In July 2010 Barack Obama praised the success of Amonix solar manufacturing plant.
The Obama Administration dumped more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants on the green energy giant.
President Barack Obama spoke about the economy at the University of Nevada Las Vegas in August 2010. In his address, President Obama described Amonix as a “success story”.
This week it went bust.
The Las Vegas Journal Review reported:
The Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility about a year after it opened.
Officials at Amonix headquarters in Seal Beach, Calif., have not responded to repeated calls for comment this week, but the company began selling equipment, from automated tooling systems to robotic welding cells, in an online auction Wednesday.
A designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic solar power systems, Amonix received $6 million in federal tax credits for the North Las Vegas plant and a $15.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2007 for research and development.
Rene Kenerly, a former material and supply manager at Amonix, said the plant has been idle since May 1, when he was laid off. At its peak, the plant had about 700 employees working three shifts a day to produce solar panels for a utility in Amarosa, Colo., he said.
Just last week David G. Frantz, Acting Executive Director of the Loan Program Office for the U.S. Department of Energy, called the DOE Loan Guarantee program an “enormous success.” With the demise of Amonix there have now been 20 clean energy companies supported by President Obama’s stimulus that are failing or have filed for bankruptcy costing billions of dollars.
And you’re stuck with the bill.