Tuesday, June 26, 2012

US and Michigan taxpayers forced to pay $13.3 million each for 3 green jobs created by a biofuel scam between 2008 and 2011

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6/25/12, "Green company creates three jobs in three years, gets another $80 million from DOE," Washington Examiner, Joel Gehrke

"Department of Energy officials gave a New Hampshire-based biofuel company access to $80 million for a Michigan project that has already fallen short of job creation expectations, despite receiving another $40 million in state and DOE subsidies.

In September 2008, Mascoma [Corp.] pledged 70 jobs at the plant by the end of 2012. On Feb. 29 of this year, Mascoma reported to the MEDC that only three jobs had been created by the grant,” the Capitol Confidential (Mich.) reports today.”The company has been given the full $20 million from the state.”

Mascoma, a renewable energy company that specializes in cellulosic ethanol, received another $20 million for research and development from the Energy Department in 2008.

The company warned the federal government, in its SEC filing, that it has “no experience in the markets in which we intend to operate” — which perhaps explains why it only created three jobs from 2008 to 2011, despite promising to create 70 jobs, according to Capitol Confidential. That means that the Michigan government and DOE, in combining to give the company $40 million in 2008, spent $13.3 million on each job.

Even so, DOE signed an $80 million cooperative agreement with Mascoma in December, 2011. “Biofuels hold great potential, not only for reducing our dependence on foreign oil,* but also for creating new jobs and economic opportunities for America’s rural communities,” Valerie Reed, the Acting Biomass Program Manager in Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy of the DOE said at the time.

Biofuels, in general, may ‘hold great potential’ for job creation, but what about creating three jobs in three years suggests to DOE that Mascoma in particular

should receive another $80 million in taxpayer money?" via Tom Nelson

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* Ed note: The US is now an oil exporter. We don't rely on foreign oil:

5/10/12, "U.S. Is Now EXPORTING Fuel, But the Oil Companies Are Gaming the System to Keep U.S. Prices HIGH," Zero Hedge

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US taxpayer dollars flowed to green scams long before Obama:

7/19/2006, "Mascoma Corporation Secures Series A Funding from Flagship Ventures and Khosla Ventures for Ethanol Production Effort"

Vinod Khosla, Jim Matheson and Samir Kaul
Join Mascoma’s Board of Directors

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1/4/2012, "Georgia ethanol plant sold, at taxpayers' loss," AJC, Dan Chapman

"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.

"Vinod Khosla, a California entrepreneur who also bankrolled Range Fuels, and helped secure its government loans, before Range went bust last year."...

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10/15/2008, "DOE, Michigan Give $49.5 M to Mascoma Corp. for Cellulosic Fuel Facility," eponline.com

"The U.S. Department of Energy and the state of Michigan have provided $26 million, and $23.5 million, respectively to Mascoma Corp. of Boston, Mass., for the development of a cellulosic fuel production facility that uses non-food biomass to convert woodchips into fuel, according to an Oct. 7 press release....The production facility is expected to produce 40 million gallons of ethanol and other valuable fuel products per year. General Motors Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp., which are both investors in Mascoma, are providing support for this project."...

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Ed. note #2: The above is why the Tea Party exists. The US government is an open crime operation.


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