Why Do Taxpayer-Subsidized Businesses So Often Fail?

Subsidize renewable energy? What a great idea! If you like wasting money. SunEdison, which once described itself as the “largest global renewable energy development company” and was America’s fastest-growing renewable energy company, filed for bankruptcy April 21. It seems that $1.5 billion combined subsidies and loan guarantees (including $650 million in grants and tax credits—i.e., outright handouts)

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How Economically Competitive is “Renewable Energy”?

Condemnation’s always most credible when issued by a supporter. That’s what the renewable energy sector got from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s U.S. Renewable Portfolio Standards 2016 Annual Status Report, which states right in its highlights: “More than half of all growth in renewable electricity (RE) generation (60%) and capacity (57%) since 2000 is associated with

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Did You Want Electricity with Your Fried Eagle?

Let’s see now. The controversial Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, financed with $1.5 billion in federal loans, using sunlight reflected from 170,000 mirrors to heat boilers atop 450-foot-high towers, received on average $200 per megawatt-hour during summer months and $135 for the rest of the year but is likely to go bust. Meanwhile, PG&E pays $57

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Getting a Grasp on Grid Reliability Issues with Wind and Solar

Critics of calls for rapid replacement of coal and natural gas with wind and solar to power the grid often argue that the intermittency of wind and solar destabilize the electrical power grid, making brownouts and blackouts, which are costly and often life threatening, more likely. The basic point is that simple to make, but

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