WASTED: $11.45 MILLION PER "GREEN" JOB

According to the Institute for Energy Research, the Department of Energy has spent nearly $26.32 billion since 2009 on its Section 1703 and 1705 loan programs. However, these two programs only yielded 2,308 permanent jobs - meaning the cost to taxpayers was $11.45 million per job.

As the astronomical cost of the DOE's loan guarantee program indicates, subsidizing renewable energy is not a good deal for taxpayers. But loan guarantees are just one of the ways the federal government bankrolls risky green energy projects. Energy-related tax preferences cost taxpayers about $13.5 billion in FY 2012, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. But solar and wind power, for which the majority of the tax preferences for renewable energy were directed, produced only 3.6 percent of the nation’s generation in 2012. In addition, the Treasury Department's 1603 grant program, which offers cash payments to renewable energy companies, cost taxpayers $5.8 billion in 2012. Many states also subsidize green energy through tax preferences as well as requiring renewable electricity mandates that require a specified amount of electricity to be generated from qualified renewable sources like wind and solar.

Clearly, in terms of "bang for the buck," government programs that coddle renewable energy are losers. In terms of jobs, the losers are the American workers who would otherwise be gainfully employed but for the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars on the administration's obsession with "green energy." As the economy continues to suffer and dollars for federal programs get harder to come by, it is getting increasingly difficult to defend a program that costs so much and produces so little.

The Daily Caller reports that House Republicans recently questioned the Energy Department's estimates of green jobs that were created from its controversial Section 1705 loan program which gave money to the now bankrupt Solyndra.

"Unfortunately, based on Committee staff's review of the redacted annual loan reviews for each project, it appears that these job estimates have failed to materialize, in part, due to the aforementioned bankruptcies and the precarious financial positions of certain other projects," Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to the Energy Department.

Solyndra was the first major loan guarantee failure, and filed for bankruptcy in August 2011 after receiving a $528 million loan guarantee. According to the DOE's loan programs website, none of that money has been recovered.

One of Solyndra's primary investors was billionaire George Kaiser, also an Obama supporter. Kaiser along with other Solyndra executives and board members donated $87,050 total to the president’s election campaign.

The loss to tax payers could have been even greater.  While Solyndra actually received $528 million it was offered $535 million.

Democrat cronyism also reared it's ugly head in the matter of Abound Solar, which filed for bankruptcy last year after drawing down $68 million on a $400 million DOE loan guarantee. An early investor in Abound was Obama bundler Pat Stryker who has given more than $440,000 to Democratic groups and candidates in the last three elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.   

A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation later revealed that Abound was selling underperforming solar panels. According to a source at Abound, "Our solar modules worked...as long as you didn’t put them in the sun." The DOE has only recovered between $7.4 million and $25.6 million on the failed loan - meaning at least $42.4 million in taxpayer funds was never recovered.

As of last October, 33 "green energy" companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers were faltering - either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. The list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

1.  Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2.  SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3.  Solyndra ($535 million)*
4.  Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5.  Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6.  SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7.  First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8.  Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9.  EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21. Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26. GreenVolts ($500,000)
27. Vestas ($50 million)
28. LG Chem’s subsidiary, Compact Power ($151 million)
29. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30. Navistar ($39 million)
31. Satcon ($3 million)*
32. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that had filed for bankruptcy as of October, 2012.