60 Minutes Exposed the Lie that is Green Energy

60 Minutes did an expose showing the failure of the "green" energy push by Obama. 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VHlE2FH...

They have blown over $150 Billion! on this boondoggle.  And that doesn't count the wasted monies of gasohol.  And the wasted opportunity costs that the moneys could have generated if they had been spent on better investments like training workers on O & G industry jobs.

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Permalink Reply by scott peterson on January 22, 2014 at 4:05am

Awesome, nice job!

Permalink Reply by Mark McGrail on January 22, 2014 at 4:22am

Matthew,

Sounds like a mutant, he must have been drinking frac fluid like that purple squirrel. Chuckle

Permalink Reply by No thanks on January 21, 2014 at 6:15am

Hey, take a look at this.

60 Minutes screws up again, this time on clean energy
by Hunter Jan 06, 2014 11:01am PST
I'm not quite sure what is up with 60 Minutes lately, but their story pitch meetings seem to have taken a turn for the silly.
[O]n Sunday, 60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl concluded that "instead of breakthroughs, the [cleantech] sector suffered a string of expensive tax-funded flops" after stimulus investments, including the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program. However, 60 Minutes simply ignored the cleantech breakthroughs that did occur in order to advance this misleading narrative. of the story
The central premise appears to be, to use the shorthand word for things, Oh My God Solyndra, and that the government embarked in a terrible boondoggle by helping to fund promising clean energy companies because, shudder, some of them didn't work out. How many of them didn't work out, you might ask, that being rather central to the premise of boondoggle?

Three percent. Well, less than three percent. Most fine capitalists would salivate at a 97 percent success rate—no, strike that, most fine capitalists would salivate at a 60 percent success rate, and kill their own mothers to achieve one in the 90s. It also means that, statistically speaking, the government stimulus program to jump-start clean energy companies has met with considerably fewer failures over the years than, say, 60 Minutes reporting has in the last few months. If we're talking about which things ought to be shut down or at least given a good, solid looking at, just saying.

More on 60 Minutes below the fold.

The Stahl effort seems to have suffered the fatal but common journalistic flaw of conflating different things and pretending, for the sake of narrative, that they are the same. It is certainly true that the "clean tech" sector became a darling of the venture capitalist community, a few years back, and that some number of those venture capitalists subsequently lost their shirts on the deals. (Well, their cufflinks. Well, one cufflink. No reason to be maudlin about this.) Don't get me started on the vagaries of venture capital; suffice it to say that it is fashion-driven. The "internet boom" of the Clinton era can still suffice as all-encompassing example, with money pouring into any firm that did things over the magic wires, even if those things were utterly pointless or had no apparent profit potential beyond selling t-shirts with their logo emblazoned on them. Then the things predictably go bust, and smart money wanders off to declare some other sector the new big thing and the dumb money follows them, pours lots of money into another round of mostly arbitrary me-tooisms, and the process begins anew.

If your story is about venture capitalists being sad at losing money, then, point taken; take the story and run with it! Conflating that with the notion that clean energy has itself failed because some of the companies have, though, takes an otherwise interesting story and turns it shallow. Conflating it further with a robustly successful government stimulus program because, shudder, a single-digit percentage of companies later failed—now that takes it from shallow to lazy, as if some poor sap in the back room realized the original story about roving bands of venture capitalists being sad was a meager half-story at best and decided to finish it up with some stock footage of Solyndra!! scraped from the bottom of Darrell Issa's shoe.

So where is the clean tech sector at, in the midst of this supposed bust? Huge new solar farms have been created—are we supposed to be angry that they do not turn sunlight into ice cream? Tens of thousandsof jobs were created—but the profit margins are insufficient for the venture crowd, is that it? The price of solar panels has plummeted due to expanded capacity, something that was very much the point of helping to expand the sector, but it has indeed worked to crowd out some of the companies that could not match the new prices—welcome to capitalism.

What, precisely, is the story here? What was the purpose? "Some companies fail" seems a damn weak investigative premise, though certainly at least a dirt-simple one. This seems like one of those stories that was shopped around for a while—hello, fine journalists, I can get you some insight from some Sad People With Money on why they are currently Sad, but the declaration that because certain wealthy people are sad the entire clean energy sector has "very little to show" for itself, to use the 60 Minutes declaration, is pompous, Wall-Streetish drivel. You could take the exact same footage and make a story about how the private sector tried mightily to replicate the modest successes of a utilitarian government stimulus program and instead fell on their profit-chasing ears; it would certainly be a more defensible narrative, though you would run the real risk of making certain people even sadder. You could take the same footage and do a lot of stories, in fact—so why take a boom-bust cycle among the tight-knit venture capitalist community and morph it into clean tech is doomed and gubbermint has a lot to answer for here?

To twist a metaphor from Joe Romm, it would be like doing a story on how AOL isn't doing too well these days and using that to declare that THE INTERNET IS DOOMED. It shows narrative preconception, not analysis, and we ought to try a little harder than that.  

Permalink Reply by Jim White on January 21, 2014 at 8:14am

good good good

Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on January 21, 2014 at 1:10pm

Apparently, 60 Minutes started a solar storm.  No Thanks is a new member and this was his/her first post.  Perhaps a paid industry shill?

And the issue is that the government has no right to spend tax payer dollars like a venture capitalist.  The gov may grant promising research projects but they should not be funding start up companies or new companies with unproven technology. Especially ones run by Democrat campaign donators. Let the venture capitalists do that and risk their own or investor monies.

Hundreds of thousands of better jobs could have been created if that kind of mullah had been invested wisely.

The rest of his/her post is too much drivel to worth discussion.

Permalink Reply by Bob Rock on January 21, 2014 at 1:22pm

The solar pannels are made in Chinia with coal shipped from Australia. When this so called green energy can be made with this so called green energy I will be amazed. In mean time when temp drops to below zero tonight I might just turn up my thermostat 1 degree to make it feel just a little warmer tonight! I love gas. I don't quite think I'm ready for my heat to come from some silly solar pannel or a wind mill that I drive by once in awhile and never see it turning.  What a joke. Maybe there trying to protect the birds by it not turning,or maybe just no wind period.

Permalink Reply by No thanks on January 21, 2014 at 3:55pm

My my, lots of assumptions by readers.  LOL!  I am not a new member nor is this my first post; altho, it's been a long time.  Just thought it was interesting to look at the subject from a different point of view.  I am not an "anti-fossil fuel zealot".  I dont think the gas and oil industries are necessarily "evil".  It seems to me that any smart person would be hoping that all forms of energy succeed to help us in the future.  I look up different takes on many subjects to aid me in making up my mind.  Seeing the same story written by pro/con, conservative/liberal reporters can give me a truer take on what is actually going on.  A successful new year to you all.  

Permalink Reply by David Perotto on January 21, 2014 at 1:29pm

No Thanks,

I have but one simple question for you and every anti-fossil fuel zealot. On this frigid night (-2 F in my city) which sector are you counting on for heat? Is it the renewable sector or is it the "evil" oil and gas industry. Well for me, clean burning natural gas has me comfy and be damned to the renewable, unreliable green option. Thank God for fracing!!!!

Permalink Reply by Mark McGrail on January 21, 2014 at 2:23pm

...and remember. fracing saves lives. Burning coal puts particulate matter into the atmosphere (PM25  = particulate matter 25 microns or smaller). These particles get buried deep in human lungs causing several diseases and 75,000 deaths anualy in the U.S.

NG produces less and smaller particulate matter which reduces health concerns.

HOW DO WE GET NG ? FRACING !

FRACING saves lives!

Permalink Reply by lynn on January 21, 2014 at 3:12pm

Try reading the report by The Institute for Energy Research.  Try actually looking up the success and failure rate of the companies that received stimulus funds.  'Tens of thousands of jobs created', thousands upon thousands of those jobs were gone in three years.   Venture Capitalists should be the investors who finance businesses, not American taxpayers.  

Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on January 21, 2014 at 3:13pm

Lynn; have a link?

Permalink Reply by Robert W. Sandera on January 21, 2014 at 4:26pm

HA HA HA HILARIOUS you guys all need to turn the TV OFF. It’s all controlled by the very people destroying us. Why do you think I am seriously running for President this time? Partly because if I don’t there may be nothing left of all of us. For one I have free energy and its clean etc. I been using it almost 4 years. They stopped something like 250 press releases getting out etc.

I would have to be President using my back end knowledge of how the government really works and want caused this obtained by a 25 year investigation and Constitutional law specialist to overcome a crooked congress and restore the Constitution that we never had by the way unless you were a million are to defend it. 

You worry about billions wasted on created synthetic oil etc worry about why Bush started giving Pakistan 20 billion every year to hate us and hide Bin Laden. The entire issue was a fraud. Don’t worry I won’t expect anybody to believe me because you’ve been programmed to party allegiance by their owned news for decades.

By the way I finished the blueprint to save the Country Monday Morning with the help from God I prayed for. And I got it down just wait till 2016. THROW THEM ALL OUT.

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