Despite massive federal subsidies, alternative fuel cars have been a disappointment. So on Wednesday, President Barack “Put algae in your tank” Obama promised to burn even more taxpayer dollars for alternatives.
Algaeman landed at a bailed-out Chrysler truck plant in North Carolina to save America from gasoline, which he called a “fuel of the past.” Huh? So passé is oil that global markets have bid its price to $120 a barrel in their thirst for more.
But from Planet Gore, apparently, you can see the future and so Obama pledged a whopping $4.7 billion to fund more alternative vehicles and more alternative infrastructure – including broadening his $10,000 tax credit to buy alt-fuel cars to include, not just the Chevy Volt he covets, but also cars powered by natural gas, and . . . biofuels like algae.
“We need to invest in the technology that will help us use less oil in our cars and our trucks,” said the president. But wishing for alternatives doesn’t make them work. Before President Algae there was President George “Cellulosic ethanol” Bush who pledged in 2007 millions to fund his vision of an alternative fuel future. But $1.5 billion of grants and loan subsidies later cellulosic is a bust – even with the help of big private investors like GM which have also spent heavily on cellulosic in order to atone for their carbon sins. Bush promised – no, mandated – 250 million gallons by 2011. How much did the industry produce? 6.6 million.
Seventy percent of that was supposed to come from Alabama-based Cello Energy – the Solyndra of cellulosic. “In 2009 a jury in a civil fraud case ruled that Cello had lied about how much cellulosic fuel it could produce,” reports The Wall Street Journal editorial page. “The firm produced little biofuel and in October 2010 it declared bankruptcy.” Undaunted, the Obama Administration has doubled down on more cellulosic subsides: $510 million for a Navy program, $134 million to Abengoa Bioenergy in Kansas, and $105 million for ethanol producer POET.
Green subsides? Bankrupt companies? Sound familiar?
Not to the Obamamedia lapdogs who followed the wonder president to North Carolina. They ignored history’s inconvenient truths. They also ignored Costco’s elimination of its failed electric car charger program. Over 15 years, Costco has installed 90 chargers at its (mostly California) stores, “but nobody ever uses them,” said Costco in ending the program last year. No matter. “We’re going to give communities across the country more of an incentive to make the shift to more energy-efficient cars,” Obama said in committing $1b to alt-fuel stations today.
Been there, done that. Last year, California pledged $2.3 million in state money to fund parking lot chargers. “Why should we have anybody spend money on a program that nobody’s thought through?” said Costco in refusing to join Cal’s program.
Thrown your shoe through the computer screen yet? Want to hear more?
Algaeman announced that he was expanding the $10,000 tax credit for alternative cars beyond electrics to include natural gas and biofuel power. Why? Because natural gas billionaire T. Boone Pickens has been lobbying Republican and Democrats alike hard for natural gas car subsidies. So it’s a bipartisan boondoggle, get it? And biofuels include algae, which the president says might work because “you’ve got a bunch of algae out here.”
And we’ve got a bunch of carpets out here that could fly, too.
“I’m surprised that SNL hasn’t taken algae and turned it into a skit,” laughed Newt Gingrich in Georgia on Super Tuesday. Don’t be surprised. SNL is in the Obama tank with the rest of Obamedia.