Ray Jay wrote:Sematech is a consortium of companies. Evergreen is a single company.

In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream.

. . .

A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.

Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development.

. . .

“Companies and public policy officials really overestimated how much consumers care about energy efficiency,” said Sheeraz Haji, chief executive of the Cleantech Group, a market research firm. “People care about their wallet and the comfort of their home, but it’s not a sexy thing.”

Job training programs intended for the clean economy have also failed to generate big numbers. The Economic Development Department in California reports that $59 million in state, federal and private money dedicated to green jobs training and apprenticeship has led to only 719 job placements — the equivalent of an $82,000 subsidy for each one.

A solar energy company that intends to file for bankruptcy received $535 million in backing from the federal government and has a cozy history with Democrats and the Obama administration, campaign finance records show.

Shareholders and executives of Solyndra, a green energy company producing solar panels, fundraised for and donated to the Obama administration to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a key Obama backer who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the president’s election campaign, is one of Solyndra’s primary investors. Kaiser himself donated $53,500 to Obama’s 2008 election campaign, split between the DSCC and Obama For America. Kaiser also made several visits to the White House and appeared at some White House events next to Obama officials.

Campaign finance records show Kaiser and Solyndra executives and board members donated $87,050 total to Obama’s election campaign.

And now, just two years after securing a half-billion-dollar federal loan, Solyndra has said that it will declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

rickyp wrote:I believe Jefferson would (snip), would commit his government to strategic investments that would aid private industries in providing just that for his country. Along the lines of the investments in canals, roads, computers..

Really? I am curious as to what brought you to this conclusion? I ask this because this is pretty much the antithesis of Jefferson's political philosophy

rickyp wrote:
An interesting study was done by the Venture Capital Group DBL. They found that US public sector subsidies of energy sources go back 100 years. They found that annual federal subsidy for highly profitable oil and gas sector was nearly $5billion a year between 1918 and 2009. For nuclear sine 1947, nearly $3.5 billion. By comparison the subsidy for green energy since 1994 is $340 million annually.
And yet no one says that the subsidies for oil and gas achieved nothing, or were "picking winners and losers". Rather those sectors, for years were respected winners in the American economy...

Here's the study.

http://www.dblinvestors.com/documents/D ... _paper.pdf

rickyp wrote:And yet the first energy policy relating to energy, the Coal Tarrifs existed throughout his Presidency with his support.

rickyp wrote:Still, I concede imagining the decisions a man of 1800 would make 150 to 200 years later in a far different world is a little shaky. Why you'd think I was arguing "the intent of the founders."

rickyp wrote:Archduke the Federal tariff on imported coal lasted from 1789 to 1842.
Jefferson may have been a proponent of Laissezz Faire trade but in this particular case Jefferson actively nurtured the nascent coal industry through the rentention of this tarrif.

rickyp wrote:My point in rising this, as this study is new information to me, is that it supports the idea that intervention has been a force for positive economic benefit for the US throughout its history.
And that recent political claims either ignore this history or seek to distort or reimagine .

Regarding the study, you get very different results if you look at subsidy per unit of energy produced From that perspective, solar and wind have received much more subsidy than oil, gas, or coal. Measuring total subsidy without adjusting for output as a result of subsidy seems misleading to me.

Archduke Russell John wrote:Perhaps I will. Though, I question the study. I will admit to only having skimmed it. However, after reading the C.V.'s of the authors, if a similar study was put out by authors with connections to big oil similar to the environmental lobby these two have, I am sure it would be dismissed as nothing but the work of paid shills.

danivon wrote:You question it based on tu quoque?

rickyp wrote:And Archdule, I'll grant that you might be right about Jefferson. Even without you submitting any evidence that he actually attempted action of any kind against the coal tarrif. (Whereas I do have the actual existence of the tarrif to support my claim.) Perhaps you'll now write to the authors of the study (DBL) and lecture them on the incorrect and misleading title on their study?