Tag Archives: green jobs

CEI Podcast for September 15, 2011: Solyndra

 

Have a listen here.

Myron Ebell, Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment, takes a look at the brewing Solyndra scandal. Solyndra is a company that makes solar panels and recently declared bankruptcy. In 2009, the federal government gave Solyndra a $535 million loan even though its own analysts predicted the company would go bankrupt in 2011. The company’s cozy relationship with political figures, including a major political donor with an investment stake, make the loan — and its low interest rate — look rather suspicious.

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Regulation of the Day 78: Green Energy Subsidies

Today’s New York Times has a classic dog-bites-man story. The green energy sector is shedding jobs, despite being given billions of taxpayers’ dollars by Presidents Bush and Obama.

As so often happens, regulators’ efforts to change people’s behaviors aren’t working as hoped.

To paraphrase Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren’s work on ethanol subsidies: if it’s commercially viable, then it doesn’t need any subsidies. If it isn’t, no amount of subsidy will make it so.