Green Jobs” scam, click on the link below to read one of the best investigative reports we’ve seen in a long time … which also happens to be a perfect encapsulation of why the “stimulus” isn’t working.
WEB EXTRA
Watchdog Institute Report
Comments
By countryboy on February 10th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Nice racket the firms from Asia and Europe have going. First they get US taxpayer money* to build wind farm equipment, creating jobs mainley in Asia and Europe. Then “energy” companies that are foreign owned (and most seem to be) continue to sell wind created electric energy to those same US taxpayers, theoretically forever.
*Since the US is actually broke, let’s not forget that we have to really borrow the money, with interest, from yes, you guessed it, these same foreign countries.
The only good thing about this whole scam is the United States does get more clean energy, resulting (in theory at least) in less dependency on those other foreigners, who supply our oil and gas.
By algaeresearchinvestigation on February 10th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
The US Government has spent over $2.5 billion dollars on algae research in the last 35 years and all we have to show for it are shelves full of useless patents. Algae have been researched at universities and in laboratories in the US for over 50 years, financed in significant part by government funds. One of the largest problems is that the research has been done in laboratories and at universities, using federal funds, and there is fear at that level that commercialization will ‘ruin it for them’. What it will ruin is the steady stream of ‘free’ money flowing from the DOE, NREL, the DOD, DARPA and other Washington-based agencies to University Row. It was most disconcerting to hear from more than one agency that the funds it awards are, by Congressional mandate, restricted to research. If we could invest one years’ worth of awards into commercialization instead of research, we could easily move this industry into commercialization. The research would be needed to improve technologies, but Microsoft and the American Petroleum Industry, among others, can confirm that this is a necessary component of any industry growth.
According to my sources. another large problem is, in order to be a grant award recipient, the algae technologies must be investigated and approved by NREL, and that NREL is not particularly supportive of the private initiative. NREL is the same government agency that ran out of money and stopped the otherwise successful Aquatic Species Program after 18 years of federal funding. After the Consortium grant announcement, sources at various government agencies, including NREL itself, shared the fact that grants would only be awarded to proposed groups that included government agencies in their consortia. The truth of that statement lies in the fact that one of the groups that recently received an award is led by NREL and the other by the David Danforth Plant Science Center, and includes two national laboratories (one of which is also a participant in the NREL award) and 11 universities. According to its website, “Scientists at the Danforth Center receive more than half of their funding from federal agencies via competitive grant programs, with the rest of the funding coming from private companies and foundations. In addition to the USDA and the NSF, other federal granting agencies that fund research at the Center include the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency…”. In the last 2 years, it has received grants from the Department of Transportation and the National Sciences Foundation relating to biofuels, in addition to housing one of the DOE’s Energy Frontier Research Centers.
Federal agencies are incapable of commercializing anything. The only ones that are even remotely designed to earn money are those that regulate the financial institutions, and we all know that the American banking system has failed us miserably. Until someone in Washington who has power and authority to stop this steady stream of funding to nowhere, listening as the algae researchers continue to claim that they are 3-5 years away from completing their research, it’s too expensive and they need more time and money, they will receive grant money from the DOE, NREL, DOD and DARPA. Nothing will ever get commercialized at the university level. Until there is an industry, there is no value to the results of the research. Until development of this industry is taken out of the hands of the research community, and put into the hands of the business, not corporate, community, this industry will never support reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
The question you need to be asking is ” Does the US really want to get off of foreign oil or do we want to continue to fund the algae researchers at the universities.” The problem is we can grow, harvest and extract algae today with all “off-the-shelf” proven technology. We no not need genetic modification at all when there are existing algae strains currently on the market with 30-60% oil content. Algae production requires far less land and water than any other terrestrial crop (see page 194 of the DOE’s National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap), which has the farmers in an uproar right now. The ethanol credits went away, allegedly shutting down an industry – can it really be that without the tax credit, years of time, effort and expense will be for naught, leaving us with unedible genetically modified corn fields? The DOE is still awarding grants for algae pond research when it was established years ago that all algae ponds get contaminated and will never produce enough algae to get us off of foreign oil. Stop wasting monies on research. We need algae production!
By Pat Hendrix on February 10th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
And this comes as a big surprise? We don’t manufacture anything. People like me (I work on energy projects by helping companies sidestep regulatory agencies), Liberty (who eats cheetos and writes about Nazi Sweden) and Will Folks (whoring for whoever pays) don’t manufacture… Those jobs got shipped out over the last two decades. Enjoy that diminished standard of living, America. Me, shit, I’m counting getting a reality tv show. Now where did I put that baby and the half-inflated balloon?
By Liberty For Me on February 10th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
The question is do we want government to fund anything??NO..HELL NO.
If you do away with the government interference ,investors will step up and fund the winning ideas…Pat,I don’t like Cheetos and last I looked people are not flocking to live in Sweden.Nor are they the leaders in anything(except maybe good looking blondes)
By Another Opinion on February 10th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Why is our country selling us out? Why?!!
By Pat Hendrix on February 10th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
Liberty, we agree! I dated a Swedish tennis player in college. Smoking little honey with a filthy mouth. Should have married that girl.
By Doyle on February 11th, 2010 at 12:15 am
Pat,
Liberty For Me’s job is commenting on stuff posted on Fits, to paraphrase Richard Pryor, “it must be his job cause it’s all he fuckin does”
By Skidmarks on February 11th, 2010 at 8:39 am
You have to go with who has the best, proven technology. That’s what industry does, and it’s what the government should do.
For wind power, that’s Europe and China.
For nuclear reactors, that’s Japan and France.
For natural gas turbines, that’s GE in Greenville, SC.
If you want to reinvent a wheel that nobody wants, go with Innovista.
By Darth on February 11th, 2010 at 11:25 am
For nuclear fuels it’s Wilmington, NC or Columbia, SC.
Of course, were anyone honest about conserving electricity, we’d have someone with insight promoting LED lighting, rather than the HAZMAT response for a broken CFL.
Again symbolism over substance and more excuses to expand EPA regulation, nu?