Chemtex Gets Its Government Funded Boondoggle

Chemtex gets its long awaited backing by the USDA. The green energy scam keeps a rolling along, and all in the name of energy independence. In the meantime, the Obama administration is trying to shutdown known, provable and efficient sources of energy such as coal and oil. But hey, what’s a boondoggle amongst our betters?

RALEIGH – A company that wants to turn grasses grown on North Carolina hog farms into motor fuel on Wednesday got the federal backing it wanted before building an ethanol plant supporters think could mark a milestone in the state’s rural economy.

The U.S. Agriculture Department said Wednesday it has approved a loan guarantee worth $99 million for Wilmington-based Chemtex International Inc., backing a larger bank loan for the $170 million project. The company plans to build an ethanol plant near Clinton in Sampson County that will convert high-energy grass varieties into 20 million gallons of ethanol a year. Production is expected to start in 2014.

There is such a high demand for this energy source, the USDA had to bribe local farmers in order to produce the grasses needed for this pie-in-the-sky project.

The company is signing up hog farms to grow the grasses on up to 30,000 acres of hog spray fields, turning that land into a new cash crop for farmers. Water used to suspend and carry hog waste is sprayed on nearly 100,000 acres of farm fields in Sampson, Duplin, and Wayne counties.

Farmers now grow Coastal Bermuda grass to soak up the water-borne nutrients, and landowners must be persuaded to switch to growing energy grasses including miscanthus and switchgrass. The USDA previously approved $4 million that will pay farmers in 11 southeastern North Carolina counties most of their costs of planting the energy grasses the ethanol plant needs.

Will Chemtex become another Solyndra? Or are they too big to fail. Time will tell how many millions or billions of dollars the taxpayers will get screwed out of.

Source: http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/ncwire/ethanol-maker-gets-usda-backing-fuel-plant-1184491

N.C. Taxpayers Scammed by Green Energy Do-Gooders

North Carolinians have fallen victim to the green energy boondoggle. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled into a biofuels center located in Oxford. The facility doesn’t have a viable function other than a coordinator of sorts. Carolina Journal reported the following:

The Biofuels Center is not a science agency, does not produce anything, and has no research labs of its own. Yet it expects to foster an industry that provides 10 percent of North Carolina’s future transportation fuel needs by 2017 and spins off bioplastics, biomaterials, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

The center is working with universities, companies, farmers, growers, counties, and municipalities to create the biofuels sector, Burke said.

The center has awarded nearly $11 million in research grants, conducted education programs, and opened a research and development incubator on its campus.

The center has spawned 20 research projects statewide, and is exploring 17 potential feedstocks — three trees, six energy grasses, four oil-producing crops for diesel, and four starch-producing crops.

Is this a waste of resources and taxpayer largess? A researcher seems to think so:

Not everyone is as enthusiastic about the imminent promise of biofuels. That includes Brandon Scarborough, a Charlotte native and Appalachian State University graduate now working as a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Mont.

“There’s mandate after mandate” from government for ethanol, Scarborough said. “But people aren’t going to buy it when it turns out to be more expensive than thought.”

Government sets arbitrary targets “to drum up support for the program, and the chances of meeting those are probably pretty slim,” he said. That includes a federal push to require ethanol to be 15 percent of the blend in gasoline to goose the market artificially.

There are mandates for cellulosic ethanol production and the amount that needs to be blended in gasoline. The federal Renewable Fuel Standard Program mandates use of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel annually by 2022. But producers have been fined for not blending enough of the fuel.

“The reason they weren’t blending it was because there wasn’t any being made; there isn’t a market,” Scarborough said. “It just isn’t cost effective without massive subsidies.” Biomass producers will get involved once government energy portfolio standards “create a pseudo market” for their crops by government mandate, not consumer demand, Scarborough said.

“Then energy producers are forced to go out and find that [supply], and they lobby governments to encourage people to produce those resources at cost-effective prices to them,” Scarborough said. “It simply cannot survive without some sort of economic incentives, which means taxpayers.”

Creating fuels from biomass is “an inefficient process” because the feedcrops are not energy dense. They require large amounts of land and, of concern for drought-prone North Carolina, lots of water, Scarborough said.

Ethanol delivers “roughly about 30 percent less energy” than gasoline, so even when it’s selling for less per gallon, it costs motorists more because they don’t get as many miles per gallon, he said.

Yep, more money thrown down a do-gooder rat hole. When are we going to learn?

Source: http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=9176

Obama's Green Baron Scams Georgia on Range Fuels Boondoggle

One of Obama’s green energy barons strikes again! Just recently, an ethanol factory in Georgia went belly up, leaving the taxpayers high and dry. And of course, it was one of the Anointed One’s campaign bundlers who brokered the deal. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the following:

The failed Range Fuels wood-to-ethanol factory in southeastern Georgia that sucked up $65 million in federal and state tax dollars was sold Tuesday for pennies on the dollar to another bio-fuel maker with equally grand plans to transform the alternative energy world.

LanzaTech, a New Zealand-based biofuel company, paid $5.1 million for the plant in Soperton. Its main financial backer: Vinod Khosla, a California entrepreneur who also bankrolled Range Fuels, and helped secure its government loans, before Range went bust last year.

LanzaTech hasn't received the same type of loans, but the company has received $7million from the U.S. departments of Energy and Transportation to assist in the development of alternative fuels.

Isn’t that beautiful? Vinod Khosla screwed us twice on the same company. First he secures government backing for one company. It fails. Then he gets the taxpayers to help finance another venture of his; and uses that company to buy the other for pennies on the dollar! That’s amazing! And he’s going to get away with it! Congress should be investigating this. If this isn’t a crime, it sure as hell should be.

Peter Schweizer documented the machinations of Vinod Khosla in his book Throw Them All Out. Here is an excerpt:

Billionaire Vinod Khosla was also a big winner in the taxpayer-funded giveaway. Khosla had been the head of Obama’s India Policy Team during the 2008 election and contributed to Democratic candidates. He was a major investor in Coskata, a relatively new company whose goal is to make fuel out of waste. Coskata received a $250 million loan guarantee from the federal government. Company executives have been quite clear that one important measure of corporate success is the amount of “government money we attract.” Khosla’s Nordic Windpower was approved for another $16 million for a wind power manufacturing facility in Idaho. And his company AltaRock secured $25 million in stimulus money.

But that’s not the end of Vinod Khosla’s government sponsored venturism. As of January 1st, Congress allowed import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol to expire, along with domestic ethanol subsidies. And guess who is invested in Brazilian ethanol?

All good reasons why Reichstul was able to attract serious money. In addition to Case, he enlisted green-fuel advocate and Sun Microsystems (SUNW ) co-founder Vinod Khosla, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, film producer Steve Bing, and former World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn to create Brazilian Renewable Energy Co., or Brenco. The Americans put a total of $31 million into the company, while Brazilians invested $20 million. In March, the group raised nearly $150 million more from U.S. and European investors. Brenco plans to spend $2.2 billion to plant 1.5 million acres of sugarcane, build 10 ethanol mills, and churn out 1 billion gallons a year by 2014, largely for export. Reichstul says he aims to "unlock demand" for the fuel across Europe, Asia, and the U.S

And unlock they did. In 2007, the federal government mandated the following:

In the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) mandates that we need to consume 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. EISA also contains a mandate within the mandate for advanced biofuels, with the applicable volume of cellulosic ethanol set at 250 million gallons this year, 500 million gallons in 2012, and ultimately hitting 16 billion gallons in 2022.

The robber barons of the 19th century would stand aghast at the shamelessness of Obama and his green baron cronies.


Source: http://www.ajc.com/business/georgia-ethanol-plant-sold-1289567.html

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_25/b4039079.htm

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/17/the-ethanol-mandate-needs-to-go/

http://battakiran.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/vinod-khosla-smartest-guy-in-silicon-valley-%E2%80%93-by-richard-shaffer/

Is George Soros Responsible for Ending Ethanol Subsidies and Brazilian Import Tariffs?

As of the beginning of this year, Congress allowed ethanol subsidies to expire. It’s amazing that a 30 year subsidy ended with a whimper, instead of a howl. You would’ve thought the recipients of this largess, along with their elected representatives, would be screaming bloody murder; but it didn’t happen. Why? I say we take a look at one of the biggest manipulators in the history of finance.

George Soros has huge influence in the Democratic Party and the White House. Peter Schweizer documented the shenanigans of this evil genius in his book Throw Them All Out, as outlined in BigGovernment.com:

Mr. Soros met with Mr. Obama’s top economist on February 25, 2009 and twice more with senior officials in the Old Executive Office Building on March 24th and 25th as the stimulus plan was being crafted. Later, Mr. Soros also participated in discussions on financial reform.

Then, in the first quarter of 2009, Mr. Soros went on a stock buying spree in companies that ultimately benefited from the federal stimulus.

Soros doubled his holdings in medical manufacturer Hologic, a company that benefited from stimulus spending on medical systems

Soros tripled his holdings in fiber channel and software maker Emulus, a company that wound up scoring a large amount of federal funds going to infrastructure spending

Soros bought 210,000 shares in Cisco Systems, which came up big in the stimulus lottery

Soros also bought Extreme Networks, which, months later, said it was expanding broadband to rural America “as part of President Obama’s broadband strategy”

Soros bought 1.5 million shares in American Electric Power, a company Mr. Obama gave $1 billion to in June 2009
Soros bought shares in utility company Ameren, which bagged a $540 million Department of Energy loan

Soros bought 250,000 shares of Public Service Enterprise Group, 500,000 shares of NRG Energy, and almost a million shares of Entergy—all companies that came up winners in the Department of Energy taxpayer giveaway that produced the Solyndra debacle.

Soros bought into BioFuel Energy, a company that benefitted when the EPA announced a regulation on ethanol

Soros bought Powerspan in April 2009. Just weeks later, the clean-energy company landed $100 million from the Department of Energy

In the second quarter of 2009, Soros bought education technology giant Blackboard, which became a big recipient of education stimulus money

Soros also bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe and CSX, both beneficiaries of Mr. Obama’s plans for revitalizing the railroads

Soros bought Cognizant Technology Solutions, which scored stimulus funds in education and health care technology

Soros also bought 300,000 shares of Constellation Energy Group and 4.6 million shares of Covanta, both of which landed taxpayers’ money through the stimulus, the former of which bagged $200 million

So on the rare occasion that a government subsidy is allowed to expire, one must cast a suspect eye. And guess what? There is a connection. On the same day,Brazilian ethanol import tariffs also expired. And guess who is heavily invested in that industry? You guessed it: George Soros. Business Week reported the following in 2007:

BETTING BILLIONS

A host of investors seem to think Brazil's ethanol bet is worth it. On June 3, billionaire George Soros visited a Brazilian ethanol mill owned by Buenos Aires food and energy group Adecoagro. Soros is the leading shareholder in the company, which plans to invest $1 billion in four more Brazilian fuel projects by 2015. "We expect the returns to be highly attractive," says Adecoagro President Alan Boyce. In March, private equity firms Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings raised $240 million to fund Brazilian partners operating four ethanol mills. "We think ethanol will be a permanent part of the [global] fuel mix," says Riverstone Managing Director Michael B. Hoffman.

And Congress made damn sure of that. They passed a law in 2007 mandating the following ethanol consumption standards, as reported by the Heritage Foundation:

In the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) mandates that we need to consume 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. EISA also contains a mandate within the mandate for advanced biofuels, with the applicable volume of cellulosic ethanol set at 250 million gallons this year, 500 million gallons in 2012, and ultimately hitting 16 billion gallons in 2022.

How propitious is that? If I didn’t know better, I would say George Soros had a hand in this. But that would be crazy. Wouldn’t it?


Source: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_25/b4039079.htm

http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/21/george-soros-helped-craft-stimulus-then-invested-in-companies-benefiting/

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/17/the-ethanol-mandate-needs-to-go/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=latin_america&sid=aJU.tnrW4Bu8

New Year's Greens and Black Eyed Peas Won't Help at the Pump

Happy New Year, North Carolinians! Did you eat your fill of greens and black eyed peas in the hope of a prosperous 2012? Well, I hope you added another helping to your plate, because we’re getting smacked across the face with higher gas taxes; both federal and state.

Starting January 1st, the state gas tax increased 3.9 cents, making the total excise a record high 38.9 cents a gallon. We are the fifth highest in the nation! Take a bow people. Let’s give a round of applause to our elected officials. And let’s not forget all the “little people” with their insatiable appetite for taxpayer funded programs. This couldn’t have been done without them too.

But that’s not all. The federal government has to get their 4 cents in as well. They are repealing an ethanol subsidy.

The federal government hasn't changed its 18.4-cent gas tax since 1993, but a decision in Washington this year has the effect of a tax hike.

Congress ended a 30-year-old subsidy that reduced taxes by 45 cents on each gallon of ethanol that refiners and wholesalers blend with gasoline. Most gas sold today is 10-percent ethanol, so that works out to 4.5 cents on a gallon of so-called "E10" gasoline.

"Yes, we'll see costs for station operators (and presumably, the public) go up 4.5 cents (at) midnight Dec. 31, and I suspect much of it will be passed along immediately," Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the New Jersey-based Oil Price Information Service, said by email. "That would also be true for (North Carolina) and other states that see higher tax levies on fuel."

Now ending a subsidy is considered a good thing, except for one caveat:

In the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) mandates that we need to consume 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. EISA also contains a mandate within the mandate for advanced biofuels, with the applicable volume of cellulosic ethanol set at 250 million gallons this year, 500 million gallons in 2012, and ultimately hitting 16 billion gallons in 2022

So, we are stuck with a ridiculous law. But no need to fear, Congress in their infinite wisdom lowered the tariffs on Brazilian ethanol, making their imports cheaper than American made ethanol products. All I have to say is thank god for Brazil. Where we would be without their oil and sugar cane fuel byproducts?

The Brazilians must eat a lot of greens and black eyed peas on New Year’s Day. How else could they explain the source of their good fortune?

Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/30/2884741/twin-gas-tax-increases-to-hit.html#storylink=cpy

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/17/the-ethanol-mandate-needs-to-go/

Americans Go Hungry, While Corn Goes to Ethanol Production

The USDA just released a report that projects more corn will go to the production of ethanol, than feed for cattle. That is the first time that has ever happened in this country. At the same time, other crops have experienced loss in yields:

For the first time ever, more of the corn crop may go into gas tanks than into the stomachs of cattle and poultry destined for kitchen tables.

The prediction drew little response last week when it was released by the USDA in its Crop Production and Supply/Demand Report for the 2011 crop season. The USDA kept its prediction for ethanol production demand for corn at 5.05 billion, but lowered demand projections for livestock feed by 100 million bushels to 5 billion bushels.

That fuel now tops livestock as the primary user of corn struck at least one observer as noteworthy.

“That’s a first-time-ever type of change,” University of Missouri Extension economist Ron Plain said in a statement released by the university.

Ethanol is heavily subsidized. When the federal government pushes or favors a particular industry or product that tends to have a ripple effect:

Soybean yields will be 169 million bushels, or 5.24 percent lower than the July estimate of 3.225 billion bushels, the report indicated.

The USDA predicted Iowa’s total corn production will rise from 2.15 billion bushels in 2010 to 2.43 billion bushels in 2011. Iowa’s harvest is predicted to yield 177 bushels per acre. That is higher than last year’s 165 bushels per acre, but shy of the record of 182 bushels.

Anyone who has been in a grocery store can testify to the rising cost of food. Now, we have American families stating that they are going hungry:

The latest report focuses on households with children. It found that 40 of the largest metro areas nationwide had at least 25 percent of households that could not buy enough food for everyone in the home at some point during the past year. Every one of the 100 largest metro areas had 15 percent or more of such households with children.

Food is in high demand, yet short in supply:

In addition, there have been substantial cuts in The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP, which represents 38 percent of the food Second Harvest delivers, she said.
Though the local Second Harvest agency continues to get food through the federal TEFAP program, there are empty shelves at the warehouse, said Clyde Fitzgerald, the executive director for Second Harvest Food Bank.

"They've been empty since late last week," he said. "We have had a great daily need for food assistance, and a sharp decrease in supply due to no food-drive donations in several weeks and a marked decline in retail grocery store donations. When your supply goes down sharply and the demand is strong, that depletes supply in a heartbeat."

There are always consequences when the federal government gets involved in the market. It’s quite disturbing when a scientific theory is more important to our elected representatives than its people.

Source: http://thegazette.com/2011/08/15/for-first-time-more-corn-to-be-used-for-ethanol-than-livestock/

http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2011/aug/16/2/hunger-study-says-winston-salem-metro-area-worst-i-ar-1305986/