A123 Systems, a battery maker that received $380 million in government support, announced recently that declining orders had forced layoffs. Instead of up to 3,000 new Michigan jobs as Obama and the company had predicted, it now has 690 employees.
Battery maker EnerDel, recipient of a a $118 million federal grant, took a hit when its key customer, electric-car maker Think, declared bankruptcy this year. Johnson Controls, which received a $299 million stimulus grant, opted to build one factory instead of two because of lower-than-projected demand, a company official said, and that one is now operating at half capacity.
California electric-car maker Aptera announced it was shutting its doors because of problems raising capital. And General Motors — whose moderately priced Volt was supposed to drive Obama’s push for 1 million alternative vehicles by 2015 — revealed last week that it would fall roughly 38 percent shy of its goal of selling 10,000 Volts this year. --Enterprise quoting WaPo
If you click the link, you'll notice that the GWBush push for new nukes DID get a bunch of money, so DOE spending is not entirely scatterbrained.
Unfortunately, it looks less and less like the new nukes will be anything other than drawing board and 3-D models. 9600 MWe awaiting Combined Operating License (good luck with that)and another 87,400 MWe "planned". We will be very dark and very cold before we wake up to the stupidity of the government. This administration will NEVER allow new nukes. It will piss-off the greenies.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html