Kahuku Wind Power, LLC, a project of First Wind in Kahuku Oahu, HI, was granted a $117 million loan in July 2010, estimated to create a whopping 200 jobs. And then on February 3, 2012 this same project received a 1603 grant for over $35 million [docket #2594 –- $35,148,839].
Sadly, in August 2012 a fire that destroyed First Wind’s battery storage facility and sent toxic fumes into the air, left ratepayers in the dark over costs and safety. We should keep an eye on that one, however, there is more corruption to expose...
The First Wind plan was to secure taxpayer money and then go public. Now they achieved their first objective from the Bank of Obama –– since he took office (and as of 7/18/12), First Wind's projects have received over $452 million in grants through the Stimulus' 1603 Program.
First Wind's Stetson Wind Farm in Maine –– $40,441,471
Cohocton Wind Farm in New York, $52,352,334
Dutch Hill Wind Farm In New York, $22,296,494
Milford Wind Corridor Phase I In Utah; $120,147,809
Milford Wind Corridor Phase II In Utah, $80,436,803
Rollins Wind Farm In Maine; $53,246,347
Sheffield Wind Farm In Vermont, $35,914,864
Kahuku Wind Farm In Hawaii, $35,148,839
Steel Winds II Wind Farm In New York, $12,778,75
However, in November 2010, Bloomberg announced, “First Wind Holdings Inc., the operator of wind-energy projects backed by D.E. Shaw & Co. and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, said it withdrew its initial public offering because of unfavorable market conditions” that’s code for “weak demand.”
Speaking of IPO's...
Within the House Oversight leaked emails that were unleashed late October 2012, you'll discover that these correspondences basically prove that the White House, Secretary Chu, and certain DOE officials lied about how they handled the green energy loans on various fronts –– a story I have emphasized in many of my recent green corruption posts.
In the 350+ page Appendix II, I discovered a series of intriguing emails dated in May 2010, where the DOE staff was discussing the Kahuku loan, just months prior to the final approval in July 2010. It seems that on May 12, 2012, LPO Credit Advisor James McCrea was concerned about the Loan Guarantee Program Office's "credit policies and procedures" –– so much so that he intensely clarified the importance of order, "...everyone needs to understand is all that has to go in order to put the transaction into the Federal accounting system which requires collaborating among OMB, Treasury, and parts of DOE with which you do not normally interact. To be clear, one of the reasons this is so carefully handled is that there are several penalties for a violation of the Antideficiency Act including jail time..." Later McCrea writes, "I know the processing is frustrating for First Wind. The deal will close when it is time."
Five days later, McCrea writes, "To fill Brian in, we have a pretty good mess on First Wind and it is looking like it is going to get a lot worse and quickly at that. Someone is pressing Jonathan [Jonathan Silver is the former Executive Director of the Loan Program Office] who is now pressing hard on the everyone as the sponsor has an IPO in the works. I have told Jonathan that the deal has huge issues and the sponsor's overriding is not helping at all and that further, the sponsor's pending IPO is irrelevant."
While there's no mention of where that pressure came from, the first-rate, high-powered political ties to First Wind are vast, starting with D.E. Shaw & Co, a New York-based investment firm –– "a $39 Billion Hedge Fund Giant" (also a First Solar investor), which so happens to be one of the three top contributors to Democrats –– is a backer of First Wind Holdings Inc. The founder David Shaw, is a two-time Obama bundler, who employed Larry Summers, and before heading to the Obama White House, as the top economic advisor, "Lawrence Summers received about $5.2 million over the past year in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw,” as revealed by the Wall Street Journal, noting his "frequent appearances before Wall Street firms including J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers." Towards the end of 2011, Summers left the Obama administration and rejoined the firm as a consultant.
As revealed by Peter Schweizer, “another 42 percent of First Wind is owned by Madison Dearborn Partners, an investment firm with close ties [and friend of] to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The founder of the firm, David Canning, had been a bundler for George W. Bush. But he switched sides in 2008 and gave heavily to Obama. Madison Dearborn gave more to Emanuel's congressional campaigns than did any other business.”
While the GOP found that "Julia Bovey, First Wind's Director of External Affairs, was formerly Director of External Affairs for Obama's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (June 2009 to June 2010)," there is much bigger fish here. All government backed green comes with a slew of lobbyists, and First Wind is no different –– enter in Larry Rasky's Lobbying Firm with ties to the top.
Larry Rasky, "a longtime confidant and campaign strategist" of Vice President Joe Biden, was also a 2012 Obama bundler, and since Obama took office, "Rasky has visited the White House at least 21 Times," half of which were during the course of the DOE loan review process (Data.gov, Accessed 7/18/12). Moreover, we know that in 2009, about the time the 2009-Recovery Act passed, First Wind retained lobbyists Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications as well as Brownstein, Hyatt et al, who is primarily a Democrat donor, with some Republicans in the mix –– and as of 2012, maintains the work of Rasky.
Source
Monday, January 28, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Big Wind Energy Subsidies: A Hurricane of Carnage, Cronyism and Corruption
Despite Harm to the Environment and the Economy, Fiscal Cliff Deal Fuels Continuing Corporate Welfare
The new year began with “fiscal cliff” midnight drama and fantasy, and the wind-production tax credit (PTC), despite its negative impact on our environment and economy, packaged as a job creator and measure to save the planet, made its way into H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 –– a piece of legislation hyped as for the American people, yet it included a number of key tax extender provisions for special interest groups. “Congress extended wind energy tax credits worth billions of dollars in the last-minute deal hammered out by Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff, a move decried by free market organizations as corporate welfare,” writes the Washington Free Beacon.
Crammed through in the dark of night behind closed doors –– where the Senate was given minutes to read the bill, and the House caved under White House threats –– and with support of many Republicans, the looming and controversial (PTC) that many high-powered energy corporations have taken advantage of, rely heavily upon, and were fiercely lobbying for, was revived once again.
"The wind industry hired a team of heavyweight lobbyists with cozy connections to Capitol Hill and the Obama administration to ensure the survival of the tax credit, the Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney reported," more specifically K Street firm McBee Strategic Consulting, of which I've found over and over in my green corruption research.
NOTE: “The Lucky Seven Stimulus Authors” are those that helped craft the 2009-Recovery Act and have financially benefited, of which I have already covered General Electric, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, Senator John Kerry, which I wrote about yesterday. I have given mention to billionaire George Soros as well as the left-wing organization the Apollo Alliance, with TJ Glautheir and McBee Strategic Consulting topping off my list. Full report soon to be released.
“Congress first enacted the wind energy PTC in 1992 and has renewed it seven times since,” even as part of the 2009-Recovery Act. The Institute for Energy Research counts the hidden realities of the PTC extension, noting that "The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the one year extension will cost American taxpayers over $12 billion." "But that figure doesn’t begin to represent the full cost of wind power,” including the detriment to ratepayers. And if Big Wind gets its way over "the next six years, then the PTC would cost over $50 billion."
Unknown to the American public is another green government freebie blowing out of the stimulus package. The 1603 Grant Program –– a relative of the PTC, which is part of President Obama’s trillion-dollar spending spree –– is administered by the Treasury Department, where billions in favored-businesses are given tax-free cash gifts. This program was also touted as a jobs creator (of course saved and supported), yet most of the so-called green job gains are temporary.
According to energy.gov, “The Section 1603 program was created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support the deployment of renewable energy resources. The 1603 program offered project developers the option to select a one-time cash payment in lieu of taking the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) or the Production Tax Credit (PTC), for which they would have otherwise been eligible.”
Last week, the Energy and Commerce Committee released an “in-depth report on its ongoing investigation into the implementation of President Obama’s green energy stimulus spending,” exposing a shocking detail; “foreign corporations have received approximately one-quarter of $16 billion spent on 'Section 1603' renewable energy stimulus program.”
The report, “American Taxpayer Investment, Foreign Corporation Benefit,” states that as of December 5, 2012, “nearly $16 billion in federal funds (ironically, the same amount as the Department of Energy’s 1705 risky loan portfolio) has been awarded under this program,” of which “approximately $10.8 billion (68%) of the total amount in Section 1603 grants awarded was for wind and another $3.8 billion (24%) was for solar projects.”
Furthermore, “President Obama’s FY 2013 Budget proposes extending the Section 1603 grant program for another year, to include property with a construction start date of 2012.”
What’s funny is that as I was preparing my Big Wind findings, at the end of December 2012 I had downloaded the 1603 awards spreadsheet, which records 8275 awards, totaling $15, 964, 130, 442.00. Moreover, tucked neatly inside the fiscal cliff deal is where we find the 1603 again ––– now part of the two-month delay on sequestration. This means that there was no “immediate reduction in 1603 cash grants from the Department of Treasury. However, this 1603 reduction can still happen on March 1, 2013 if Congress does not enact another extension or strategy to avoid sequestration.”
Now we know President Obama's priority for his second term –– he's dead set on pushing a fierce and radical climate change agenda and funding green energy with taxpayer money, no matter the cost or consequences. So, we’ll anticipate March; follow the president’s budget; and watch for future requests for stimulus funds as well as earmarks tucked away in unread legislation coming down the green pipeline, but for now we'll go back in time to the president’s job council…
Lewis Hay chairman and chief executive officer of NextEra Energy, Inc.: Part of President Obama’s Multi-millionaire, Billionaire Jobs Council Club
Lewis “Lew” Hay, III is executive chairman of NextEra Energy, Inc., and it is estimated by Forbes, that CEO “Hay earns nearly $10 million in total compensation from NextEra.” Despite the fact that Hay was actually a “major political contributor to Sen. John McCain in 2008,” he quickly learned which side his power company could generate the title of the "Third Largest Recipient of DOE Risky Loans." Hay too joined wealthy Democratic donors on Obama’s Jobs Council in 2011, along with the other two I have tackled in this series, “Spreading the Wealth to Obama’s Ultra-Rich Job Council” –– Jobs Czar, Jeffrey Immelt CEO of General Electric has raked in $3 billion and counting, meanwhile John Doerr, along with his “climate buddy" Al Gore's, VC firm Kleiner Perkins is tied to at least $10 billion of stimulus funds. Both General Electric and Doerr were key contributors to what went into the 2009 Stimulus.
In my opening, I had stated that “NextEra Energy’s Green Money” was at least $2.3 billion, but that’s just from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 1703 Loan Guarantee Program, of which I recorded in another green energy, crony corruption post last summer. We’ll revisit the DOE and Big Wind, but for now there is more you should know about NextEra…
NextEra Energy, Inc. is one of the oldest, third largest, and arguably one of the most solid power companies in the world, with “2011 revenues [that] totaled more than $15.3 billion.” And NextEra Energy Inc. has two primary subsidiaries:
Florida Power & Light is the third largest electricity producer in the US (about which a September 2009 report states: “it's a political dynamo, making millions in political contributions and lobbying assiduously to achieve its goals”).
NextEra Energy Resources is the largest generator of energy from sun and wind resources in North America. The company also has the third largest fleet (8) of nuclear powered electricity generating plants in the United States.
NextEra: Biggest User of the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit
As a follower of NextEra, I found a fascinating analysis by John Fund of the National Review Online which states, “Begun 20 years ago to spur the construction of wind-energy facilities that could compete with conventional fossil-fuel power plants, the tax credit [PTC] gives wind an advantage over all other energy producers. But it has mostly benefited conventional nuclear and fossil-fuel-fired electricity producers. The biggest user of the tax credit is Florida-based NextEra Energy, the nation’s eighth-largest power producer. Through skillful manipulation of the credits, NextEra from 2005 to 2009 'paid just $88 million in taxes on earnings of nearly $7 billion,' Businessweek reports. That’s a tax rate of just 1.25 percent over that period, when the statutory rate is 35 percent.”
Wind Turbines Kill 440,000 Birds Each Year
Moreover, Fund gives us an astonishing and heartbreaking look at the “carnage inflicted on Mother Nature," quoting Paul Driessen of the Washington Times, "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that wind turbines kill 440,000 bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, owls, cranes, egrets, geese, and other birds every year in the U.S., along with countless insect-eating bats.”
Sadly, Fund states, “The actual numbers are probably far higher. The turbine blades of the nation’s 39,000 windmills move at 100 to 200 miles per hour and can mow down anything that gets in their path.” “Over the past 25 years, turbines at Altamont Pass, Calif., alone, have killed an estimated 2,300 golden eagles leading to an 80 percent drop in the golden-eagle population of southern California.”
Ironically, when you read the fine print, as exposed by the Manhattan Institute, who calculated “The Real Costs to Taxpayers in Subsidizing Big Wind,” –– federal taxpayers (under former President Bush and now Obama), in effect, are subsidizing the killing of federally protected birds.”
Where are the environmentalists and Rachel Maddow screaming bloody murder? The chirps are light, and prosecution is non-existent because our “federal government looks the other way as wind farms kill birds, but haul oil and gas firms to court” –– all the while the Obama administration protects Big Bird at all costs.
But then again, Big Wind, to many like the Telegraph, is the most corrupt industry in the world –– “without the lies it tells as a matter of course and without the cosy stitch-ups it arranges with regulators and politicians at taxpayers' expense, it simply would not exist.”
Gone With the Wind: Wind Energy Grants Gone Overseas and to the Politically Connected, Including NextEra
The “gone with the wind” story is a little tricky due to the “fact that there are few restrictions on the how the grants can be used, according to a transcript of a Treasury Department briefing,” thus millions in grants went to wind farms built before the stimulus even passed, as recorded by the Investigative Reporting Workshop in February 2010 –– also alerting that coming out of the Treasury’s pocket were wind energy grants propelling overseas.
As stated above, the Energy and Commerce Committee presented some details into these grant winners, which are owned or operated by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations, scoring $4 billion of the $16 billion in 1603 grants. Here’s your top eight, of which two are familiar to my green corruption research that I will get to shortly.
Iberdrola Renewables, LLC –– U.S. division of Parent Company, Iberdrola, S.A., “Spain’s number one energy group”: $1,769,610,214 in Section 1603 Grants
EDP Renewables North America LLC (formerly Horizon Wind Energy LLC) –– a subsidiary of EDP Renováveis, S.A., headquartered in Spain, “a global leader in the renewable energy sector”: $722,468,855 in Section 1603 Grants
E.ON Climate and Renewables North America, LLC –– a subsidiary of E.ON AG, Germany, “one of the world’s largest energy companies, and the largest investor-owned utility in the world”: $576,446,482 in Section 1603 Grants
EDF Renewable Energy (formerly EnXco) –– the U.S. subsidiary of EDF Energies Nouvelles, France, “the renewable energy arm of the EDF group, the leading electricity company in the world”: $204,986,935 in Section 1603 Grants
Eurus Energy America Corporation –– responsible for renewable energy development in North America on behalf of Eurus Energy Holdings, owned jointly by Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Tokyo Electric Power Company, Japan: $188,270,541 in Section 1603 Grants
Enel Green Power North America –– the U.S. subsidiary of Enel Green Power, “Italy’s largest power company, and one of Europe’s main listed utilities”: $181,598,497 in Section 1603 Grants
Gestamp Wind North America –– a subsidiary of Spanish-based parent corporation, Corporación Gestamp, “a global company and market leader”: $105,518,635 in Section 1603 Grants
Acciona Energy North America Corporation –– a subsidiary of Acciona S.A., Spain, “a global leader in the development and management of infrastructure, renewable energy, water and services”: $70,774,803 in Section 1603 Grants
Cronyism also blows in Big Wind Obama buddies, snagging their fare share of stimulus loans and grants. A few green corruption tales I’ve shared are General Electric –– one in particular was “The Shepherds Flat $1.3 Billion Deal,” pressured by Vice President Joe Biden. And in a 2010 analysis I found that GE was contracted to at least 26% of the wind projects as the turbine manufacturer, but as you dig through more wind projects, you’ll find more GE turbines.
Meanwhile in 2007, Goldman Sachs sold Horizon Wind Energy of Texas to EDP-Energias de Portugal for $2.5 billion in cash, and starting in 2009 until the end of 2012 they received over $700 million of free taxpayer money for eleven wind projects, placing them at the number two spot of these foreign firm US grant winners.
Horizon Wind is just one of the many alternative energy companies in which Goldman was an early investor. Another investment is Nordic WindPower –– also part of another politically connected VC firm that I addressed in my last post, Khosla Ventures "sustainability portfolio" –– which in July 2009 was offered a conditional commitment for a $16 million loan guarantee from the 2009-Recovery Act to support the expansion of its assembly plant in Pocatello, Idaho. However, that loan did not materialize, but according to Idaho state records, sometime before June 2010, they did receive $3 million from DOE / Treasury, Clean Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit (48C) –– only to go bust in October 2012.
Last September, I highlighted four Obama cronies that made a special DNC Cameo, which included Jim Rogers, Chairman of Duke Energy, the 2012 DNC host as well as an Obama donor. Duke was the recipient of a $22 million DOE grant from the 2009-Recovery Act “to design, build and install large-scale batteries to store wind energy at one of its wind farms in Texas.” Then June 8, 2010, Notrees Windpower LP received a 1603 grant worth over $90 million for “wind in Texas” [docket #7812 –– $90,354,625]. And after a quick glance, we find more 1603 grants for Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC, totaling over $60 million for "hydropower" and "solar electricity."
Another interesting twist that I have yet to expose is UniStar/Constellation –– a DOE loan candidate seeking $7.5 billion of American taxpayer money for its proposed Calvert Cliffs 3 facility in Southern Maryland, whereas in the October 2012 House Oversight leaked emails I found more evidence of a “fast track process imposed at the POTUS level,” and implemented by DOE Officials. These correspondences reveal a series of other questionable practices, including coercion, cronyism and, cover-up –– a story we broke last November. In the case of UniStar, it implicates Secretary Chu and his over-commitment to Steny Hoyer when he was the House Majority Leader in 2010. A green deal that was already approved by the Obama administrant; however, it apparently blew up in October 2010.
UniStar Nuclear Energy’s parent company is EDF Group, whose partner is AREVA and others, as well as the fact that they are in cahoots on a variety of fronts. But what’s critical to point out is that billions of stimulus funds went to foreign firms from the DOE’s Loan Guarantee Program as well as the 1603. I had written about the French nuclear giant AREVA, and its $2 billion "POTUS approved" 1703 loan, which they closed in May 21, 2010, for their Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility planned for development near Idaho Falls. I shared AREVA’s connection to Kleiner Perkins via Ausra, which was resurrected as Areva Solar Inc. in July 2010. Yet on February 26, 2010, just weeks after AREVA acquired Ausra, they were awarded over $13 million from the 1603 grant program for "solar electricity" in California [docket #486 –– 13,931,962]. Now we see that EDF Group was in the top eight 1603 foreign winners, the recipient of two wind grants, totaling over $200 million of American taxpayer cash.
There’s also the Big Wind winner close to the Obama administration found in Peter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out book –– Michael Polsky of the Chicago-based company Invenergy, LLC that snagged quite a few 1603 grants, and two were for wind projects.
September 22, 2010, Beech Ridge Energy LLC received 1603 grant worth over $68 million for “wind in West Virginia” [docket #8073–– $68,609,459].
June 2, 2010, Vantage Wind Energy LLC received 1603 grant worth over $60 million for wind in Washington [docket #8068 –– $60,682,795].
There’s a massive wind project in California that is "on its way to being the largest wind energy farm in the nation," yet not without the help of the government, more specifically the PTC. Alta Wind Energy Center, which of course utilizes GE turbines, in just over a year time period (July 2011 to August 2012) –– scored 21 of the 1603 grants with a grand total close to $500 million of Obama green spending cash [dockets #1361 to #1381].
Who needs a government loan then with all the free Obama cash?
July 28, 2011 –– $29,974,983
July 28, 2011 –– $29,974,983
July 28, 2011 –– $29,974,983
July 28, 2011 –– $29,974,983
September 8, 2011–– $22,791,621
September 8, 2011 –– $22,791,621
September 8, 2011 –– $18,233,297
September 8, 2011 –– $13,674,973
September 8, 2011 –– $13,674,973
September 8, 2011 –– $23,093,966
September 8, 2011 –– $23,093,966
September 8, 2011 –– $23,093,966
October 24, 2011 –– $15,482,478
October 24, 2011 –– $15,482,478
October 24, 2011 –– $15,482,478
October 24, 2011 –– $15,482,478
October 24, 2011 –– $25,649,674
October 24, 2011 –– $25,649,674
October 24, 2011 –– $25,649,674
October 24, 2011 –– $25,649,674
August 17, 2012 –– $84,117,894
Moreover, the Big Wind 2010 “construction financiers” in the Alta Wind project (done in phases) are Citi, Barclays Capital and Credit Suisse. While there are more green players like Google and Warrant Buffet, amongst others (Google mentioned in my last post and Buffet is also part of the "$3 Billion First Solar Swindle" as well as NRG Energy and George Soros), the one relevant in this green corruption series is Citibank, the consumer banking arm of the financial services giant Citigroup. I gave a headshot of "The Green Five" in my opening of “Spreading the Wealth to Obama’s Ultra-Rich Jobs Council,” including another jobs panel member, Richard Dean "Dick" Parsons, former Chairman of the Board of Citigroup, Inc. from 2009 until he announced stepping down in March 2012.
We’ll get to Mr. Parsons in Part Four, but for now we can confirm the third jobs council member, Mr. Hay as a winner of many of these federal grants. November 20, 2009 is when nearly $100 million was "awarded to NextEra Energy Resources to expand the Northern Colorado Wind Energy farm in Peetz, Colorado." This was “funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in lieu of a production tax credit,” and the turbine manufacturer is a German company [docket #1825 for Northern Colorado Wind Energy, LLC –– $99,900,326]. Also, July 26, 2012 NextEra Energy Montezuma II Wind, LLC snagged $50 million 1603 grant for "wind in California"[docket #1399 –– 50,101,558].
NextEra: A Gust of other Stimulus Grants
In 2009, the DOE started dishing out $3.5 billion from the "Smart Grid Investment Grant Program" –– awarded to select utility companies for particular smart-grid projects, as part of the 2009-Recovery Act. After a recent analysis of the Kleiner Perkins portfolio and recheck of Silver Spring Networks, one of their shining green investments, I found that of their 26 customers, half are foreign, while the other half are American. And, all but one of the thirteen U.S. utility companies scored large smart grid grants, which means Silver Spring is tied to at least $1.3 billion of these government handouts (full story can be found in Part Two of this series).
In April 2009, Florida Power and Light, Silver Spring, General Electric, and a few others joined forces on a smart grid project in Miami dubbed at that time as "Energy Smart Miami," of which they were seeking stimulus funds to power it up. And on October 2009, FPL, one of those lucky Silver customers, was awarded the maximum grant amount of $200 million for Energy Smart Florida, which means they got the money. However, FPL also snagged their fair share of millions in 1603 grants as well.
June 2, 2010, Florida Power and Light received a 1603 grant worth over $62 million for “solar electricity in Florida” [docket #2082 –– $62,371,777].
January 28, 2011, Florida Power and Light received another 1603 grant worth over $123 million for “solar thermal in Florida” [docket #2270 –– $123,767,270].
According to a 2010 analysis by Edgar A. Gunther, FPL had already been on its way as the number one winner of the 1603 Treasury cash grants, recording two I missed: $43.9 million for the DeSoto solar plant in January 2010, which President Obama personally visited, and in June 2010, $18.4 million for the Space Coast solar plant. Ironically, SunPower Corporation is part of both these projects –– a company were we find a large $1.2 billion DOE, which is "Twice As Bad As Solyndra," and tied to the number ONE recipient of the 1705 loans, NRG Energy Inc. Thus it has double the amount of cronyism and corruption –– meaningful political connections to President Obama and other high-ranking Democrats –– and warrants a future bombshell "green corruption" post.
NextEra: Third Largest Power Company in the World is the Third Largest Recipient of Risky Loans
Mr. Hay and NextEra was part of our Special Seven series –– those that are not only part of the DOE's risky investments (some also scored millions, if not billions, from the 1603 Grant Program) –– which also received fast-tracked approval by the Department of the Interior to lease federal lands in a no-bid process. We showed how NextEra Energy generated the "Third Largest Recipient of DOE Risky Loans,” detailing the huge large projects they are involved with.
Genesis Solar Project –– $852 million DOE loan
In August 2011, NextEra Energy Resources received a partial loan guarantee of $852 million from the DOE for its Genesis Solar project in Blythe, California. This was one of the few 1705 loans that were not considered junk rated, as S&P placed it at a “lower medium grade.” And it was estimated to create approximately 800 construction jobs and 47 operating jobs.
Desert Sunlight –– $1.46 billion DOE loan
In September 2011, the DOE approved a $1.46 billion partial loan guarantee for the junk-rated Desert Sunlight project in California, estimated to create 550 construction jobs and 15 permanent.
A day after the loan was approved, First Solar, the project developer/owner sold Desert Sunlight “to affiliates of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, the competitive energy subsidiary of NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NEE), and GE Energy Financial Services.” It was also announced, "First Solar will continue to build and subsequently operate and maintain the project under separate agreements.” NOTE: This project was part of “$3 Billion First Solar Swindle" –– my research from last summer.
Apparently, these two green-energy deals cost taxpayers approximately $2 billion of Recovery Act funds–– meant to stimulate the economy and create jobs –– yet we only got 1412 jobs out of the deal, of which 62 are permanent.
Well at least First Solar kept their job, and Mr. Hay too.
A Twister of Sweetheart Deals Found in the Department of Energy’s Four Risky Wind Projects
In April 2012, I had released my findings, “Department of Energy Junk Loans and Cronyism” whereas, since 2009, DOE has guaranteed $34.7 billion of taxpayer money. While, I covered the 1703 briefly, and the ATVM extensively, the 1705 loan guaranteed program –– created under the 2009-Recovery Act –– has steered $16 billion to 26 projects, of which 22 were rated as "junk bond" status. We can confirm that over 90 percent are politically connected to the president and other high-ranking Democrats –– some both.
Within the pages of the House Oversight March 20, 2012 scathing report are disturbing charges –– backed up with corroboration –– that range from poor to disastrous management, to bias and favoritism, as well as wasteful spending, and in some cases a series of DOE violations. To ad insult to taxpayer injury, the DOE touted “misleading job creation statistics."
If you've been following our work, you may have caught our report on the so called "green jobs," coupled with hype –– Obama's Green Jobs Promise: 355 Jobs and Counting, where in 2008, Candidate Obama promised to create 5 million new energy jobs over the next decade, as he was pledging to jumpstart the economy with an influx of green jobs.
However, not only has Obama's Labor Department been using deceptive methods on the green jobs calculations, we find that regardless of Obama's 2008 campaign promise where he stated, these are “jobs that can't be outsourced,” plenty of green jobs, and now we can confirm billion of stimulus funds, are going abroad, while fueling corporate welfare here in the United States.
Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center, in June 2012, testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with a subsequent shocking written assessment, “under the 1705 program most of the money has gone to large and established companies rather than startups.” Ms. Rugy goes on to state, “there seems to be an even more troubling trend of 'double dipping' by large companies that received loan guarantees from the DOE program.” This double dipping includes another "massive taxpayer-backed fund for corporate welfare" –– the U.S. Export-Import Bank as well as the 1603 grant program, and this too was reflected as a huge issue in the March 20, 2012 House Oversight investigation.
Besides the wind grants and PTC incentives, there were four 1705 DOE loans that went to wind projects –– all were low- to non-investment grade, and of course they too come with influential political ties.
#1) Caithness Shepherds Flat received a partial guarantee of $1.3 billion in Oct 2010 for Gilliam and Morrow Counties, OR.
GE sponsored the Caithness Shepherds Flat, and also supplied the project with 338 wind-turbines. On top of the $1.3 billion loan, the Caithness project is set to receive a cash grant of $490 million from the Treasury Department once those turbines start turning. The details of this transaction can be found in my July 2012 piece, “General Electric Making Bank off Obama's Green Stimulus Money; Over $3 Billion and Counting” as well as the National Review Online, “America’s Worst Wind-Energy Project.”
#2) Granite Reliable received a partial guarantee of $168.9 million in September 2011 for a wind project in Coos, NH, and on May 23, 2012 received over a $56 million 1603 grant for "wind in New Hampshire" [docket #4217 –– $56,201,202].
According to Peter Schweizer, 2011 Throw Them All Out, “White House involvement is particularly interesting because several loans appear to have gone to companies with direct connections to senior White House staff.” While Schweizer goes on with an accurate claim that Granite Reliable Wind “is largely owned and managed by CCMP Capital, which is where White House Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle had been managing director before joining the Obama administration [and soon may be leaving her White House post],” there’s more…
According the March 20, 2012 House Oversight report, “Nancy Ann DeParle, the current Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy in the White House, had a financial stake in the success of Granite Reliable…
Prior to joining the White House, DeParle was a Managing Director of multi-billion dollar private equity firm CCMP and she both had a financial interest in and sat on the Board of Directors for Noble Environmental Power, LLC. Noble owned Granite Reliable, a wind energy project. Prior to her departure, her position on Noble’s board of Directors positioned her to understand the most confidential and material aspects of Noble Environmental and its subsidiary Granite Reliable. DeParle misrepresented her relationship with Noble Energy, claiming on disclosure forms that her interest had been divested, when in fact it had merely been transferred to her 10-year old son.
During her time at the White House, Granite Reliable sought and, in September 2011, obtained a partial guarantee of a $168.9 million loan. Granite Reliable’s application for a DOE loan guarantee was made at least by early 2010, and probably earlier than that, according to signed documents relating to the loan application. Noble sold Granite Reliable in December 2010 to Brookfield Asset Management, just 6 months prior to the conditional approval of the DOE loan guarantee and deep into the application process. The DOE loan guarantee was conditionally approved on June 2011 and finalized in September 2011. DeParle’s ownership stake in Noble, which owned Granite Reliable, a beneficiary of a DOE loan, represents a clear conflict of interest.
Furthermore,
Until 2011, Granite Reliable was owned and controlled by Noble Environmental Power, Inc. Noble sold that 75% interest to BAIF Granite Holdings, Inc., just prior to the project’s loan approval in September 2011. BAIF Granite Holdings (BAIF) was created by Brookfield Renewable Power, a subsidiary of the $3.2 billion company Brookfield Asset Management (BAM). Brookfield Renewable Power financed the creation of BAIF from its Brookfield Americas Infrastructure Fund, which reportedly has assets totaling $2.7 billion. The remaining minority interest is owned by Freshet Wind Energy, LLC, which partnered with BAIF on the project. Given the solid financial background from which Granite Reliable was formed, it is unclear why DOE determined that the company needed a $168.9 million loan guarantee.
One reason DOE determined a loan guarantee may have been necessary may lie in the inner workings of the BAM family of companies and the companies’ strong Democratic ties. BAM owns BAIF, which owns Granite Reliable, as well as Brookfield Office Properties (BOP). BOP’s Board of Directors is chaired by John Zuccotti, the man for whom New York City’s Zuccotti Park is named, and includes Diana Taylor, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s long-time girlfriend. George Soros and Martin J. Whitman, both prominent Democratic donors, are both heavily invested in Brookfield. Moreover, Heather Podesta, sister-in-law of Obama’s influential White House transition director John Podesta, and the Podesta Group served as the lobbyists for BAIF.
#3) Kahuku Wind Power, LLC, a project of First Wind in Kahuku Oahu, HI, was granted a $117 million loan in July 2010, estimated to create a whopping 200 jobs. And then on February 3, 2012 this same project received a 1603 grant for over $35 million [docket #2594 –- $35,148,839].
Sadly, in August 2012 a fire that destroyed First Wind’s battery storage facility and sent toxic fumes into the air, left ratepayers in the dark over costs and safety. We should keep an eye on that one, however, there is more corruption to expose...
The First Wind plan was to secure taxpayer money and then go public. Now they achieved their first objective from the Bank of Obama –– since he took office (and as of 7/18/12), First Wind's projects have received over $452 million in grants through the Stimulus' 1603 Program.
First Wind's Stetson Wind Farm in Maine –– $40,441,471
Cohocton Wind Farm in New York, $52,352,334
Dutch Hill Wind Farm In New York, $22,296,494
Milford Wind Corridor Phase I In Utah; $120,147,809
Milford Wind Corridor Phase II In Utah, $80,436,803
Rollins Wind Farm In Maine; $53,246,347
Sheffield Wind Farm In Vermont, $35,914,864
Kahuku Wind Farm In Hawaii, $35,148,839
Steel Winds II Wind Farm In New York, $12,778,75
However, in November 2010, Bloomberg announced, “First Wind Holdings Inc., the operator of wind-energy projects backed by D.E. Shaw & Co. and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, said it withdrew its initial public offering because of unfavorable market conditions” that’s code for “weak demand.”
Speaking of IPO's...
Within the House Oversight leaked emails that were unleashed late October 2012, you'll discover that these correspondences basically prove that the White House, Secretary Chu, and certain DOE Officials lied about how they handled the green energy loans on various fronts –– a story I have emphasized in many of my recent green corruption posts.
In the 350+ page Appendix II, I discovered a series of intriguing emails dated in May 2010, where the DOE staff was discussing the Kahuku loan, just months prior to the final approval in July 2010. It seems that on May 12, 2012, LPO Credit Advisor James McCrea was concerned about the Loan Guarantee Program Office's "credit policies and procedures" –– so much so that he intensely clarified the importance of order, "...everyone needs to understand is all that has to go in order to put the transaction into the Federal accounting system which requires collaborating among OMB, Treasury, and parts of DOE with which you do not normally interact. To be clear, one of the reasons this is so carefully handled is that there are several penalties for a violation of the Ant-deficiency Act including jail time..." Later McCrea writes, "I know the processing is frustrating for First Wind. The deal will close when it is time."
Five days later, McCrea writes, "To fill Brian in, we have a pretty good mess on First Wind and it is looking like it is going to get a lot worse and quickly at that. Someone is pressing Jonathan [Jonathan Silver is the former Executive Director of the Loan Program Office] who is now pressing hard on the everyone as the sponsor has an IPO in the works. I have told Jonathan that the deal has huge issues and the sponsor's overriding is not helping at all and that further, the sponsor's pending IPO is irrelevant."
While there's no mention of where that pressure came from, the first-rate, high-powered political ties to First Wind are vast, starting with D.E. Shaw & Co, a New York-based investment firm –– "a $39 Billion Hedge Fund Giant" (also a First Solar investor), which so happens to be one of the three top contributors to Democrats –– is a backer of First Wind Holdings Inc. The founder David Shaw, is a two-time Obama bundler, who employed Larry Summers, and before heading to the Obama White House, as the top economic advisor, "Lawrence Summers received about $5.2 million over the past year in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw,” as revealed by the Wall Street Journal, noting his "frequent appearances before Wall Street firms including J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers." Towards the end of 2011, Summers left the Obama administration and rejoined the firm as a consultant.
As revealed by Peter Schweizer, “another 42 percent of First Wind is owned by Madison Dearborn Partners, an investment firm with close ties [and friend of] to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual. The founder of the firm, David Canning, had been a bundler for George W. Bush. But he switched sides in 2008 and gave heavily to Obama. Madison Dearborn gave more to Emanual’s congressional campaigns than did any other business.”
While the GOP found that "Julia Bovey, First Wind's Director of External Affairs, was formerly Director of External Affairs for Obama's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (June 2009 to June 2010)," there is much bigger fish here. All government backed green comes with a slew of lobbyists, and First Wind is no different –– enter in Larry Rasky's Lobbying Firm with ties to the top.
Larry Rasky, "a longtime confidant and campaign strategist" of Vice President Joe Biden, was also a 2012 Obama bundler, and since Obama took office, "Rasky has visited the White House at least 21 Times," half of which were during the course of the DOE loan review process (Data.gov, Accessed 7/18/12). Moreover, we know that in 2009, about the time the 2009-Recovery Act passed, First Wind retained lobbyists Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications as well as Brownstein, Hyatt et al, who is primarily a Democrat donor, with some Republicans in the mix –– and as of 2012, maintains the work of Rasky.
#4) Record Hill Wind received a $102 million loan, announced in March 2011, and it was finalized in August 2011 for a wind project in Roxbury, ME, and on June 8, 2012 they scored a 1603 grant for over $33 million for “wind in Maine” [docket #3044 –– 33,736,709].
According the March 2012 House Oversight report, the “DOE relied on the First Solar precedent [see my "$3 Billion First Solar Swindle" story] to approve Record Hill Wind’s $102 million loan guarantee project as 'innovative,' despite the project using commercial technology. DOE knew that the Record Hill project did not use significantly innovative technology. The Standard & Poor’s credit rating for the project that DOE received clearly indicates the commercial (and non-innovative) nature of the project…”
As exposed by Schweizer once again, “former Governor of Maine headed up Record Hill, along with his partner Robert Gardiner, the former head of the Maine Public Broadcasting System. Neither had background in energy. King, however, endorsed Obama in 2008 and campaigned for him.”
Record Hill Wind "began in 2007 as a partnership between Independence Wind and Wagner Forest Management," of which Independence Wind is where we find founders Mr. King and Mr. Gardiner. And while Record Hill reports that in March 2012 (just a day before the House Oversight released their investigative findings, sited above), “King left Independence Wind and has fully divested his stake in the company.” However, that was prior to Brietbart.com busting the Record Hill bailout initiated by King, adding him “to the long list of Obama administration cronies who have personally made money off the $800 billion Obama Stimulus program.” It turns out that “King's personal bailout came in the form of a $407,000 'success fee' he received in 2011 from a wind energy project that remains in business today only because it received a $102 million federal loan King played a major role in securing.”
King, an Independent, now Senator Angus King (who caucuses with Democrats but does not identify as one), has recently become a proponent of “American banking financial reform” –– “the fight to rein in the financial establishment,” yet doesn’t mind the out-of-control spending from the Bank of Obama that King personally and financially benefited from.
In Closing
No matter how you slice it, whether we are sending money abroad or fueling corporate welfare here in the United States as well as the egregious practice of crony capitalism, the 2009-Recovery act is a lie, a travesty and a scam, favoring wealthy financial backers of President Obama and the Democratic Party as well as those with influential political connections to both. And with a president that's dead set on pushing a fierce and radical climate change agenda and funding green energy with taxpayer money, no matter the long list of failures, there is no end in sight to this green corruption scandal.
Besides NextEra Energy taking full advantage of the federal production tax credit (PTC), we now can confirm that the Bank of Obama has rewarded this conglomerate of a power company, and his millionaire job council buddy Lewis Hay, with two large DOE loans ($2.3 billion); one large stimulus smart-grid grant ($200 million); and six 1603 stimulus grants totaling $398.5 million. Thus NextEra's green tab is on its way to $3 billion of taxpayer money, and that's not factoring in the PTC.
This was Part Three, The Green Five: Spreading the Wealth to Obama’s Ultra-Rich Jobs Council Members –– stay tuned for the final installment where we take a look at Billionaire Penny Pritzker and Richard Dean "Dick" Parsons, Former Chairman of the Board of Citigroup, Inc –– both part of Obama’s Multi-millionaire, Billionaire Jobs Council Club.
Signing off as THE Green Corruption blogger,
One Woman, One Mission, One Green Corruption Piece of the Scandal at a time...
Due to lack of donations and funding, this may be my last post even though I'm just getting warmed up –– I have at least 6 months more stories to tell...
Source
The new year began with “fiscal cliff” midnight drama and fantasy, and the wind-production tax credit (PTC), despite its negative impact on our environment and economy, packaged as a job creator and measure to save the planet, made its way into H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 –– a piece of legislation hyped as for the American people, yet it included a number of key tax extender provisions for special interest groups. “Congress extended wind energy tax credits worth billions of dollars in the last-minute deal hammered out by Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff, a move decried by free market organizations as corporate welfare,” writes the Washington Free Beacon.
Crammed through in the dark of night behind closed doors –– where the Senate was given minutes to read the bill, and the House caved under White House threats –– and with support of many Republicans, the looming and controversial (PTC) that many high-powered energy corporations have taken advantage of, rely heavily upon, and were fiercely lobbying for, was revived once again.
"The wind industry hired a team of heavyweight lobbyists with cozy connections to Capitol Hill and the Obama administration to ensure the survival of the tax credit, the Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney reported," more specifically K Street firm McBee Strategic Consulting, of which I've found over and over in my green corruption research.
NOTE: “The Lucky Seven Stimulus Authors” are those that helped craft the 2009-Recovery Act and have financially benefited, of which I have already covered General Electric, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, Senator John Kerry, which I wrote about yesterday. I have given mention to billionaire George Soros as well as the left-wing organization the Apollo Alliance, with TJ Glautheir and McBee Strategic Consulting topping off my list. Full report soon to be released.
“Congress first enacted the wind energy PTC in 1992 and has renewed it seven times since,” even as part of the 2009-Recovery Act. The Institute for Energy Research counts the hidden realities of the PTC extension, noting that "The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the one year extension will cost American taxpayers over $12 billion." "But that figure doesn’t begin to represent the full cost of wind power,” including the detriment to ratepayers. And if Big Wind gets its way over "the next six years, then the PTC would cost over $50 billion."
Unknown to the American public is another green government freebie blowing out of the stimulus package. The 1603 Grant Program –– a relative of the PTC, which is part of President Obama’s trillion-dollar spending spree –– is administered by the Treasury Department, where billions in favored-businesses are given tax-free cash gifts. This program was also touted as a jobs creator (of course saved and supported), yet most of the so-called green job gains are temporary.
According to energy.gov, “The Section 1603 program was created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support the deployment of renewable energy resources. The 1603 program offered project developers the option to select a one-time cash payment in lieu of taking the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) or the Production Tax Credit (PTC), for which they would have otherwise been eligible.”
Last week, the Energy and Commerce Committee released an “in-depth report on its ongoing investigation into the implementation of President Obama’s green energy stimulus spending,” exposing a shocking detail; “foreign corporations have received approximately one-quarter of $16 billion spent on 'Section 1603' renewable energy stimulus program.”
The report, “American Taxpayer Investment, Foreign Corporation Benefit,” states that as of December 5, 2012, “nearly $16 billion in federal funds (ironically, the same amount as the Department of Energy’s 1705 risky loan portfolio) has been awarded under this program,” of which “approximately $10.8 billion (68%) of the total amount in Section 1603 grants awarded was for wind and another $3.8 billion (24%) was for solar projects.”
Furthermore, “President Obama’s FY 2013 Budget proposes extending the Section 1603 grant program for another year, to include property with a construction start date of 2012.”
What’s funny is that as I was preparing my Big Wind findings, at the end of December 2012 I had downloaded the 1603 awards spreadsheet, which records 8275 awards, totaling $15, 964, 130, 442.00. Moreover, tucked neatly inside the fiscal cliff deal is where we find the 1603 again ––– now part of the two-month delay on sequestration. This means that there was no “immediate reduction in 1603 cash grants from the Department of Treasury. However, this 1603 reduction can still happen on March 1, 2013 if Congress does not enact another extension or strategy to avoid sequestration.”
Now we know President Obama's priority for his second term –– he's dead set on pushing a fierce and radical climate change agenda and funding green energy with taxpayer money, no matter the cost or consequences. So, we’ll anticipate March; follow the president’s budget; and watch for future requests for stimulus funds as well as earmarks tucked away in unread legislation coming down the green pipeline, but for now we'll go back in time to the president’s job council…
Lewis Hay chairman and chief executive officer of NextEra Energy, Inc.: Part of President Obama’s Multi-millionaire, Billionaire Jobs Council Club
Lewis “Lew” Hay, III is executive chairman of NextEra Energy, Inc., and it is estimated by Forbes, that CEO “Hay earns nearly $10 million in total compensation from NextEra.” Despite the fact that Hay was actually a “major political contributor to Sen. John McCain in 2008,” he quickly learned which side his power company could generate the title of the "Third Largest Recipient of DOE Risky Loans." Hay too joined wealthy Democratic donors on Obama’s Jobs Council in 2011, along with the other two I have tackled in this series, “Spreading the Wealth to Obama’s Ultra-Rich Job Council” –– Jobs Czar, Jeffrey Immelt CEO of General Electric has raked in $3 billion and counting, meanwhile John Doerr, along with his “climate buddy" Al Gore's, VC firm Kleiner Perkins is tied to at least $10 billion of stimulus funds. Both General Electric and Doerr were key contributors to what went into the 2009 Stimulus.
In my opening, I had stated that “NextEra Energy’s Green Money” was at least $2.3 billion, but that’s just from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 1703 Loan Guarantee Program, of which I recorded in another green energy, crony corruption post last summer. We’ll revisit the DOE and Big Wind, but for now there is more you should know about NextEra…
NextEra Energy, Inc. is one of the oldest, third largest, and arguably one of the most solid power companies in the world, with “2011 revenues [that] totaled more than $15.3 billion.” And NextEra Energy Inc. has two primary subsidiaries:
Florida Power & Light is the third largest electricity producer in the US (about which a September 2009 report states: “it's a political dynamo, making millions in political contributions and lobbying assiduously to achieve its goals”).
NextEra Energy Resources is the largest generator of energy from sun and wind resources in North America. The company also has the third largest fleet (8) of nuclear powered electricity generating plants in the United States.
NextEra: Biggest User of the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit
As a follower of NextEra, I found a fascinating analysis by John Fund of the National Review Online which states, “Begun 20 years ago to spur the construction of wind-energy facilities that could compete with conventional fossil-fuel power plants, the tax credit [PTC] gives wind an advantage over all other energy producers. But it has mostly benefited conventional nuclear and fossil-fuel-fired electricity producers. The biggest user of the tax credit is Florida-based NextEra Energy, the nation’s eighth-largest power producer. Through skillful manipulation of the credits, NextEra from 2005 to 2009 'paid just $88 million in taxes on earnings of nearly $7 billion,' Businessweek reports. That’s a tax rate of just 1.25 percent over that period, when the statutory rate is 35 percent.”
Wind Turbines Kill 440,000 Birds Each Year
Moreover, Fund gives us an astonishing and heartbreaking look at the “carnage inflicted on Mother Nature," quoting Paul Driessen of the Washington Times, "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that wind turbines kill 440,000 bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, owls, cranes, egrets, geese, and other birds every year in the U.S., along with countless insect-eating bats.”
Sadly, Fund states, “The actual numbers are probably far higher. The turbine blades of the nation’s 39,000 windmills move at 100 to 200 miles per hour and can mow down anything that gets in their path.” “Over the past 25 years, turbines at Altamont Pass, Calif., alone, have killed an estimated 2,300 golden eagles leading to an 80 percent drop in the golden-eagle population of southern California.”
Ironically, when you read the fine print, as exposed by the Manhattan Institute, who calculated “The Real Costs to Taxpayers in Subsidizing Big Wind,” –– federal taxpayers (under former President Bush and now Obama), in effect, are subsidizing the killing of federally protected birds.”
Where are the environmentalists and Rachel Maddow screaming bloody murder? The chirps are light, and prosecution is non-existent because our “federal government looks the other way as wind farms kill birds, but haul oil and gas firms to court” –– all the while the Obama administration protects Big Bird at all costs.
But then again, Big Wind, to many like the Telegraph, is the most corrupt industry in the world –– “without the lies it tells as a matter of course and without the cosy stitch-ups it arranges with regulators and politicians at taxpayers' expense, it simply would not exist.”
Gone With the Wind: Wind Energy Grants Gone Overseas and to the Politically Connected, Including NextEra
The “gone with the wind” story is a little tricky due to the “fact that there are few restrictions on the how the grants can be used, according to a transcript of a Treasury Department briefing,” thus millions in grants went to wind farms built before the stimulus even passed, as recorded by the Investigative Reporting Workshop in February 2010 –– also alerting that coming out of the Treasury’s pocket were wind energy grants propelling overseas.
As stated above, the Energy and Commerce Committee presented some details into these grant winners, which are owned or operated by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations, scoring $4 billion of the $16 billion in 1603 grants. Here’s your top eight, of which two are familiar to my green corruption research that I will get to shortly.
Iberdrola Renewables, LLC –– U.S. division of Parent Company, Iberdrola, S.A., “Spain’s number one energy group”: $1,769,610,214 in Section 1603 Grants
EDP Renewables North America LLC (formerly Horizon Wind Energy LLC) –– a subsidiary of EDP Renováveis, S.A., headquartered in Spain, “a global leader in the renewable energy sector”: $722,468,855 in Section 1603 Grants
E.ON Climate and Renewables North America, LLC –– a subsidiary of E.ON AG, Germany, “one of the world’s largest energy companies, and the largest investor-owned utility in the world”: $576,446,482 in Section 1603 Grants
EDF Renewable Energy (formerly EnXco) –– the U.S. subsidiary of EDF Energies Nouvelles, France, “the renewable energy arm of the EDF group, the leading electricity company in the world”: $204,986,935 in Section 1603 Grants
Eurus Energy America Corporation –– responsible for renewable energy development in North America on behalf of Eurus Energy Holdings, owned jointly by Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Tokyo Electric Power Company, Japan: $188,270,541 in Section 1603 Grants
Enel Green Power North America –– the U.S. subsidiary of Enel Green Power, “Italy’s largest power company, and one of Europe’s main listed utilities”: $181,598,497 in Section 1603 Grants
Gestamp Wind North America –– a subsidiary of Spanish-based parent corporation, Corporación Gestamp, “a global company and market leader”: $105,518,635 in Section 1603 Grants
Acciona Energy North America Corporation –– a subsidiary of Acciona S.A., Spain, “a global leader in the development and management of infrastructure, renewable energy, water and services”: $70,774,803 in Section 1603 Grants
Cronyism also blows in Big Wind Obama buddies, snagging their fare share of stimulus loans and grants. A few green corruption tales I’ve shared are General Electric –– one in particular was “The Shepherds Flat $1.3 Billion Deal,” pressured by Vice President Joe Biden. And in a 2010 analysis I found that GE was contracted to at least 26% of the wind projects as the turbine manufacturer, but as you dig through more wind projects, you’ll find more GE turbines.
Meanwhile in 2007, Goldman Sachs sold Horizon Wind Energy of Texas to EDP-Energias de Portugal for $2.5 billion in cash, and starting in 2009 until the end of 2012 they received over $700 million of free taxpayer money for eleven wind projects, placing them at the number two spot of these foreign firm US grant winners.
Horizon Wind is just one of the many alternative energy companies in which Goldman was an early investor. Another investment is Nordic WindPower –– also part of another politically connected VC firm that I addressed in my last post, Khosla Ventures "sustainability portfolio" –– which in July 2009 was offered a conditional commitment for a $16 million loan guarantee from the 2009-Recovery Act to support the expansion of its assembly plant in Pocatello, Idaho. However, that loan did not materialize, but according to Idaho state records, sometime before June 2010, they did receive $3 million from DOE / Treasury, Clean Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit (48C) –– only to go bust in October 2012.
Last September, I highlighted four Obama cronies that made a special DNC Cameo, which included Jim Rogers, Chairman of Duke Energy, the 2012 DNC host as well as an Obama donor. Duke was the recipient of a $22 million DOE grant from the 2009-Recovery Act “to design, build and install large-scale batteries to store wind energy at one of its wind farms in Texas.” Then June 8, 2010, Notrees Windpower LP received a 1603 grant worth over $90 million for “wind in Texas” [docket #7812 –– $90,354,625]. And after a quick glance, we find more 1603 grants for Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC, totaling over $60 million for "hydropower" and "solar electricity."
Another interesting twist that I have yet to expose is UniStar/Constellation –– a DOE loan candidate seeking $7.5 billion of American taxpayer money for its proposed Calvert Cliffs 3 facility in Southern Maryland, whereas in the October 2012 House Oversight leaked emails I found more evidence of a “fast track process imposed at the POTUS level,” and implemented by DOE Officials. These correspondences reveal a series of other questionable practices, including coercion, cronyism and, cover-up –– a story we broke last November. In the case of UniStar, it implicates Secretary Chu and his over-commitment to Steny Hoyer when he was the House Majority Leader in 2010. A green deal that was already approved by the Obama administrant; however, it apparently blew up in October 2010.
UniStar Nuclear Energy’s parent company is EDF Group, whose partner is AREVA and others, as well as the fact that they are in cahoots on a variety of fronts. But what’s critical to point out is that billions of stimulus funds went to foreign firms from the DOE’s Loan Guarantee Program as well as the 1603. I had written about the French nuclear giant AREVA, and its $2 billion "POTUS approved" 1703 loan, which they closed in May 21, 2010, for their Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility planned for development near Idaho Falls. I shared AREVA’s connection to Kleiner Perkins via Ausra, which was resurrected as Areva Solar Inc. in July 2010. Yet on February 26, 2010, just weeks after AREVA acquired Ausra, they were awarded over $13 million from the 1603 grant program for "solar electricity" in California [docket #486 –– 13,931,962]. Now we see that EDF Group was in the top eight 1603 foreign winners, the recipient of two wind grants, totaling over $200 million of American taxpayer cash.
There’s also the Big Wind winner close to the Obama administration found in Peter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out book –– Michael Polsky of the Chicago-based company Invenergy, LLC that snagged quite a few 1603 grants, and two were for wind projects.
September 22, 2010, Beech Ridge Energy LLC received 1603 grant worth over $68 million for “wind in West Virginia” [docket #8073–– $68,609,459].
June 2, 2010, Vantage Wind Energy LLC received 1603 grant worth over $60 million for wind in Washington [docket #8068 –– $60,682,795].
There’s a massive wind project in California that is "on its way to being the largest wind energy farm in the nation," yet not without the help of the government, more specifically the PTC. Alta Wind Energy Center, which of course utilizes GE turbines, in just over a year time period (July 2011 to August 2012) –– scored 21 of the 1603 grants with a grand total close to $500 million of Obama green spending cash [dockets #1361 to #1381].
Who needs a government loan then with all the free Obama cash?
July 28, 2011 –– $29,974,983
July 28, 2011 –– $29,974,983
July 28, 2011 –– $29,974,983
July 28, 2011 –– $29,974,983
September 8, 2011–– $22,791,621
September 8, 2011 –– $22,791,621
September 8, 2011 –– $18,233,297
September 8, 2011 –– $13,674,973
September 8, 2011 –– $13,674,973
September 8, 2011 –– $23,093,966
September 8, 2011 –– $23,093,966
September 8, 2011 –– $23,093,966
October 24, 2011 –– $15,482,478
October 24, 2011 –– $15,482,478
October 24, 2011 –– $15,482,478
October 24, 2011 –– $15,482,478
October 24, 2011 –– $25,649,674
October 24, 2011 –– $25,649,674
October 24, 2011 –– $25,649,674
October 24, 2011 –– $25,649,674
August 17, 2012 –– $84,117,894
Moreover, the Big Wind 2010 “construction financiers” in the Alta Wind project (done in phases) are Citi, Barclays Capital and Credit Suisse. While there are more green players like Google and Warrant Buffet, amongst others (Google mentioned in my last post and Buffet is also part of the "$3 Billion First Solar Swindle" as well as NRG Energy and George Soros), the one relevant in this green corruption series is Citibank, the consumer banking arm of the financial services giant Citigroup. I gave a headshot of "The Green Five" in my opening of “Spreading the Wealth to Obama’s Ultra-Rich Jobs Council,” including another jobs panel member, Richard Dean "Dick" Parsons, former Chairman of the Board of Citigroup, Inc. from 2009 until he announced stepping down in March 2012.
We’ll get to Mr. Parsons in Part Four, but for now we can confirm the third jobs council member, Mr. Hay as a winner of many of these federal grants. November 20, 2009 is when nearly $100 million was "awarded to NextEra Energy Resources to expand the Northern Colorado Wind Energy farm in Peetz, Colorado." This was “funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in lieu of a production tax credit,” and the turbine manufacturer is a German company [docket #1825 for Northern Colorado Wind Energy, LLC –– $99,900,326]. Also, July 26, 2012 NextEra Energy Montezuma II Wind, LLC snagged $50 million 1603 grant for "wind in California"[docket #1399 –– 50,101,558].
NextEra: A Gust of other Stimulus Grants
In 2009, the DOE started dishing out $3.5 billion from the "Smart Grid Investment Grant Program" –– awarded to select utility companies for particular smart-grid projects, as part of the 2009-Recovery Act. After a recent analysis of the Kleiner Perkins portfolio and recheck of Silver Spring Networks, one of their shining green investments, I found that of their 26 customers, half are foreign, while the other half are American. And, all but one of the thirteen U.S. utility companies scored large smart grid grants, which means Silver Spring is tied to at least $1.3 billion of these government handouts (full story can be found in Part Two of this series).
In April 2009, Florida Power and Light, Silver Spring, General Electric, and a few others joined forces on a smart grid project in Miami dubbed at that time as "Energy Smart Miami," of which they were seeking stimulus funds to power it up. And on October 2009, FPL, one of those lucky Silver customers, was awarded the maximum grant amount of $200 million for Energy Smart Florida, which means they got the money. However, FPL also snagged their fair share of millions in 1603 grants as well.
June 2, 2010, Florida Power and Light received a 1603 grant worth over $62 million for “solar electricity in Florida” [docket #2082 –– $62,371,777].
January 28, 2011, Florida Power and Light received another 1603 grant worth over $123 million for “solar thermal in Florida” [docket #2270 –– $123,767,270].
According to a 2010 analysis by Edgar A. Gunther, FPL had already been on its way as the number one winner of the 1603 Treasury cash grants, recording two I missed: $43.9 million for the DeSoto solar plant in January 2010, which President Obama personally visited, and in June 2010, $18.4 million for the Space Coast solar plant. Ironically, SunPower Corporation is part of both these projects –– a company were we find a large $1.2 billion DOE, which is "Twice As Bad As Solyndra," and tied to the number ONE recipient of the 1705 loans, NRG Energy Inc. Thus it has double the amount of cronyism and corruption –– meaningful political connections to President Obama and other high-ranking Democrats –– and warrants a future bombshell "green corruption" post.
NextEra: Third Largest Power Company in the World is the Third Largest Recipient of Risky Loans
Mr. Hay and NextEra was part of our Special Seven series –– those that are not only part of the DOE's risky investments (some also scored millions, if not billions, from the 1603 Grant Program) –– which also received fast-tracked approval by the Department of the Interior to lease federal lands in a no-bid process. We showed how NextEra Energy generated the "Third Largest Recipient of DOE Risky Loans,” detailing the huge large projects they are involved with.
Genesis Solar Project –– $852 million DOE loan
In August 2011, NextEra Energy Resources received a partial loan guarantee of $852 million from the DOE for its Genesis Solar project in Blythe, California. This was one of the few 1705 loans that were not considered junk rated, as S&P placed it at a “lower medium grade.” And it was estimated to create approximately 800 construction jobs and 47 operating jobs.
Desert Sunlight –– $1.46 billion DOE loan
In September 2011, the DOE approved a $1.46 billion partial loan guarantee for the junk-rated Desert Sunlight project in California, estimated to create 550 construction jobs and 15 permanent.
A day after the loan was approved, First Solar, the project developer/owner sold Desert Sunlight “to affiliates of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, the competitive energy subsidiary of NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NEE), and GE Energy Financial Services.” It was also announced, "First Solar will continue to build and subsequently operate and maintain the project under separate agreements.” NOTE: This project was part of “$3 Billion First Solar Swindle" –– my research from last summer.
Apparently, these two green-energy deals cost taxpayers approximately $2 billion of Recovery Act funds–– meant to stimulate the economy and create jobs –– yet we only got 1412 jobs out of the deal, of which 62 are permanent.
Well at least First Solar kept their job, and Mr. Hay too.
A Twister of Sweetheart Deals Found in the Department of Energy’s Four Risky Wind Projects
In April 2012, I had released my findings, “Department of Energy Junk Loans and Cronyism” whereas, since 2009, DOE has guaranteed $34.7 billion of taxpayer money. While, I covered the 1703 briefly, and the ATVM extensively, the 1705 loan guaranteed program –– created under the 2009-Recovery Act –– has steered $16 billion to 26 projects, of which 22 were rated as "junk bond" status. We can confirm that over 90 percent are politically connected to the president and other high-ranking Democrats –– some both.
Within the pages of the House Oversight March 20, 2012 scathing report are disturbing charges –– backed up with corroboration –– that range from poor to disastrous management, to bias and favoritism, as well as wasteful spending, and in some cases a series of DOE violations. To ad insult to taxpayer injury, the DOE touted “misleading job creation statistics."
If you've been following our work, you may have caught our report on the so called "green jobs," coupled with hype –– Obama's Green Jobs Promise: 355 Jobs and Counting, where in 2008, Candidate Obama promised to create 5 million new energy jobs over the next decade, as he was pledging to jumpstart the economy with an influx of green jobs.
However, not only has Obama's Labor Department been using deceptive methods on the green jobs calculations, we find that regardless of Obama's 2008 campaign promise where he stated, these are “jobs that can't be outsourced,” plenty of green jobs, and now we can confirm billion of stimulus funds, are going abroad, while fueling corporate welfare here in the United States.
Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center, in June 2012, testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with a subsequent shocking written assessment, “under the 1705 program most of the money has gone to large and established companies rather than startups.” Ms. Rugy goes on to state, “there seems to be an even more troubling trend of 'double dipping' by large companies that received loan guarantees from the DOE program.” This double dipping includes another "massive taxpayer-backed fund for corporate welfare" –– the U.S. Export-Import Bank as well as the 1603 grant program, and this too was reflected as a huge issue in the March 20, 2012 House Oversight investigation.
Besides the wind grants and PTC incentives, there were four 1705 DOE loans that went to wind projects –– all were low- to non-investment grade, and of course they too come with influential political ties.
#1) Caithness Shepherds Flat received a partial guarantee of $1.3 billion in Oct 2010 for Gilliam and Morrow Counties, OR.
GE sponsored the Caithness Shepherds Flat, and also supplied the project with 338 wind-turbines. On top of the $1.3 billion loan, the Caithness project is set to receive a cash grant of $490 million from the Treasury Department once those turbines start turning. The details of this transaction can be found in my July 2012 piece, “General Electric Making Bank off Obama's Green Stimulus Money; Over $3 Billion and Counting” as well as the National Review Online, “America’s Worst Wind-Energy Project.”
#2) Granite Reliable received a partial guarantee of $168.9 million in September 2011 for a wind project in Coos, NH, and on May 23, 2012 received over a $56 million 1603 grant for "wind in New Hampshire" [docket #4217 –– $56,201,202].
According to Peter Schweizer, 2011 Throw Them All Out, “White House involvement is particularly interesting because several loans appear to have gone to companies with direct connections to senior White House staff.” While Schweizer goes on with an accurate claim that Granite Reliable Wind “is largely owned and managed by CCMP Capital, which is where White House Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle had been managing director before joining the Obama administration [and soon may be leaving her White House post],” there’s more…
According the March 20, 2012 House Oversight report, “Nancy Ann DeParle, the current Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy in the White House, had a financial stake in the success of Granite Reliable…
Prior to joining the White House, DeParle was a Managing Director of multi-billion dollar private equity firm CCMP and she both had a financial interest in and sat on the Board of Directors for Noble Environmental Power, LLC. Noble owned Granite Reliable, a wind energy project. Prior to her departure, her position on Noble’s board of Directors positioned her to understand the most confidential and material aspects of Noble Environmental and its subsidiary Granite Reliable. DeParle misrepresented her relationship with Noble Energy, claiming on disclosure forms that her interest had been divested, when in fact it had merely been transferred to her 10-year old son.
During her time at the White House, Granite Reliable sought and, in September 2011, obtained a partial guarantee of a $168.9 million loan. Granite Reliable’s application for a DOE loan guarantee was made at least by early 2010, and probably earlier than that, according to signed documents relating to the loan application. Noble sold Granite Reliable in December 2010 to Brookfield Asset Management, just 6 months prior to the conditional approval of the DOE loan guarantee and deep into the application process. The DOE loan guarantee was conditionally approved on June 2011 and finalized in September 2011. DeParle’s ownership stake in Noble, which owned Granite Reliable, a beneficiary of a DOE loan, represents a clear conflict of interest.
Furthermore,
Until 2011, Granite Reliable was owned and controlled by Noble Environmental Power, Inc. Noble sold that 75% interest to BAIF Granite Holdings, Inc., just prior to the project’s loan approval in September 2011. BAIF Granite Holdings (BAIF) was created by Brookfield Renewable Power, a subsidiary of the $3.2 billion company Brookfield Asset Management (BAM). Brookfield Renewable Power financed the creation of BAIF from its Brookfield Americas Infrastructure Fund, which reportedly has assets totaling $2.7 billion. The remaining minority interest is owned by Freshet Wind Energy, LLC, which partnered with BAIF on the project. Given the solid financial background from which Granite Reliable was formed, it is unclear why DOE determined that the company needed a $168.9 million loan guarantee.
One reason DOE determined a loan guarantee may have been necessary may lie in the inner workings of the BAM family of companies and the companies’ strong Democratic ties. BAM owns BAIF, which owns Granite Reliable, as well as Brookfield Office Properties (BOP). BOP’s Board of Directors is chaired by John Zuccotti, the man for whom New York City’s Zuccotti Park is named, and includes Diana Taylor, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s long-time girlfriend. George Soros and Martin J. Whitman, both prominent Democratic donors, are both heavily invested in Brookfield. Moreover, Heather Podesta, sister-in-law of Obama’s influential White House transition director John Podesta, and the Podesta Group served as the lobbyists for BAIF.
#3) Kahuku Wind Power, LLC, a project of First Wind in Kahuku Oahu, HI, was granted a $117 million loan in July 2010, estimated to create a whopping 200 jobs. And then on February 3, 2012 this same project received a 1603 grant for over $35 million [docket #2594 –- $35,148,839].
Sadly, in August 2012 a fire that destroyed First Wind’s battery storage facility and sent toxic fumes into the air, left ratepayers in the dark over costs and safety. We should keep an eye on that one, however, there is more corruption to expose...
The First Wind plan was to secure taxpayer money and then go public. Now they achieved their first objective from the Bank of Obama –– since he took office (and as of 7/18/12), First Wind's projects have received over $452 million in grants through the Stimulus' 1603 Program.
First Wind's Stetson Wind Farm in Maine –– $40,441,471
Cohocton Wind Farm in New York, $52,352,334
Dutch Hill Wind Farm In New York, $22,296,494
Milford Wind Corridor Phase I In Utah; $120,147,809
Milford Wind Corridor Phase II In Utah, $80,436,803
Rollins Wind Farm In Maine; $53,246,347
Sheffield Wind Farm In Vermont, $35,914,864
Kahuku Wind Farm In Hawaii, $35,148,839
Steel Winds II Wind Farm In New York, $12,778,75
However, in November 2010, Bloomberg announced, “First Wind Holdings Inc., the operator of wind-energy projects backed by D.E. Shaw & Co. and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, said it withdrew its initial public offering because of unfavorable market conditions” that’s code for “weak demand.”
Speaking of IPO's...
Within the House Oversight leaked emails that were unleashed late October 2012, you'll discover that these correspondences basically prove that the White House, Secretary Chu, and certain DOE Officials lied about how they handled the green energy loans on various fronts –– a story I have emphasized in many of my recent green corruption posts.
In the 350+ page Appendix II, I discovered a series of intriguing emails dated in May 2010, where the DOE staff was discussing the Kahuku loan, just months prior to the final approval in July 2010. It seems that on May 12, 2012, LPO Credit Advisor James McCrea was concerned about the Loan Guarantee Program Office's "credit policies and procedures" –– so much so that he intensely clarified the importance of order, "...everyone needs to understand is all that has to go in order to put the transaction into the Federal accounting system which requires collaborating among OMB, Treasury, and parts of DOE with which you do not normally interact. To be clear, one of the reasons this is so carefully handled is that there are several penalties for a violation of the Ant-deficiency Act including jail time..." Later McCrea writes, "I know the processing is frustrating for First Wind. The deal will close when it is time."
Five days later, McCrea writes, "To fill Brian in, we have a pretty good mess on First Wind and it is looking like it is going to get a lot worse and quickly at that. Someone is pressing Jonathan [Jonathan Silver is the former Executive Director of the Loan Program Office] who is now pressing hard on the everyone as the sponsor has an IPO in the works. I have told Jonathan that the deal has huge issues and the sponsor's overriding is not helping at all and that further, the sponsor's pending IPO is irrelevant."
While there's no mention of where that pressure came from, the first-rate, high-powered political ties to First Wind are vast, starting with D.E. Shaw & Co, a New York-based investment firm –– "a $39 Billion Hedge Fund Giant" (also a First Solar investor), which so happens to be one of the three top contributors to Democrats –– is a backer of First Wind Holdings Inc. The founder David Shaw, is a two-time Obama bundler, who employed Larry Summers, and before heading to the Obama White House, as the top economic advisor, "Lawrence Summers received about $5.2 million over the past year in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw,” as revealed by the Wall Street Journal, noting his "frequent appearances before Wall Street firms including J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers." Towards the end of 2011, Summers left the Obama administration and rejoined the firm as a consultant.
As revealed by Peter Schweizer, “another 42 percent of First Wind is owned by Madison Dearborn Partners, an investment firm with close ties [and friend of] to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual. The founder of the firm, David Canning, had been a bundler for George W. Bush. But he switched sides in 2008 and gave heavily to Obama. Madison Dearborn gave more to Emanual’s congressional campaigns than did any other business.”
While the GOP found that "Julia Bovey, First Wind's Director of External Affairs, was formerly Director of External Affairs for Obama's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (June 2009 to June 2010)," there is much bigger fish here. All government backed green comes with a slew of lobbyists, and First Wind is no different –– enter in Larry Rasky's Lobbying Firm with ties to the top.
Larry Rasky, "a longtime confidant and campaign strategist" of Vice President Joe Biden, was also a 2012 Obama bundler, and since Obama took office, "Rasky has visited the White House at least 21 Times," half of which were during the course of the DOE loan review process (Data.gov, Accessed 7/18/12). Moreover, we know that in 2009, about the time the 2009-Recovery Act passed, First Wind retained lobbyists Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications as well as Brownstein, Hyatt et al, who is primarily a Democrat donor, with some Republicans in the mix –– and as of 2012, maintains the work of Rasky.
#4) Record Hill Wind received a $102 million loan, announced in March 2011, and it was finalized in August 2011 for a wind project in Roxbury, ME, and on June 8, 2012 they scored a 1603 grant for over $33 million for “wind in Maine” [docket #3044 –– 33,736,709].
According the March 2012 House Oversight report, the “DOE relied on the First Solar precedent [see my "$3 Billion First Solar Swindle" story] to approve Record Hill Wind’s $102 million loan guarantee project as 'innovative,' despite the project using commercial technology. DOE knew that the Record Hill project did not use significantly innovative technology. The Standard & Poor’s credit rating for the project that DOE received clearly indicates the commercial (and non-innovative) nature of the project…”
As exposed by Schweizer once again, “former Governor of Maine headed up Record Hill, along with his partner Robert Gardiner, the former head of the Maine Public Broadcasting System. Neither had background in energy. King, however, endorsed Obama in 2008 and campaigned for him.”
Record Hill Wind "began in 2007 as a partnership between Independence Wind and Wagner Forest Management," of which Independence Wind is where we find founders Mr. King and Mr. Gardiner. And while Record Hill reports that in March 2012 (just a day before the House Oversight released their investigative findings, sited above), “King left Independence Wind and has fully divested his stake in the company.” However, that was prior to Brietbart.com busting the Record Hill bailout initiated by King, adding him “to the long list of Obama administration cronies who have personally made money off the $800 billion Obama Stimulus program.” It turns out that “King's personal bailout came in the form of a $407,000 'success fee' he received in 2011 from a wind energy project that remains in business today only because it received a $102 million federal loan King played a major role in securing.”
King, an Independent, now Senator Angus King (who caucuses with Democrats but does not identify as one), has recently become a proponent of “American banking financial reform” –– “the fight to rein in the financial establishment,” yet doesn’t mind the out-of-control spending from the Bank of Obama that King personally and financially benefited from.
In Closing
No matter how you slice it, whether we are sending money abroad or fueling corporate welfare here in the United States as well as the egregious practice of crony capitalism, the 2009-Recovery act is a lie, a travesty and a scam, favoring wealthy financial backers of President Obama and the Democratic Party as well as those with influential political connections to both. And with a president that's dead set on pushing a fierce and radical climate change agenda and funding green energy with taxpayer money, no matter the long list of failures, there is no end in sight to this green corruption scandal.
Besides NextEra Energy taking full advantage of the federal production tax credit (PTC), we now can confirm that the Bank of Obama has rewarded this conglomerate of a power company, and his millionaire job council buddy Lewis Hay, with two large DOE loans ($2.3 billion); one large stimulus smart-grid grant ($200 million); and six 1603 stimulus grants totaling $398.5 million. Thus NextEra's green tab is on its way to $3 billion of taxpayer money, and that's not factoring in the PTC.
This was Part Three, The Green Five: Spreading the Wealth to Obama’s Ultra-Rich Jobs Council Members –– stay tuned for the final installment where we take a look at Billionaire Penny Pritzker and Richard Dean "Dick" Parsons, Former Chairman of the Board of Citigroup, Inc –– both part of Obama’s Multi-millionaire, Billionaire Jobs Council Club.
Signing off as THE Green Corruption blogger,
One Woman, One Mission, One Green Corruption Piece of the Scandal at a time...
Due to lack of donations and funding, this may be my last post even though I'm just getting warmed up –– I have at least 6 months more stories to tell...
Source
Sting operations reveal Mafia involvement in renewable energy
Inside a midnight-blue BMW, a Sicilian entrepreneur delivered his pitch to the accused mafia boss. A new business was blowing into Italy that could spin wind and sunlight into gold, ensuring the future of the Earth as well as the Cosa Nostra: renewable energy.
“Uncle Vincenzo,” implored the businessman, Angelo Salvatore, using a term of affection for the alleged head of Sicily’s Gimbellina crime family, 79-year-old Vincenzo Funari. According to a transcript of their wiretapped conversation, Salvatore continued, “for the love of our sons, renewable energy is important. . . . it’s a business we can live on.”
And for quite awhile, Italian prosecutors say, they did. In an unfolding plot that is part “The Sopranos,” part “An Inconvenient Truth,” authorities swept across Sicily last month in the latest wave of sting operations revealing years of deep infiltration into the renewable energy sector by Italy’s rapidly modernizing crime families.
The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and a market bubble ripe for fraud. China-based Suntech, the world’s largest solar panel maker, last month said it would need to restate more than two years of financial results because of allegedly fake capital put up to finance new plants in Italy. The discoveries here also follow so-called “eco-corruption” cases in Spain, where a number of companies stand accused of illegally tapping state aid.
Because it receives more sun and wind than any other part of Italy, Sicily became one of Europe’s most obvious hotbeds for renewable energies over the past decade. As the Italian government began offering billions of euros annually in subsidies for wind and solar development, the potential profitability of such projects also soared — a fact that did not go unnoticed by Sicily’s infamous crime families.
Roughly a third of the island’s 30 wind farms — along with several solar power plants — have been seized by authorities. Officials have frozen more than $2 billion in assets and arrested a dozen alleged crime bosses; corrupt local councilors and mafia-linked entrepreneurs. Italian prosecutors are now investigating suspected mafia involvement in renewable energy projects from Sardinia to Apulia.
“The Cosa Nostra is adapting, acquiring more advanced knowledge in new areas like renewable energy that have become more profitable because of government subsidies,” said Teresa Maria Principato, the deputy prosecutor in charge of Palermo’s Anti-Mafia Squad, whose headquarters here are emblazoned with the images of assassinated judges. “It is casting a shadow over our renewables industry.”
Revelations of malfeasance in one of Italy’s most promising new sectors is underscoring a recent push by one of the world’s largest criminal organizations into a host of legitimate businesses, from chain supermarkets to shopping malls. But perhaps most importantly, the mafia taint on an industry seen as a rare engine for new jobs in a country still-mired in the region’s debt crisis is foreshadowing a massive challenge ahead for Europe.
Read the entire article
“Uncle Vincenzo,” implored the businessman, Angelo Salvatore, using a term of affection for the alleged head of Sicily’s Gimbellina crime family, 79-year-old Vincenzo Funari. According to a transcript of their wiretapped conversation, Salvatore continued, “for the love of our sons, renewable energy is important. . . . it’s a business we can live on.”
And for quite awhile, Italian prosecutors say, they did. In an unfolding plot that is part “The Sopranos,” part “An Inconvenient Truth,” authorities swept across Sicily last month in the latest wave of sting operations revealing years of deep infiltration into the renewable energy sector by Italy’s rapidly modernizing crime families.
The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and a market bubble ripe for fraud. China-based Suntech, the world’s largest solar panel maker, last month said it would need to restate more than two years of financial results because of allegedly fake capital put up to finance new plants in Italy. The discoveries here also follow so-called “eco-corruption” cases in Spain, where a number of companies stand accused of illegally tapping state aid.
Because it receives more sun and wind than any other part of Italy, Sicily became one of Europe’s most obvious hotbeds for renewable energies over the past decade. As the Italian government began offering billions of euros annually in subsidies for wind and solar development, the potential profitability of such projects also soared — a fact that did not go unnoticed by Sicily’s infamous crime families.
Roughly a third of the island’s 30 wind farms — along with several solar power plants — have been seized by authorities. Officials have frozen more than $2 billion in assets and arrested a dozen alleged crime bosses; corrupt local councilors and mafia-linked entrepreneurs. Italian prosecutors are now investigating suspected mafia involvement in renewable energy projects from Sardinia to Apulia.
“The Cosa Nostra is adapting, acquiring more advanced knowledge in new areas like renewable energy that have become more profitable because of government subsidies,” said Teresa Maria Principato, the deputy prosecutor in charge of Palermo’s Anti-Mafia Squad, whose headquarters here are emblazoned with the images of assassinated judges. “It is casting a shadow over our renewables industry.”
Revelations of malfeasance in one of Italy’s most promising new sectors is underscoring a recent push by one of the world’s largest criminal organizations into a host of legitimate businesses, from chain supermarkets to shopping malls. But perhaps most importantly, the mafia taint on an industry seen as a rare engine for new jobs in a country still-mired in the region’s debt crisis is foreshadowing a massive challenge ahead for Europe.
Read the entire article
Monday, January 14, 2013
The FIRST ROUND OF PUBLIC MEETINGS have been SCHEDULED!
The FIRST ROUND OF PUBLIC MEETINGS have been SCHEDULED! – The first
round of Public Meetings for the Cleaner Greener Communities Finger
Lakes Regional Sustainability Plan will be January 15, 2013 from
6:00-8:00 PM at the Genesee County Administration Building II located at
3837 West Main Street Road, Batavia, NY and the Sanford Room at the
Hobart & William Smith Collages Library in Geneva, New York and
January 16, 2013 at the Rochester Institute of Technology Golisano
Institute for Sustainability in Rochester, New York. The meetings are
being held in 3 locations to minimize travel for interested residents.
See below for a flyer with directions for each meeting location.
Source
Source
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Voices Opinion on Wind
The exit of Spanish wind developer Iberdrola Renewables from the town of Hammond will create a feeling of relief for the majority of residents who have always felt the intrusion of this foreign conglomerate into the affairs of this small rural community was unwelcome. As a group brought together by a common cause over four years ago, the Concerned Residents of Hammond have been guided by their original mission statement concerned with the preservation of public health and safety, property values, economic viability, environmental integrity, and quality of life in our town and surrounding area. We provided factual information and education about all aspects of industrial wind energy installations and the impacts they would have on our community. We were dedicated to seeing that all levels of the governmental processes concerning this type of project were handled in a manner that was ethical, legal, honest, open and fair to all residents of Hammond. The long term objective has remained the same -- to promote sustainable growth and future development of our community.
We thank everyone who supported our efforts along the way. We especially want to thank the members of the 2010 Hammond Wind Committee who came together for over a year to educate themselves on wind development and its implications. Their effort to provide the Town Board with critical information to make informed decisions was invaluable, as the revised law withstood legal challenges and was upheld by the NY State Supreme Court.
We thank everyone who supported our efforts along the way. We especially want to thank the members of the 2010 Hammond Wind Committee who came together for over a year to educate themselves on wind development and its implications. Their effort to provide the Town Board with critical information to make informed decisions was invaluable, as the revised law withstood legal challenges and was upheld by the NY State Supreme Court.
The Concerned Residents understood there was more to Hammond than industrial wind development and have found other ways to support the community including support of the town board's completion of a comprehensive plan providing a "vision" for the community that utilizes the many natural resources available while protecting our quality of life. We look forward to watching the newly formed business and economic group grow and prosper and we will continue to provide annual support to the local community organizations that help to make this such a wonderful community.
We reiterate that it is important to remember there are no winners in this situation. We watched as a foreign wind developer stealthily entered our community with promises that resulted in the creation of a division among residents that may not heal in this decade or the next. They can now walk away unscathed as it was all just a job to them, devoid of emotion. Unfortunately this scenario is being allowed to be repeated across the United States and the people in small, rural communities are pawns in the game of corporate greed and political lobbying.
Our thoughts are with our neighbors in Cape Vincent, Lyme, and Clayton who continue to be pawns in this game. The extraordinary 1000 Islands Region is not deserving of the destruction being planned by these foreign companies who have no emotional investment and not any interest in the broader economic vitality of our area -- only thoughts of financial gain at everyone else's expense.
We reiterate that it is important to remember there are no winners in this situation. We watched as a foreign wind developer stealthily entered our community with promises that resulted in the creation of a division among residents that may not heal in this decade or the next. They can now walk away unscathed as it was all just a job to them, devoid of emotion. Unfortunately this scenario is being allowed to be repeated across the United States and the people in small, rural communities are pawns in the game of corporate greed and political lobbying.
Our thoughts are with our neighbors in Cape Vincent, Lyme, and Clayton who continue to be pawns in this game. The extraordinary 1000 Islands Region is not deserving of the destruction being planned by these foreign companies who have no emotional investment and not any interest in the broader economic vitality of our area -- only thoughts of financial gain at everyone else's expense.
If you have an emotional attachment to this area because you live here full-time, have a seasonal home, have rented a camp or motel room, cruised our waters, or visited here because you know there is no other place like it on earth, it is important that you voice your feelings to the NY Public Service Commission Article 10 Siting Board in Albany. Visit:
(http://documents.dps.ny.gov/
Mary Hamilton
Hammond, NYWind Company Leaves Hammond; Will Pursue Project in Clayton
1000 Islands - Iberdrola Renewables has confirmed that the meteorological test towers have been disabled and the company will no longer pursue developing the Stone Church industrial wind farm in Hammond, a project the company has been courting for the past several years.
Clayton's proposed Horse Creek Wind Farm will not be affected. The project could have up to 48 turbines, near Route 12, south of the village of Clayton. The company informed the town last fall that it intends to seek project review through the state siting board. Clayton Planning Board Chairman Roland (Bud) Barll has not been informed of any changes in plans to move forward with Horse Creek.
Iberdrola's leases with Hammond property owners for the use of their land were deemed null and void as of January 1. At least nine leaseholders received registered letters confirming the leases have been canceled.
Iberdrola Business Development Manager Jenny Briot has stated that her company is canceling 100 projects in the United States, according to leaseholder James Pitcher, who had been in conversations with her regarding the future of wind in Hammond and elsewhere.
Several small test towers in Hammond will be donated to schools or colleges, while the taller towers, measuring up to 288 feet high, will be taken down by the company, possibly with the help of large cranes from out of the area. Some of the Hammond towers were erected in 2005.
The industrial wind issue had been alive in Hammond since the early 2000's and resulted in a split in the community that turned friends into enemies and enemies into friends. Committees were formed to study the health, safety and economic impacts of the project and to report those findings to the town board.
Wind laws were amended more than once and ultimately rewritten. The issue of whether to turn the small tourist and agricultural town of Hammond into an industrial area affected local election results and sparked controversy over ethics and possible conflicts of interest of public officials.
Lawsuits were lodged in the past few years by both pro and anti-wind citizens. Leaseholders saw the wind farm as a means to bolster income in the difficult and financially challenging business of agriculture. They also hoped the wind project would boost the local economy as a whole.
As for the wind company's reasoning on pulling the plug in Hammond, Paul Copleman, communications manager for Iberdrola, explained that the company must make difficult decisions about where to allocate capital. They have been scaling back projects in the U.S., but he stated in an email that the proposed wind project in the town of Clayton will still be pursued.
"The decision to right-size of our pipeline of wind projects under development does not change our position towards the U.S. renewable energy market, to which we remain committed. We own and operate over 5200 MW of wind farms across the country, and we continue to develop Horse Creek in Clayton," he said.
Locally, speculation over the financial viability of the wind company had increased recently following news reports that Iberdrola sold many of its wind farms in European countries.
Mr. Copleman responded, "As to the sales of projects in other countries, global economic conditions always play a role in corporate decision-making. The company retains a diversified asset base across 40 countries and maintains stable cash flows with earnings from different businesses. We have already indicated that future U.S. renewables development will be selective, but we continue to pursue good opportunities and explore a range of strategy options. We just brought online three new wind farms last month, in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and California.
The Concerned Residents of Hammond (CROH) was created four years ago by residents concerned over health and safety issues and "transparency" in local government. CROH President Mary Hamilton reacted to the news that Iberdrola has ended its efforts in Hammond.
She said, in part, "There are no winners in this situation. We watched as a foreign wind developer stealthily entered our community with promises that resulted in the creation of a division among residents that may not heal in this decade or the next. They can now walk away unscathed as it's just a job to them, void of emotion. Unfortunately, the scenario is allowed to be repeated across United States, and the people in small, rural communities are pawns in the game of corporate greed and political lobbying."
Hammond has been looking to further its economic development through the creation of a comprehensive plan that outlines the joint goals and guidelines of the town and village. A hearing on accepting the plan will be scheduled within the next few weeks.
Representatives of the business community formed an economic development group to promote business and tourism opportunities. The group is currently undergoing restructuring to become a town and/or village board committee.
Clayton's proposed Horse Creek Wind Farm will not be affected. The project could have up to 48 turbines, near Route 12, south of the village of Clayton. The company informed the town last fall that it intends to seek project review through the state siting board. Clayton Planning Board Chairman Roland (Bud) Barll has not been informed of any changes in plans to move forward with Horse Creek.
Iberdrola's leases with Hammond property owners for the use of their land were deemed null and void as of January 1. At least nine leaseholders received registered letters confirming the leases have been canceled.
Iberdrola Business Development Manager Jenny Briot has stated that her company is canceling 100 projects in the United States, according to leaseholder James Pitcher, who had been in conversations with her regarding the future of wind in Hammond and elsewhere.
Several small test towers in Hammond will be donated to schools or colleges, while the taller towers, measuring up to 288 feet high, will be taken down by the company, possibly with the help of large cranes from out of the area. Some of the Hammond towers were erected in 2005.
The industrial wind issue had been alive in Hammond since the early 2000's and resulted in a split in the community that turned friends into enemies and enemies into friends. Committees were formed to study the health, safety and economic impacts of the project and to report those findings to the town board.
Wind laws were amended more than once and ultimately rewritten. The issue of whether to turn the small tourist and agricultural town of Hammond into an industrial area affected local election results and sparked controversy over ethics and possible conflicts of interest of public officials.
Lawsuits were lodged in the past few years by both pro and anti-wind citizens. Leaseholders saw the wind farm as a means to bolster income in the difficult and financially challenging business of agriculture. They also hoped the wind project would boost the local economy as a whole.
As for the wind company's reasoning on pulling the plug in Hammond, Paul Copleman, communications manager for Iberdrola, explained that the company must make difficult decisions about where to allocate capital. They have been scaling back projects in the U.S., but he stated in an email that the proposed wind project in the town of Clayton will still be pursued.
"The decision to right-size of our pipeline of wind projects under development does not change our position towards the U.S. renewable energy market, to which we remain committed. We own and operate over 5200 MW of wind farms across the country, and we continue to develop Horse Creek in Clayton," he said.
Locally, speculation over the financial viability of the wind company had increased recently following news reports that Iberdrola sold many of its wind farms in European countries.
Mr. Copleman responded, "As to the sales of projects in other countries, global economic conditions always play a role in corporate decision-making. The company retains a diversified asset base across 40 countries and maintains stable cash flows with earnings from different businesses. We have already indicated that future U.S. renewables development will be selective, but we continue to pursue good opportunities and explore a range of strategy options. We just brought online three new wind farms last month, in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and California.
The Concerned Residents of Hammond (CROH) was created four years ago by residents concerned over health and safety issues and "transparency" in local government. CROH President Mary Hamilton reacted to the news that Iberdrola has ended its efforts in Hammond.
She said, in part, "There are no winners in this situation. We watched as a foreign wind developer stealthily entered our community with promises that resulted in the creation of a division among residents that may not heal in this decade or the next. They can now walk away unscathed as it's just a job to them, void of emotion. Unfortunately, the scenario is allowed to be repeated across United States, and the people in small, rural communities are pawns in the game of corporate greed and political lobbying."
Hammond has been looking to further its economic development through the creation of a comprehensive plan that outlines the joint goals and guidelines of the town and village. A hearing on accepting the plan will be scheduled within the next few weeks.
Representatives of the business community formed an economic development group to promote business and tourism opportunities. The group is currently undergoing restructuring to become a town and/or village board committee.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Accusations fly as First Wind fights Clipper for refund
UNITED STATES: Turbine manufacturer Clipper Windpower and Boston-based developer First Wind are engaged in a near-$60 million lawsuit in Iowa over a disputed wind turbine order.
First Wind, a former major customer of Clipper, has been trying to freeze $59.5 million of Clipper's assets in three different court jurisdictions. The aim is to ensure that the private equity-owned turbine manufacturer can pay an arbitration settlement under way with First Wind in Chicago currently being overseen by the American Arbitration Association.
The allegations contained in the three court cases are at times startling. According to a memorandum filed by First Wind in the New York case, Platinum Equity purchased Clipper in August 2012 for "nothing - in fact, United Technologies Corporation (UTC) had to inject money into Clipper in order to get Platinum to take the manufacturer and its liabilities off UTC's hands". First Wind has also said that Clipper is on the "verge of imploding".Both Clipper and Platinum declined to respond to a request for comment on the financial side of the deal.
Manufacture offer
In October, Judge Peter Sherwood of the Supreme Court of the State of New York declined to freeze the assets, noting that Clipper had said it was willing to manufacture the turbines if First Wind would only make a firm order. In court documents, First Wind has cited uncertainty over the production tax credit and permitting delays as reasons for not proceeding with its order.
In the Iowa suit, First Wind said that earlier in 2011 Clipper turned down a proposed order for 20 turbines. However, in another court proceeding, Clipper said that First Wind's order was never firm and that Clipper could have assembled the turbines if this was the case. In the Iowa suit, First Wind is reported as claiming it had difficulty obtaining financing for wind projects specifying Clipper turbines because of the manufacturer's financial instability.
Waranty work
NextEra Energy Resources, the largest owner and operator of wind in the US, has become involved. It tried to intervene in the New York suit at the last minute, although the judge ruled before it could do so. In court documents, NextEra said that Clipper was in breach of its warranty obligations - but that the situation would be exacerbated if Clipper was forced into involuntary bankruptcy because First Wind succeeded in freezing its assets.
NextEra declined to comment on its role or whether it is in arbitration with Clipper over warranties. the company has not intervened in the Iowa suit, according to the court clerk's office.
Warranty claims have long been a problem for Clipper Windpower. Just a week before it sold Clipper, UTC said in its financial statements that Clipper had $91 million in reserves for potential warranty claims. Even before UTC bought Clipper in 2010 for $385 million, the Liberty turbine has faced well-known problems such as faulty gearboxes and cracked blades.
There have been reports that Clipper is planning to scale the company back to its servicing operation, which handles the Clipper-manufactured gearbox for the Liberty turbine.
Clipper manufactured the Liberty turbine in Cedar Rapids, Iowa from 2006 until earlier this year. It suspended turbine production and laid off 76 employees after the company was sold to leveraged buyout specialist Platinum Equity. Not long before the purchase, Clipper had warned that it might not be able to keep going without an injection of cash.
Source
Monday, December 24, 2012
Why It's The End Of The Line For Wind Power
It’s the end of the world as we know it. That’s what the U.S. wind power industry is saying to itself these days. And they aren’t talking about some Mayan doomsday nonsense.
On Jan. 1 the federal production tax credit on wind investments expires. For the past 20 years the credit has offset about 30% of the cost of building wind turbines. Add to that the “renewable portfolio standards” for green energy mandated by 29 states, and as a result we’ve seen wind farms spring up across the country. Since 2007 nearly 40% of all the new electricity capacity built in this country has been wind. Wind now generates roughly 3.5% of U.S. electricity.
Don’t expect wind’s share to climb beyond that level any time soon. The end of the tax credit could very well mean the end of the wind industry.
According to the federal Energy Information Administration, the “levelized cost” of new wind power (including capital and operating costs) is 8.2 cents per kWh. Advanced clean-coal plants cost about 11 cents per kWh, the same as nuclear. But advanced natural gas-burning plants come in at just 6.3 cents per kWh.
But it could be getting a lot worse for wind. A fascinating new report by George Taylor and Tom Tanton at the American Tradition Institute called “The Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity” asserts that the cost of wind power is significantly understated by the EIA’s numbers. In fact, says Taylor, generating electricity from wind costs triple what it does from natural gas.
That’s because the numbers from the EIA and wind boosters fail to take into account a host of infrastructure and transmission costs.
First off — the windiest places are more often far away from where electricity is needed most, so the costs of building transmission lines is high. So far many wind projects have been able to patch into existing grid interconnections. But, says Taylor, those opportunities are shrinking, and material expansion of wind would require big power line investments.
Second, the wind doesn’t blow all the time, so power utilities have found that in order to balance out the variable load from wind they have to invest in keeping fossil-fuel-burning plants on standby. When those plants are not running at full capacity they are not as efficient. Most calculations of the cost of wind power do not take into account the costs per kWh of keeping fossil plants on standby or running at reduced loads. But they should, because it is a real cost of adding clean, green, wind power to the grid.
Taylor has crunched the numbers and determined that these elements mean the true cost of wind power is more like double the advertised numbers.
He explains that he started with 8.2 cents per kWh, reflecting total installation costs of $2,000 per kw of capacity. Then backed out an assumed 30-year lifespan for the turbines (optimistic), which increases the cost to 9.3 cents per kwh. Then after backing out the effect of subsidies allowing accelerted depreciation for wind investments you get 10.1 cents. Next, add the costs of keeping gas-fired plants available, but running at reduced capacity, to balance the variable performance of wind — 1.7 cents. Extra fuel for those plants adds another 0.6 cents. Finally, tack on 2.7 cents for new transmission line investments needed to get new wind power to market. The whole shebang adds up to 15 cents per kwh.
Ouch.
As Taylor figures it, natural gas would need to cost upwards of $20 per mmBTU before gas-fired power would cost as much as wind.
Granted, the American Tradition Institute is a right-wing nonprofit that in the past has railed against climate scientists and sought to discredit Global Warming fear mongering. That doesn’t mean Taylor’s calculations are wrong, just that everyone on the pro-wind side ought to read the report and chime in with their critiques.
The American Wind Energy Association says that the wind sector employs 37,000 and boasts 500 factories building components. Even with new anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese makers of wind turbines, the AWEA says that if Congress fails to extend the production tax credit for wind, many of those jobs could be eliminated and factories closed in early 2013. That’s how important these tax credits are to wind’s viability.
Taylor and Tanton figure that at the current price of natural gas, and before counting any subsidies or transmission costs, ratepayers are paying about $8.5 billion more this year for electricity from wind than they would have paid if it were gas-fired power. That amount doesn’t even include the cost of the direct federal subsidies.
What’s more, ratepayers will have to shoulder that cost for as long as the turbines are in operation. That’s $8.5 billion a year that ratepayers are forking over to subsidize a less efficient, more expensive technology; $8.5 billion that could otherwise be invested in natural gas electricity, or better yet, nuclear.
Just think, in South Carolina, power company Scana and its partners are investing about $11 billion to construct two 1,100 mw nuclear reactors on roughly 1,000 acres. To get the same amount of electricity out of wind (remember that turbines operate at an average of less than 50% capacity because of wind’s intermittancy) and you’d need more than 1,700 turbines stretched across 200,000 acres, for an upfront investment of $8.8 billion. The nukes might cost more upfront, but they last longer, they provide reliable base load power and they emit zero carbon.
Source
Friday, December 21, 2012
The wind production tax credit still hangs in the fiscal-cliff balance
With Congress and the White House currently concentrating their laser-like focus on averting (or not averting, as the case may be) the fiscal cliff, the fate of various tax extenders is still very much up in the air, including the wind industry’s precious production tax credit (which covers about 30 percent of wind power’s costs — no wonder they’re so keen on keeping it around). The wind lobby is working overtime to convince Congress to pass an extension before the clock runs out on December 31st, but most lawmakers’ concerns are about the bigger fish we still need to fry before the end of the year.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday unveiled a “Plan B” approach to avoid most of the looming tax hikes, but it did not address the PTC or other so-called tax extenders. President Obama and Senate Democrats were quick to dismiss the offer.
Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio), who has been a leading negotiator over the fate of the PTC, acknowledged that it and other temporary tax provisions “take a back seat” to the broader debate over the cliff and that it would take “a deal on everything else” to see movement on extending the temporary credits.
Boehner’s proposal was seen as largely a messaging exercise, with the extenders still expected to be along for the ride if Congress and the White House can reach a broader deal on taxes and spending, lawmakers and lobbyists said.
“I suspect this is all for show,” one wind lobbyist said of Boehner’s proposal.
Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who has been leading a public push for a PTC extension with near-daily floor speeches, said yesterday that there have been “a lot of quiet conversations” among senators over how to insert the credit into a broader fiscal cliff deal but that he was not at liberty to say more.
President Obama was much more vocal on the production tax credit and his other renewable-subsidizin’ ventures while on the campaign trail before the election (especially when hitting up states like Iowa), but I haven’t heard him throw much of his weight behind it lately — although of course, his administration is still very much actively for it:
During the informational session, which also included a Q&A segment, Chu officially endorsed the extension of the PTC and re-emphasized his unwavering support for wind power and other forms of renewable energy.
“I’m bullish on the prospects for wind,” Chu told reporters and webcast viewers. “We have to maintain the production tax credit. That’s my plug.”
After highlighting many of the wind industry’s achievements over the past two decades, Chu warned that if the PTC is not extended, many manufacturers established in the U.S. will likely move overseas.
All of these “quiet conversations” undoubtedly concern the usual arguments in favor of such government-sponsored favoritism, including the thousands of jobs that will be lost should the wind credit expire (nevermind that these jobs are all more subsidy-powered than anything else), that oil and gas receive bigger subsidies (although they are relatively infinitesimal compared to the scope of the wind industry, and I must add that I unequivocally support the repeal of all subsidies across the energy spectrum), and that the wind industry only needs a little more “strategic nurturing” before it can finally compete on its own merits (forget that the production tax credit has been around for two decades already).
“With the threat of the PTC’s expiration, wind project developers are not making plans in the U.S. and American manufacturers are not receiving orders,” David Ward of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) told ReWire. “Job layoffs have started already, which could total up to 37,000 jobs lost. Without an immediate extension of the Production Tax Credit, the wind industry is facing the recurrence of the boom-bust cycle it has seen in previous years when the PTC was allowed to expire.”
Hint: The fact that the wind industry is so very tax-credit dependent with a longstanding boom-and-bust cycle, probably is not the best advertisement in its favor. If individual states want to continue to coddle what they have deemed to be renewable energies with their own subsidies (like renewable portfolio standards), then so be it, but the federal government’s longtime special treatment of the wind industry needs to stop.
Claim: “The federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) is an effective tool to keep electricity rates low and encourage development of proven renewable energy projects.”
Reality: When the wind lobby worked to create the tax credit, they were ingenious. Instead of structuring it to increase electricity rates, they structured it to create greater liabilities for taxpayers. By structuring it as a lavish tax credit, the costs are effectively hidden from electricity ratepayers. This allows the wind lobby to claim that it “is an effective tool to keep electricity rates low.” And remember, these are not “deductions” that most Americans are familiar with; they’re “credits,” a dollar for dollar reduction in tax obligations of some huge corporations.
This does not mean that the tax credit is inexpensive. A one-year extension will cost $12 billion because it is guaranteed for 10 years of payout. But, most importantly, those costs are hidden from electricity ratepayers and get lumped together with trillions of dollars in the federal budget.
Source
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday unveiled a “Plan B” approach to avoid most of the looming tax hikes, but it did not address the PTC or other so-called tax extenders. President Obama and Senate Democrats were quick to dismiss the offer.
Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio), who has been a leading negotiator over the fate of the PTC, acknowledged that it and other temporary tax provisions “take a back seat” to the broader debate over the cliff and that it would take “a deal on everything else” to see movement on extending the temporary credits.
Boehner’s proposal was seen as largely a messaging exercise, with the extenders still expected to be along for the ride if Congress and the White House can reach a broader deal on taxes and spending, lawmakers and lobbyists said.
“I suspect this is all for show,” one wind lobbyist said of Boehner’s proposal.
Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who has been leading a public push for a PTC extension with near-daily floor speeches, said yesterday that there have been “a lot of quiet conversations” among senators over how to insert the credit into a broader fiscal cliff deal but that he was not at liberty to say more.
President Obama was much more vocal on the production tax credit and his other renewable-subsidizin’ ventures while on the campaign trail before the election (especially when hitting up states like Iowa), but I haven’t heard him throw much of his weight behind it lately — although of course, his administration is still very much actively for it:
During the informational session, which also included a Q&A segment, Chu officially endorsed the extension of the PTC and re-emphasized his unwavering support for wind power and other forms of renewable energy.
“I’m bullish on the prospects for wind,” Chu told reporters and webcast viewers. “We have to maintain the production tax credit. That’s my plug.”
After highlighting many of the wind industry’s achievements over the past two decades, Chu warned that if the PTC is not extended, many manufacturers established in the U.S. will likely move overseas.
All of these “quiet conversations” undoubtedly concern the usual arguments in favor of such government-sponsored favoritism, including the thousands of jobs that will be lost should the wind credit expire (nevermind that these jobs are all more subsidy-powered than anything else), that oil and gas receive bigger subsidies (although they are relatively infinitesimal compared to the scope of the wind industry, and I must add that I unequivocally support the repeal of all subsidies across the energy spectrum), and that the wind industry only needs a little more “strategic nurturing” before it can finally compete on its own merits (forget that the production tax credit has been around for two decades already).
“With the threat of the PTC’s expiration, wind project developers are not making plans in the U.S. and American manufacturers are not receiving orders,” David Ward of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) told ReWire. “Job layoffs have started already, which could total up to 37,000 jobs lost. Without an immediate extension of the Production Tax Credit, the wind industry is facing the recurrence of the boom-bust cycle it has seen in previous years when the PTC was allowed to expire.”
Hint: The fact that the wind industry is so very tax-credit dependent with a longstanding boom-and-bust cycle, probably is not the best advertisement in its favor. If individual states want to continue to coddle what they have deemed to be renewable energies with their own subsidies (like renewable portfolio standards), then so be it, but the federal government’s longtime special treatment of the wind industry needs to stop.
Claim: “The federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) is an effective tool to keep electricity rates low and encourage development of proven renewable energy projects.”
Reality: When the wind lobby worked to create the tax credit, they were ingenious. Instead of structuring it to increase electricity rates, they structured it to create greater liabilities for taxpayers. By structuring it as a lavish tax credit, the costs are effectively hidden from electricity ratepayers. This allows the wind lobby to claim that it “is an effective tool to keep electricity rates low.” And remember, these are not “deductions” that most Americans are familiar with; they’re “credits,” a dollar for dollar reduction in tax obligations of some huge corporations.
This does not mean that the tax credit is inexpensive. A one-year extension will cost $12 billion because it is guaranteed for 10 years of payout. But, most importantly, those costs are hidden from electricity ratepayers and get lumped together with trillions of dollars in the federal budget.
Source
Thursday, December 20, 2012
TAYLOR AND TANTON: Blow off wind-production tax credit
Wind-energy advocates claim that with just one more extension of the 20-year-old "temporary" wind-production tax credit, wind generation finally could become competitive with conventional sources of electricity. The truth is, it's never been competitive -- and has only appeared to be close because some of its costs have been subsidized and others have been ignored.
Here's the issue. Wind generation has three unusual indirect costs that no one wants to discuss:
The cost of keeping available the primary fossil-fired plants that must balance wind's large variations in output, even though adding wind to the system reduces the amount of generation for which they are paid.
The reduced fuel efficiency that wind imposes on those plants.
The cost of long-distance transmission and the losses that come with it.
As The Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity, a report released by American Tradition Institute, shows, adding conservative values for these real but hidden costs to the most recent generation-cost reports from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would nearly double wind's projected cost -- from 8 cents per kilowatt-hour without them to 15 cents per kwh with them (after backing out a depreciation-related subsidy and an atypical operating lifetime assumption as well).
That 15 cents per kwh is triple the current cost of natural-gas generation and 40 percent to 50 percent more than EIA's estimates for the cost of new nuclear or coal generation.
It's also unlikely to be reduced much by either technological advances or further economies of scale because wind is a mature technology, its worldwide market is more than $50 billion per year, and its indirect costs are consequences of two fundamental shortcomings that are independent of the turbines. First, with rare exceptions, wind can operate only as an appendage to either natural-gas or coal-fired generation. Second, its most productive locations are far from major cities.
While the three indirect and infrastructure costs listed above have been acknowledged in research reports, they have not appeared in most generation-cost comparisons. That's because regulatory authorities have not required wind operators to pay for them, they've required consumers to pay for them instead. In an honest, transparent and accountable political system, that should not be an excuse for policymakers to ignore their impact on consumers, jobs and the economy.
How large has that impact been? Based on EIA's numbers and electric system operators' conclusions about the amount of conventional generation capacity wind installations can replace, at the current price of natural gas and before counting any extra costs of transmission, wind generation's cost is at least 6 cents per kwh greater than its benefit -- namely, the fossil fuel it can save and the small amount of conventional generation capacity it can replace.
At wind's current 3.5 percent share of generation, that 6 cents per kilowatt hour translates into an extra $8.5 billion that ratepayers have paid this year and will have to pay every year for as long as existing wind facilities (or their replacements) are kept in operation.
However, that's not the worst of it. While most existing wind facilities were built in locations that could piggyback on existing transmission infrastructure, as these easier opportunities are used up, wind's net cost will increase.
Even with an optimistic onshore wind-transmission scenario such as the one described in a widely referenced National Renewable Energy Laboratory report, the gap between wind's cost and its value would increase to at least 9 cents per kwh.
This means the cost of wind electricity would not break even with the cost of natural-gas-fired electricity unless the delivered price of natural gas were about $20 per million British thermal units, or four to five times today's price. Stated another way, if we increased wind's share of all generation to 10 percent and built a transmission system similar to the one the laboratory proposed, wind's excess cost to consumers would increase to more than $30 billion per year.
Of course, if the price of natural gas went up, wind's cost gap compared to gas-fired electricity would go down. Yet its gap with nuclear and coal-fired electricity would not. In order to keep wind in operation, system operators would be forced to buy the higher-priced gas electricity or revert to coal because in the absence of energy storage or hydro-generation, wind always must be paired with one or the other.
In sum, there is no reason to think wind electricity will become competitive with conventional sources or replace any meaningful amount of fossil fuel. If we continue expanding it, wind generation will increase the cost of electricity, tie us to fossil fuels indefinitely and require us to build transmission lines that otherwise would be unnecessary. Those are no reasons for shifting any of wind's cost from ratepayers to taxpayers. Congress should allow the wind-production tax credit to expire, as it always was intended to do.
Source
Here's the issue. Wind generation has three unusual indirect costs that no one wants to discuss:
The cost of keeping available the primary fossil-fired plants that must balance wind's large variations in output, even though adding wind to the system reduces the amount of generation for which they are paid.
The reduced fuel efficiency that wind imposes on those plants.
The cost of long-distance transmission and the losses that come with it.
As The Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity, a report released by American Tradition Institute, shows, adding conservative values for these real but hidden costs to the most recent generation-cost reports from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would nearly double wind's projected cost -- from 8 cents per kilowatt-hour without them to 15 cents per kwh with them (after backing out a depreciation-related subsidy and an atypical operating lifetime assumption as well).
That 15 cents per kwh is triple the current cost of natural-gas generation and 40 percent to 50 percent more than EIA's estimates for the cost of new nuclear or coal generation.
It's also unlikely to be reduced much by either technological advances or further economies of scale because wind is a mature technology, its worldwide market is more than $50 billion per year, and its indirect costs are consequences of two fundamental shortcomings that are independent of the turbines. First, with rare exceptions, wind can operate only as an appendage to either natural-gas or coal-fired generation. Second, its most productive locations are far from major cities.
While the three indirect and infrastructure costs listed above have been acknowledged in research reports, they have not appeared in most generation-cost comparisons. That's because regulatory authorities have not required wind operators to pay for them, they've required consumers to pay for them instead. In an honest, transparent and accountable political system, that should not be an excuse for policymakers to ignore their impact on consumers, jobs and the economy.
How large has that impact been? Based on EIA's numbers and electric system operators' conclusions about the amount of conventional generation capacity wind installations can replace, at the current price of natural gas and before counting any extra costs of transmission, wind generation's cost is at least 6 cents per kwh greater than its benefit -- namely, the fossil fuel it can save and the small amount of conventional generation capacity it can replace.
At wind's current 3.5 percent share of generation, that 6 cents per kilowatt hour translates into an extra $8.5 billion that ratepayers have paid this year and will have to pay every year for as long as existing wind facilities (or their replacements) are kept in operation.
However, that's not the worst of it. While most existing wind facilities were built in locations that could piggyback on existing transmission infrastructure, as these easier opportunities are used up, wind's net cost will increase.
Even with an optimistic onshore wind-transmission scenario such as the one described in a widely referenced National Renewable Energy Laboratory report, the gap between wind's cost and its value would increase to at least 9 cents per kwh.
This means the cost of wind electricity would not break even with the cost of natural-gas-fired electricity unless the delivered price of natural gas were about $20 per million British thermal units, or four to five times today's price. Stated another way, if we increased wind's share of all generation to 10 percent and built a transmission system similar to the one the laboratory proposed, wind's excess cost to consumers would increase to more than $30 billion per year.
Of course, if the price of natural gas went up, wind's cost gap compared to gas-fired electricity would go down. Yet its gap with nuclear and coal-fired electricity would not. In order to keep wind in operation, system operators would be forced to buy the higher-priced gas electricity or revert to coal because in the absence of energy storage or hydro-generation, wind always must be paired with one or the other.
In sum, there is no reason to think wind electricity will become competitive with conventional sources or replace any meaningful amount of fossil fuel. If we continue expanding it, wind generation will increase the cost of electricity, tie us to fossil fuels indefinitely and require us to build transmission lines that otherwise would be unnecessary. Those are no reasons for shifting any of wind's cost from ratepayers to taxpayers. Congress should allow the wind-production tax credit to expire, as it always was intended to do.
Source
Monday, December 17, 2012
First Wind sees future with sun
First Wind, whose name reveals its historical alliance with a specific form of renewable energy, is making a strategic shift toward the sun, with plans to build large solar projects across the state.
The Boston-based wind-energy developer, which already has developed four such projects in Hawaii, says it has maxed out its potential for that kind of project locally. In 2013 and beyond, it is putting its focus on a soon-to-be-released request for proposals for 200 megawatts of renewable energy from Hawaiian Electric Co., which could include solar.
“It’s fair to say, going forward, we are looking at more solar ...
Source
The Boston-based wind-energy developer, which already has developed four such projects in Hawaii, says it has maxed out its potential for that kind of project locally. In 2013 and beyond, it is putting its focus on a soon-to-be-released request for proposals for 200 megawatts of renewable energy from Hawaiian Electric Co., which could include solar.
“It’s fair to say, going forward, we are looking at more solar ...
Source
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit in Litchfield wind turbine case
LITCHFIELD, N.Y. (WKTV) - The courts have ruled in favor of the Town of Litchfield's ban on industrial wind turbines. There was a lawsuit filed against the town board by leaseholders and their relatives. This ruling means the proposal to building 492 foot industrial turbines in the town- can not move forward.
Supreme court justice Norman Seigel made the ruling on December 6th. The plaintiffs did not challenge any particular provision of the law, which allows wind energy facilities up to 50 kilowatts for personal use, but bans the construction of larger turbines. The law was enacted in March 2012 after two years of deliberations.
Judge Seigel ruled in favor of the town's request for dismissal.
December 7, 2012
New York
Supreme court justice Norman Seigel made the ruling on December 6th. The plaintiffs did not challenge any particular provision of the law, which allows wind energy facilities up to 50 kilowatts for personal use, but bans the construction of larger turbines. The law was enacted in March 2012 after two years of deliberations.
Judge Seigel ruled in favor of the town's request for dismissal.
December 7, 2012
New York
Monday, December 10, 2012
New York State Windpower: Enough Business/Government Cronyism
While Invenergy waits for the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) to be extended by this ‘Lame Duck’ Congress, as expressed in the 12/4/12 Batavia Daily News article: “Orangeville windfarm waits on the tax credit,” there are thousands of local tax- and rate-paying citizens who are eagerly awaiting the expiration, permanent expiration, of this $0.022/kWh subsidy. The PTC is nothing more than a tax-shelter-generator for wealthy, multinational, rent-seeking corporations like Invenergy.
How does a business plan dependent on massive taxpayer-funded handouts for profitability make it past the drawing board in the first place?!? Any of us would have filed such a plan to its rightful place—in the garbage can.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)– with the help of political cronies in high places–have attempted, and failed to push the PTC through various bills, not once, not twice, but FIVE (5) times in a little over a year. Congressmen were inundated with letters, e-mails and phone calls each of those (5) previous attempts from a lot of us telling them to say NO to the PTC–which they did. Yet, here it comes again.
No Means NO!
We hope that our elected “public servants” understand that NO means NO! “We the People” do NOT want more wasteful spending on an inefficient, unreliable, antiquated energy source that ruins peoples’ lives, kills hundreds of thousands of birds a year, does nothing to significantly reduce CO2 emissions, and has exorbitant costs to boot.
The sad reality is, however, that with 66 corporate lobbyists for every elected official roaming the halls in Washington, D.C., Big Corporate Big Bucks are working hard to buy the legislation that best suits their bottom lines – taxpayers and sound science be damned.
With 250 industrial wind turbines already strewn across Wyoming County, a number of our rural Townships have been turned into industrial wind factories – devastating the quality of life and property values of many local residents. These peoples’ homes have been rendered virtually worthless. Many of these folks can’t afford to take a huge loss, so they end up stuck there – many suffering from the ill effects of ‘infrasound’ known as “Wind Turbine Syndrome.”
Rural Blight
The desperation of those stuck living amongst industrial wind installations is evident within this e-mail I recently received from one of those residents:
We are at our wits end. My last call to Invenergy two days ago was, needless to say, useless. I told her to shut them off at night or I will cut the locks off and do it my self! My next e-mail will be to the Sheriff — again! If I can get arrested, just maybe I will get my day in court. We have spent at least $20k so far, and are out of money. The health dept also refuses to return my calls.”
It is hard to believe that treating our neighbors like this is actually going on in America today, but it is. All for “the love of money – the root of so many kinds of evil.
Sadly, NYS officials have publicly acknowledged that ‘infrasound’ is a problem from industrial wind factories worldwide, yet they have done absolutely nothing to stop this corporate assault on their taxpaying citizens.
Governor Cuomo has remained shamefully silent, despite lawsuits by NYS citizens who are suing Iberdrola because of the noise issue, and calls to do a long overdue health study. (I wonder if Governor Cuomo would buy one of these noise-damaged homes and move his family in there…!?)
The sad thing is that all of this devastation is for naught. Industrial wind is NOT economically, environmentally, nor scientifically sound energy policy – period.
No Intellectual Justification
The wind industry exists because of their claims that wind would significantly reduce CO2 emissions and thereby reduce Global Warming. After decades of giving $BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to RICH multi-national corporations like GE, BP, Iberdrola, NextEra, AES, FPL, First Wind, Invenergy, etc, CO2 emissions have NOT been significantly reduced – ANYWHERE!
Since none of the volatile wind production is indexed to actual reductions in fossil fuel generation or CO2 emissions (because it can’t achieve those reductions), the wind PTC is useful only as a means of reducing tax obligations for Stony Creek Wind’s equity partners.
Income generation through tax avoidance has been what the wind industry has been about since the days of ENRON, once the nation’s leading wind producer. Massaging the tax code via phony calls for more “renewable energy” has yielded multinational corporations like General Electric and Florida Power & Light a fortune over the last decade — they haven’t paid a dime in federal income taxes.
To rally support for the PTC corporate welfare program, AWEA is now focusing on their “jobs creation” claims — which are plain, unadulterated hogwash. As anyone who’s done an ounce of research on the wind issue knows – wind is actually a NET JOBS LOSER.
As was reported in the article, NYS Money Road to Nowhere, “On a per kWh basis, wind receives 80 times the public subsidies received by fossil fuels, but produces no reliable electricity capacity and very few American jobs. In fact, for every green job that wind supposedly creates, it destroys two to four regular jobs – in large part due to “skyrocketing” electricity rates.”
Crony Corruptocrats
Beyond all the “green” energy pie-in-the-sky promises that morally-bankrupt wind salesmen or crony-Corruptocrats may offer in the name of The Wind Farm Scam, the incivility of throwing up scores of useless machines (they would be considered lemons if they were any other sort of modern machine or appliance) is a sad testimony about how cheaply people’s values can be bought, and how little many care for the welfare of their neighbors.
If people wonder why the world is in the sad shape it is in, they need look no further than the neighbors stuck living within the massive footprints of dysfunctional wind factories, whom they are choosing to ignore. Selling ones’ neighbors out for the biggest “Swindle” to ever come down the pike is hardly what Jesus had in mind when He told us, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
It’s time to END the PTC! For more information, see: http://ptcfacts.Info/
Source
How does a business plan dependent on massive taxpayer-funded handouts for profitability make it past the drawing board in the first place?!? Any of us would have filed such a plan to its rightful place—in the garbage can.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)– with the help of political cronies in high places–have attempted, and failed to push the PTC through various bills, not once, not twice, but FIVE (5) times in a little over a year. Congressmen were inundated with letters, e-mails and phone calls each of those (5) previous attempts from a lot of us telling them to say NO to the PTC–which they did. Yet, here it comes again.
No Means NO!
We hope that our elected “public servants” understand that NO means NO! “We the People” do NOT want more wasteful spending on an inefficient, unreliable, antiquated energy source that ruins peoples’ lives, kills hundreds of thousands of birds a year, does nothing to significantly reduce CO2 emissions, and has exorbitant costs to boot.
The sad reality is, however, that with 66 corporate lobbyists for every elected official roaming the halls in Washington, D.C., Big Corporate Big Bucks are working hard to buy the legislation that best suits their bottom lines – taxpayers and sound science be damned.
With 250 industrial wind turbines already strewn across Wyoming County, a number of our rural Townships have been turned into industrial wind factories – devastating the quality of life and property values of many local residents. These peoples’ homes have been rendered virtually worthless. Many of these folks can’t afford to take a huge loss, so they end up stuck there – many suffering from the ill effects of ‘infrasound’ known as “Wind Turbine Syndrome.”
Rural Blight
The desperation of those stuck living amongst industrial wind installations is evident within this e-mail I recently received from one of those residents:
We are at our wits end. My last call to Invenergy two days ago was, needless to say, useless. I told her to shut them off at night or I will cut the locks off and do it my self! My next e-mail will be to the Sheriff — again! If I can get arrested, just maybe I will get my day in court. We have spent at least $20k so far, and are out of money. The health dept also refuses to return my calls.”
It is hard to believe that treating our neighbors like this is actually going on in America today, but it is. All for “the love of money – the root of so many kinds of evil.
Sadly, NYS officials have publicly acknowledged that ‘infrasound’ is a problem from industrial wind factories worldwide, yet they have done absolutely nothing to stop this corporate assault on their taxpaying citizens.
Governor Cuomo has remained shamefully silent, despite lawsuits by NYS citizens who are suing Iberdrola because of the noise issue, and calls to do a long overdue health study. (I wonder if Governor Cuomo would buy one of these noise-damaged homes and move his family in there…!?)
The sad thing is that all of this devastation is for naught. Industrial wind is NOT economically, environmentally, nor scientifically sound energy policy – period.
No Intellectual Justification
The wind industry exists because of their claims that wind would significantly reduce CO2 emissions and thereby reduce Global Warming. After decades of giving $BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to RICH multi-national corporations like GE, BP, Iberdrola, NextEra, AES, FPL, First Wind, Invenergy, etc, CO2 emissions have NOT been significantly reduced – ANYWHERE!
Since none of the volatile wind production is indexed to actual reductions in fossil fuel generation or CO2 emissions (because it can’t achieve those reductions), the wind PTC is useful only as a means of reducing tax obligations for Stony Creek Wind’s equity partners.
Income generation through tax avoidance has been what the wind industry has been about since the days of ENRON, once the nation’s leading wind producer. Massaging the tax code via phony calls for more “renewable energy” has yielded multinational corporations like General Electric and Florida Power & Light a fortune over the last decade — they haven’t paid a dime in federal income taxes.
To rally support for the PTC corporate welfare program, AWEA is now focusing on their “jobs creation” claims — which are plain, unadulterated hogwash. As anyone who’s done an ounce of research on the wind issue knows – wind is actually a NET JOBS LOSER.
As was reported in the article, NYS Money Road to Nowhere, “On a per kWh basis, wind receives 80 times the public subsidies received by fossil fuels, but produces no reliable electricity capacity and very few American jobs. In fact, for every green job that wind supposedly creates, it destroys two to four regular jobs – in large part due to “skyrocketing” electricity rates.”
Crony Corruptocrats
Beyond all the “green” energy pie-in-the-sky promises that morally-bankrupt wind salesmen or crony-Corruptocrats may offer in the name of The Wind Farm Scam, the incivility of throwing up scores of useless machines (they would be considered lemons if they were any other sort of modern machine or appliance) is a sad testimony about how cheaply people’s values can be bought, and how little many care for the welfare of their neighbors.
If people wonder why the world is in the sad shape it is in, they need look no further than the neighbors stuck living within the massive footprints of dysfunctional wind factories, whom they are choosing to ignore. Selling ones’ neighbors out for the biggest “Swindle” to ever come down the pike is hardly what Jesus had in mind when He told us, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
It’s time to END the PTC! For more information, see: http://ptcfacts.Info/
Source
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Deval Patrick & Paul Gaynor: Crony Capitalism At First Wind
The third fire at First Wind’s Kahuku Wind project since operations began in March of 2011 spewed lead and lasted for three days. The publicly-funded multimillion dollar Xtreme Battery storage facility filled with toxic smoke, and 12,000 batteries were completely destroyed. Hawaii News Now reports some fear this environmental threat will be repeated at First Wind’s other projects.
Hawaii Free Press provides a grim prognosis for Kahuku Wind:
“Recent developments reduce the chances that First Wind will ever be able to repair the defective turbines which were supposed to power the burned batteries at Kahuku.”
Boston-based First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor is Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s appointed green policy advisor under the Global Warming Solutions Act. Gaynor is also appointed co-chair of the Mass Department of Environmental Protection Advisory Committee “Low Carbone Energy Supply Subcommittee.” First Wind has benefitted by a $117 million loan guarantee for (12) Clipper Liberty wind turbines at Kahuku despite a trade secret between Clipper Wind and First Wind executed to obscure from the public information about structural and mechanical problems ongoing with Clipper wind turbines.
Cash-strapped-Clipper, founded by Enron’s James Dehlsen, was recently dumped by the parent company United Technology Corporation UTC to Platinum Equity of CA that expressed no interest in providing remedy to Clipper’s $300 million costs in unscheduled maintenance. First Wind has deployed Clipper Liberty wind turbines in projects across the US according to court documents, with 12 newly installed but idle at Kahuku Wind, by loan of $117 million backed by the public.
First Wind recently sought a writ of attachment from the courts against Clipper Wind for $59.5 million dollars in Cedar Rapids, with arbitration proceeding in Chicago. A similar case has been filed against Clipper under sealed documents in Santa Barbara, CA. The (Iowa) Gazette reported on November 3, 2012: “Clipper has not only ceased production of these turbines, but has wrongfully refused to return the advance payments, even though it has no plans to meet its contractual obligations to produce and deliver the turbines to first wind,” the lawsuit said.”
Massachusetts’ Deval Patrick Administration in May of 2009 identified the long beleaguered Clipper Wind as the Wind Turbine Technology Testing Facility's first customer.
While the Pacific Coast Business Times reported on November 16, 2012, “Clipper Windpower appears ready to implement a plan to eliminate all of its South Coast positions and shutter its Carpinteria headquarters by early next year.”
The Charlestown Wind Turbine Technology Testing Center has received ARRA stimulus of $24.7 million, and $13.2 million in grants and loans from Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MACEC), with Founding Chairman former MA Executive Secretary of Energy Ian Bowles. MACEC, formed under the Patrick Administration’s Jobs Act, collects ratepayer dollars to invest in green business ventures of questionable public merit. This publicly-funded $40 million dollar Wind Turbine Technology Testing Center, operated by MACEC, has provided 0.00 jobs for the past 1.5 years according to the federal government's recovery tracker.
NECN Boston refers to First Wind as 'New England’s largest wind developer.' And, waving a bright red flag Hawaii Free Press refers to First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor as the ‘Hawaii Wind Developer tied to Largest-ever asset seizure by anti-Mafia police.’ UPC First Wind got its start when Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) alum Paul Gaynor was tapped by UPC Group to bring the success of wind projects in Italy, Italian Vento Power Corporation (IVPC), to the United States according to WPI Summer News 2005.
While multiple news outlets, including the Financial Times, report that the President of Italian Wind Energy Association and Director of the IVPC was arrested on “charges related to fraud involved in obtaining public subsidies to construct wind farms” in November of 2009 during Operation “Gone with the Wind.” Oreste Vigorito of IVPC was convicted in July of 2012.
According to House Budget Committee’s ‘Empty Promise of Green Jobs’ study, “The Costly Consequences of Crony Capitalism” 11/21/11:
First Wind Holdings received a $117 million loan guarantee in March of 2010. First Wind withdrew its initial public offering in October of 2010, due to a lack of investor demand. According to the Boston Globe, investors shied away from the company because “First Wind owes more than $500 million, loses money on a steady basis, and reports a negative cash flow.”
The House Oversight Committee Report of March 20, 2012 titled, 'The Department of Energy’s Disastrous Management of Loan Guarantee Program' provides blistering criticism of green company executives lining their pockets before filing for bankruptcy in MA. First Wind, developer of "Kahuku" is identified as (S&P “Junk” rated) in this report.
The Interior Department photo above was actually used for promotional purposes by DOI for First Wind’s Kawailoa project in Oahu. It’s troubling that Secretary Salazar has ignored the catastrophic and publicly-funded failures of First Wind and Xtreme Battery at Kahuku Wind in Oahu. Awarding public subsidies to "Junk" rated wind companies whose technology has ongoing mechanical and structural problems under "trade secret” is an outrage.
Neither the Obama nor the MA Patrick Administration have picked a winner in First Wind so much as they have sealed the fate of tax and ratepayers funding First Wind, affiliates’ and subsidiaries’, vendors’ and dependents’ failures. If the objectives are low-cost green jobs, reliable and affordable energy sources that are reasonably safe, we’ve not met these with public funding, grants and loan guarantees to the US pioneers of UPC First Wind.
Barbara Durkin is the green-energy reporter for the Daily Bail. She has spent the past decade interfacing with regulators and stakeholders in the Ad Hoc review of the "world's largest" Cape Wind offshore wind project. Her independent investigation of wind energy cost vs. benefits has expanded beyond the shores of Nantucket Sound to include land-based renewable energy.
Source
Hawaii Free Press provides a grim prognosis for Kahuku Wind:
“Recent developments reduce the chances that First Wind will ever be able to repair the defective turbines which were supposed to power the burned batteries at Kahuku.”
Boston-based First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor is Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s appointed green policy advisor under the Global Warming Solutions Act. Gaynor is also appointed co-chair of the Mass Department of Environmental Protection Advisory Committee “Low Carbone Energy Supply Subcommittee.” First Wind has benefitted by a $117 million loan guarantee for (12) Clipper Liberty wind turbines at Kahuku despite a trade secret between Clipper Wind and First Wind executed to obscure from the public information about structural and mechanical problems ongoing with Clipper wind turbines.
Cash-strapped-Clipper, founded by Enron’s James Dehlsen, was recently dumped by the parent company United Technology Corporation UTC to Platinum Equity of CA that expressed no interest in providing remedy to Clipper’s $300 million costs in unscheduled maintenance. First Wind has deployed Clipper Liberty wind turbines in projects across the US according to court documents, with 12 newly installed but idle at Kahuku Wind, by loan of $117 million backed by the public.
First Wind recently sought a writ of attachment from the courts against Clipper Wind for $59.5 million dollars in Cedar Rapids, with arbitration proceeding in Chicago. A similar case has been filed against Clipper under sealed documents in Santa Barbara, CA. The (Iowa) Gazette reported on November 3, 2012: “Clipper has not only ceased production of these turbines, but has wrongfully refused to return the advance payments, even though it has no plans to meet its contractual obligations to produce and deliver the turbines to first wind,” the lawsuit said.”
Massachusetts’ Deval Patrick Administration in May of 2009 identified the long beleaguered Clipper Wind as the Wind Turbine Technology Testing Facility's first customer.
While the Pacific Coast Business Times reported on November 16, 2012, “Clipper Windpower appears ready to implement a plan to eliminate all of its South Coast positions and shutter its Carpinteria headquarters by early next year.”
The Charlestown Wind Turbine Technology Testing Center has received ARRA stimulus of $24.7 million, and $13.2 million in grants and loans from Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MACEC), with Founding Chairman former MA Executive Secretary of Energy Ian Bowles. MACEC, formed under the Patrick Administration’s Jobs Act, collects ratepayer dollars to invest in green business ventures of questionable public merit. This publicly-funded $40 million dollar Wind Turbine Technology Testing Center, operated by MACEC, has provided 0.00 jobs for the past 1.5 years according to the federal government's recovery tracker.
NECN Boston refers to First Wind as 'New England’s largest wind developer.' And, waving a bright red flag Hawaii Free Press refers to First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor as the ‘Hawaii Wind Developer tied to Largest-ever asset seizure by anti-Mafia police.’ UPC First Wind got its start when Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) alum Paul Gaynor was tapped by UPC Group to bring the success of wind projects in Italy, Italian Vento Power Corporation (IVPC), to the United States according to WPI Summer News 2005.
While multiple news outlets, including the Financial Times, report that the President of Italian Wind Energy Association and Director of the IVPC was arrested on “charges related to fraud involved in obtaining public subsidies to construct wind farms” in November of 2009 during Operation “Gone with the Wind.” Oreste Vigorito of IVPC was convicted in July of 2012.
According to House Budget Committee’s ‘Empty Promise of Green Jobs’ study, “The Costly Consequences of Crony Capitalism” 11/21/11:
First Wind Holdings received a $117 million loan guarantee in March of 2010. First Wind withdrew its initial public offering in October of 2010, due to a lack of investor demand. According to the Boston Globe, investors shied away from the company because “First Wind owes more than $500 million, loses money on a steady basis, and reports a negative cash flow.”
The House Oversight Committee Report of March 20, 2012 titled, 'The Department of Energy’s Disastrous Management of Loan Guarantee Program' provides blistering criticism of green company executives lining their pockets before filing for bankruptcy in MA. First Wind, developer of "Kahuku" is identified as (S&P “Junk” rated) in this report.
The Interior Department photo above was actually used for promotional purposes by DOI for First Wind’s Kawailoa project in Oahu. It’s troubling that Secretary Salazar has ignored the catastrophic and publicly-funded failures of First Wind and Xtreme Battery at Kahuku Wind in Oahu. Awarding public subsidies to "Junk" rated wind companies whose technology has ongoing mechanical and structural problems under "trade secret” is an outrage.
Neither the Obama nor the MA Patrick Administration have picked a winner in First Wind so much as they have sealed the fate of tax and ratepayers funding First Wind, affiliates’ and subsidiaries’, vendors’ and dependents’ failures. If the objectives are low-cost green jobs, reliable and affordable energy sources that are reasonably safe, we’ve not met these with public funding, grants and loan guarantees to the US pioneers of UPC First Wind.
Barbara Durkin is the green-energy reporter for the Daily Bail. She has spent the past decade interfacing with regulators and stakeholders in the Ad Hoc review of the "world's largest" Cape Wind offshore wind project. Her independent investigation of wind energy cost vs. benefits has expanded beyond the shores of Nantucket Sound to include land-based renewable energy.
Source
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