It’s become glaringly obvious lately that Democrats and solar energy don’t mix.
In fact, when you put the two together, you often seem to end up with billions in lost cash blown on boondoggles — or worse, as we recently saw with the FBI investigation into the Obama administration’s Solyndra debacle.
For a decade, I’ve been saying that Charlotte needed to isolate a few business sectors to target and put a laser focus on those, like Raleigh has. We then need to actually actively recruit. Mayor Anthony Foxx’s trip to China makes it look like the city is finally doing that. The idea of turning Charlotte into an energy hub isn’t a bad one — if we focus on reality, not political correctness.
Like Obama, Foxx’s trip shows he may be pursing an energy hub future for Charlotte that could be based on a mirage. The 10-day trip focused on solar companies at a time when even China is discovering that solar-based industries aren’t quite the great investment they initially appeared to be.
Worse yet, one of the main companies Foxx focused on to bring more jobs here appears to have the future makings of another Solyndra.
If you spend your days reading national news, it seems that half of the major cities in America are pursing some kind of green energy future. Things are so bad at Jetion Solar that the company delisted from the London Stock Exchange. The CEOs mother is currently proping up the company with a 60 million pound shot of cash. Here’s how the London Telegraph described the situation:
This year, Jetion predicted its profits for 2010 would be well above expectations. But it decided to delist saying 2011 will be “difficult and challenging”, while also citing the difficulty of raising funds on Aim and a lack of liquidity. The offer is just 2p above the 81p share price prior to the deal. The shares are down 47pc since 2007’s float.
Focusing on building Charlotte into an energy hub has decent potential. The ingredients are already there in Charlotte’s nuclear and gas industries. If politicians and the regulators would get out of the way, the nuclear industry and natural gas, which North Carolina has large untapped stores of, would explode. But unfortunately Obama, Congress and state politicians are standing in the way — for now.
Despite the media’s best efforts, I believe that eventually the American people will figure out how obscenely energy rich this country and this state are. They’ll get tired of endless 8 and 9 percent unemployment and downward mobility and demand true change.
Let’s just hope that Foxx and the state Democratic regime don’t get any crazy ideas about pumping millions more in tax incentives or worse yet tax dollars into Chinese solar companies to get them to come here.
-Former Meckdeck blogger Jeff Taylor contributed to this post.
