Washington, DC – This afternoon President Obama will visit Solyndra Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility in Freemont, California that received a $535 million taxpayer-backed loan guarantee from the stimulus package. This facility employs 1000 workers and has the ability to build 230 megawatts of solar panel capacity per year. Following are a few facts [...]

Photo: Flickr user afsart WASHINGTON – Citing the intransigence of Mother Earth and the increasingly irreconcilable differences between the dictates of U.S. energy policy and the ethereal realities of the celestial universe, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) announced today a first-of-its-kind legal effort that, in cooperation with the Sierra Club and the American Wind [...]

Electric utilities are constructing expensive and inefficient solar plants because of subsidies and mandates from federal and state governments. The subsidies are not free–they come from the American taxpayer. And once the subsidies expire, consumers will pay higher electricity rates. So, either as taxpayers or as consumers, the American public is paying for these facilities. [...]

Unsustainable, taxpayer-funded “green jobs” focus of Senate Finance hearing today Washington, DC – As part of the ongoing efforts in the US Senate to enact sweeping, energy-rationing legislation, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing today entitled “Climate Change Legislation: Considerations for Future Jobs.” Following the hearing, Thomas J. Pyle, president of the non-partisan, market-oriented Institute [...]

Florida Power & Light (FPL) has built a 25 megawatt photovoltaic power plant in Southern Florida that will supply power to 3000 homes and businesses–a small fraction of the company’s over 4 million customers.[i] And, when the plant comes on-line Tuesday, October 26, 2009, President Obama will travel to Florida in Air Force One to [...]

The cap and trade bills circulating in Congress (such as H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey bill) not only “tax” the people of the nation for the right to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country, but they contain additional energy-related “tax” provisions.[i] One of these is a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that requires 20 percent of [...]

Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies: The German Experience (PDF 358KB) Washington, DC – Though proponents of so-called government-funded ‘green jobs’ often reference the ‘success’ European countries have enjoyed in their experiments with such regulations and mandates, a study released today in the United States sheds new light on Germany’s experience with renewable [...]

Since he took office, Secretary of Interior Salazar has aggressively limited domestic energy production from efficient sources of energy. He revoked oil and gas leases in Utah, delayed taking action to open up additional areas for offshore energy development, and halted a program to allow commercial oil shale leasing. All of these programs would have [...]

Statistics In 2008, solar represented 0.09 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. [1] and 0.02 percent of all electricity generated in the U.S.[2] In 2008, solar generating capacity in the U.S. totaled 514 megawatts and generated 843 million kilowatt hours.[3] Solar turbines generated only a percentage of their theoretical maximum output due to [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 4 , 2009 CONTACT: Laura Henderson 202.621.2951 Patrick Creighton 202.621.2947 Renewable Electricity Mandate: Pay More For Less WASHINGTON—In advance of a Senate Energy Committee hearing on the renewable electricity mandate (REM), the Institute for Energy Research (IER) released the following fact sheet: A National REM Would Increase the Cost of Electricity: [...]