In December 2010 it was revealed that top democrats, including Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), helped a Chinese firm get stimulus cash for a wind farm. Top Democratic fundraisers with links to the White House were behind a proposed wind farm in Texas that stood to get $450 million in stimulus money, even though a Chinese company would operate the farm and its turbines would be built in China. The farm’s backers also had close ties with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his campaign received thousands of dollars in donations from the wind farm’s backers.
Three weeks before Election Day, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., center, arrives for the dedication of a wind farm in Henderson, Nev., on Oct. 12, 2010. With him are, second from left, Kai Huang, deputy mayor of Shenyang, China; Jinxiang Lu, second from right, chairman and CEO of A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese company, and Tom Conway, right, international vice president of the United Steelworkers union. Reid’s support, and the plan to create jobs in Nevada, helped blunt congressional criticism that stimulus money was going to the Chinese company, which also plans a large wind farm in West Texas. The company is hoping to receive money through the U.S. Energy Department. (MSNBC)
Democrats blew $1.3 billion in Nevada on green energy projects and created only 288 permanent jobs – That comes out to $4.6 million per job.
The Nevada Journal reported:
As U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prepares to host his fifth annual National Clean Energy Summit on Aug. 7, a Nevada Journal examinationof Nevada’s renewable energy sector shows that over $1.3 billion in federal funds funneled into geothermal, solar and wind projects since 2009 has yielded and is projected to yield just 288 permanent, full-time jobs.
That’s an initial cost of over $4.6 million per job.
Despite this, Sen. Reid continues to hype Nevada as the “Saudi Arabia of renewable energy,” even though the renewable energy subsidized with federal dollars and mandated under Nevada’s Renewable Portfolio Standard costs consumers and NV Energy, Nevada’s publicly regulated utility company, up to four times as much as fossil fuels, such as natural gas.
Even with these government-granted advantages, the few clean-energy jobs in the state of Nevada are still precarious.
More here.
