General Motors Co. announced the temporary suspension of Chevrolet Volt production and the layoffs of 1300 employees, as the company is cutting Volt manufacturing to meet lower-than-expected demand for the electric cars.
“Even with sales up in February over January, we are still seeking to align our production with demand,” GM spokesman Chris Lee said. The car company had hoped to sell 45,000 Chevy Volts in America this year, according to the Detroit News, but has only sold about 1,626 over the first two months of 2012.
“GM blamed the lack of sales in January on “exaggerated” media reports and the federal government’s investigation into Volt batteries catching fire, which officially began in November and ended Jan. 21,” the Ann Arbor (Mich.) News reported.
The laid-off employees will be rehired April 23rd, when GM resumes production of the Volt.
Shell has fought the administration to begin drilling in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska.
The federal government estimates there are 26.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Arctic Ocean’s Outer Continental Shelf but repeated safety reviews and designation of much of the region as critical polar bear habitat has slowed development to a crawl.
Only 2.2% of federal offshore land is currently being leased for production.
Then there are the 10 billion barrels locked up in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, which would require drilling in just 2,000 acres out of 19 million.
The Obama administration recently rescinded 77 oil and gas leases in Utah and stalled oil shale research and development in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, where the federal government owns most of the world’s oil shale reserves.
Out West, we may have a “Persia on the Plains.” A Rand Corp. study says the Green River Formation, which covers parts of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, has the largest known oil shale deposits in the world, holding from 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of crude — most of it locked up by federal edict.
Under President Obama, the American Petroleum Institute notes, leases on federal lands in the West are down 44%, while permits and new well drilling are both down 39% compared to 2007 levels.
After the BP oil spill, President Obama shut down most Gulf of Mexico drilling and there’s been a 57% drop in monthly deepwater permits since 2008, according to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permit Index.
The demand for oil is increasing as India and China grow their economy. That means there are more people bidding on the supply of oil. In order to keep the price low, the supply would have to increase. But Obama has done everything in his power to reduce the supply. Increased demand and reduced supply means higher gas prices.
Despite some green energy failures, such as the bankrupt Solyndra solar panel company and weak-selling Chevy Volt, President Barack Obama said that he wanted to “double down” on green energy spending, and would do what he could even without Congress to subsidize these companies.
Obama’s assertions, at the University of Miami on Thursday, come after numerous reports of green energy firms that received large sums of federal loans and grants but which have either declared bankruptcy or hit financial problems.
[…]CBS News has reported that the administration directed $6.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to a dozen different green companies that now face financial ship. The most notable of these is Solyndra, the solar panel firm that got a $535-million Energy Department loan guarantee before declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy and being investigated by the FBI.
Among the 12 companies, five others besides Solyndra have filed for bankruptcy. These are Beacon Power of Massachusetts; Evergreen Solar, of Massachusetts; SpectraWatt of New York State; AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy of New York State and Ener1 of Indiana.
Obama acknowledged that not all companies backed by the federal government will succeed, but said he would not be deterred.
“The payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away. Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies will fail,” Obama said.
“But as long as I’m president, I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy,” he said. “I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because some politicians in Washington refused to make the same commitment here in America.”
As CNSNews.com earlier reported, the Chevy Volt, touted by Obama as being the future of the government-owned GM and bailed-out Chrysler, was among the biggest market flops in 2011.
Please read this article and share it with your friends. It’s important to understand what Obama’s plan was, and what he did to achieve it. He wanted gas prices to be higher, and that’s what he achieved.
In another setback for President Obama’s clean energy loan programs, the recipient of more than a half-billion dollars in federal loans is laying off workers at their Delaware and California operations.
Delaware’s News Journal reports that Fisker Automotive, a California-based electric car start-up company, is laying off an undisclosed number of staff to try to reserve enough capital in order to qualify for more federal help from the Department of Energy, according to a Delaware state development official.
“They’re trying to preserve the cash that they have,” said Alan Levin told the News Journal. “And unfortunately, until they meet the milestone that DOE continues to set … they’re not able to access the additional capital that they need.”
The company also came under fire last year for taking federal loans while producing cars in Finland. Company officials told ABC News at the time that “there was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle.” The company was working on reopening a shuttered General Motors plant in Wilmington to produce vehicles — an effort that top Obama administration officials lauded.
[…]“This is proof positive that our efforts to create new jobs, invest in a clean energy economy and reduce carbon pollution are working,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “We are putting Americans back to work and reigniting a new Industrial Revolution that is paramount for the economic success of this country.”
The company received $529 million in loans to produce two lines of plug-in hybrid cars.
A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.
The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.
[…]Kalee Kreider, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gore, confirmed that the former vice president backs Fisker and purchased a Karma. “He believes that a global shift of the automobile fleet toward electric vehicles, accompanying a shift toward renewable-energy generation, represents an important part of a sensible strategy for solving the climate crisis,” she said in a statement.
Fisker’s top investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a veteran Silicon Valley venture-capital firm of which Gore is a partner. Employees of KPCB have donated more than $2.2 million to political campaigns, mostly for Democrats, including President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign contributions.
Officials at Kleiner Perkins didn’t return requests for comment.
So let’s recap. A company connected to Democrats gets a $500 million pay-off, then lays off employees to qualify for more payoffs. And all of this money is coming f
WINTERY KNIGHT 