I caught the tweet on this from David Roberts of Grist yesterday, but didn’t feel like doing a long post on my Android. He’s really psyched!
Despite GOP jeers, BrightSource succeeds in solar
Over the last year or so, Republicans have woven a tale of collapse and futility around clean energy. Each setback for the industry, each bankruptcy or refinancing, is met with open glee, plastered all over Fox News for weeks on end. In the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney said to Obama, “you don’t just the pick the winners and losers — you pick the losers.â€
I can’t recall ever seeing a major political party rooting for the failure of a growing American industry like this. Is there any precedent? I guess asymmetrical polarization has brought us to uncharted territory.
There’s a difference between “rooting” and “highlighting”, Dave. Also, we expect it to fail, because all Obama did was pump money to campaign contributors without wondering whether this business will have a reasonable chance of succeeding. And he used taxpayer money. I wonder if he put any of his own money into these businesses?
It seems that DOE’s bet on Ivanpah did exactly what it was supposed to do: help BrightSource demonstrate the viability and market value of its product. Now the company has had two bits of good news.
First, yesterday it secured more than $80 million in new private equity financing, bringing its total to $615 million. In a press release, the company says the additional money comes via “Alstom and VantagePoint Capital Partners. Additional investors include DFJ, DBL Investors, Goldman Sachs, Chevron Technology Ventures, CalSTRS and BP Ventures among others.†(Thanks, Chevron!)
And second, later in the day the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously approved two of BrightSource’s new contracts with Southern California Edison. That brings its total CPUC-approved contracts to 10, three with Southern California Edison and seven with PG&E.
So, the good news is that they…..got more money to attempt to make the company viable and some government approvals? Perhaps in Liberal World that is good news, but, good news would be that the company is actually providing viable, consistent power at an affordable price while making a profit. Oh, and let’s take a flashback
BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah solar power project will soon be a humming city with 24-hour lighting, a wastewater processing facility and a gas-fired power plant. To make room, BrightSource has mowed down a swath of desert plants, displaced dozens of animal species and relocated scores of imperiled desert tortoises, a move that some experts say could kill up to a third of them.
I asked the questions then “why do they need a gas-fired power plant? Are they admitting that solar as it stands today can’t even provide power for the solar plant? Oh, and don’t you love how green energy actually seems to destroy the environment?” Ivanpah can’t even seem to provide power for itself, much less consumers.
Enviros also sued to stop Ivanpah, because it would destroy the desert. Back to Dave
Solar thermal with storage is still expensive. On a per-MWh basis, even solar PV beats it. But it has the great advantage of being zero-carbon power that is not intermittent, unlike wind and solar PV.
Hmm. So, it is crazy expensive, which means consumers would see their electricity bills skyrocket, but it is puts out zero carbon! Hooray!!!!!1!!!!!!
SKYROCKET ??? Teach the cost of renewable energy is always going down, fossil fuels are always going up. This is part of the reason why Germany continues to put its resources into renewables.
Germany is moving away from subsidizing wind and solar. We’ve already explained this
Drunk-on-solar leftists hail BrightSource’s “I’m not dead yet” as sign of health.
Adults are not fooled.
[…] Teach at The Pirates Cove is blogging about Warmists, green projects, and Obama. […]
petroleum costs go up and down. the cost of “alternate” has only gone down recently due to massive subsidization from governments. That is not real investment.
16% of the green projects that Obama has given subsidies to, have either failed or there are corruption investigations.
Why even go there? Why push something that is not wanted nor efficient? Why waste valuable tax dollars during a serious economic depression to prop up businesses that should not be alive after 4 decades of trying.
Am sure silly what-his-name has moved out of his mom’s basement and bought a house made out of recycled parts and powered exclusively from solar and wind.
Sunday morning links…
Pic above is a Romney rally in Ohio Sandy update: Current tracking predicts Sandy hitting south of New England, but with rain and wind from southern CT and south. Magician pranks onlookers with ‘head drop’ Southland’s Dia de los Muertos events…
Heh…Brightsource pulled their IPO (that’s Initial Public Offering) because there is ABSOLUTELY NOT FREAKING MARKET FOR GREEN ENERGY. The stock (admitted by the CEO…was worthless).
Add to that the largest investor in BrightSource (holding 25%) is….(drum roll)….a bundler for Obama (Sanjay Wagle). Guess who gets lots of major campaign donations from BrightSource? That would be Harry Reid.
THIS IS ANOTHER SCAM…JUST LIKE THE OTHERS.
Orson
[…] UNEXPECTEDLY: Hooray — Warmists Find One Obama Green Project That Has Not Failed. […]
Wow, batting .003. Congrats.
Hint fot the greenies – YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG! Failure is not a strategy.
Fission is not intermittent, nor does it produce carbon. Plus, it’s a proven source that can compete on price.
I’ll believe global warming is a serious issue when those who tell me global warming is a serious issue start behaving as though global warming is a serious issue.
Almost every solar thermal plant uses natural gas to heat the working fluid to a higher temperature. The solar part does little except to preheat the water, the natural gas provides most of the energy. And yet they get the “solar” subsidies and tax breaks on the gas portion too.
Solar is a scam and always will be.
What is happening is the government is forcing the tax payers to be the “first adapters” of an unproven technology. Is solar PV promising? Yes it is but it will take decades to perfect and most likely some new technology such as fuel cell technology will pass it up.
Energy efficiency in our homes and buildings is where the short term action should be directed. The technology is available, private and governments groups have assembled data and laid out a game plan and it is attainable with a return on investment. Problem is it is decentralized and therefore can’t be used as a political donation mill for corrupt politicians and big business.
Mitt Romney said to Obama, “you don’t just the pick the winners and losers — you pick the losers.â€
Latest example: Obama said he was for the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series over the San Francisco Giants. They are currently down three games to none, a position that no team has ever recovered from to win a World Series. Obama has a reverse Midas touch: Everything he touches turns to crap.
One should note that MATH is not a strong suite for most of the progressives we know, ergo, they never do well playing the ‘What if’ game. Unintended consequences will be their/our undoing. In this case (The Case for Green Energy) people will die making the choice between staying warm and eating because of the costs of this type of thinking. Hyperbole perhaps, indeed, but it is the type of scare crap the guys who are supporting in other venues against conservative ideas with the caveat that this may actually happen.
When it is not your money, it is easy to have alternative goals, other than profit.
It isn’t a “success” until it’s got more than one year of profit to show.