Clean Energy Economy Gets $2 Billion More from President Obama

July 3rd, 2010 by Zachary Shahan

Obama announced in his weekly address this week that the Department of Energy has awarded two solar companies, Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing, nearly $2 billion as “conditional commitments from the Recovery Act.”

Abengoa Solar is to build one of the largest solar power plants in the world in Arizona with its portion of the money, creating approximately 1,600 construction jobs “with over 70 percent of the construction components and products manufactured here in the USA.” The plant will produce enough energy to power about 70,000 homes when completed.

Abound Solar Manufacturing will build two new plants, in Colorado and Indiana, creating over 2,000 construction jobs and “over 1,500 permanent jobs as the plants produce millions of state of the art solar panels each year.”

“These are just two of the many clean energy investments in the Recovery Act. Already, I’ve seen the payoff from these investments. I’ve seen once-shuttered factories humming with new workers who are building solar panels and wind turbines; rolling up their sleeves to help America win the race for the clean energy economy,” Obama said after announcing these awards during his speech in Washington, DC yesterday.

For more from Obama’s speech, including a nice intro on how Republicans are blocking growth of the clean energy economy and relief from the recession we are still trying to pull ourselves out of, visit the link provided above or watch the video of the speech.

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Image Credit: screenshot of video of the speech

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Tags: ABENGOA Solar, Abound Solar Manufacturing, Electricity, Energy, Obama

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Karl

Considering the huge amount of money we export for our energy needs on an annual basis and the fact that this is actually keeping people employed this is a great use of money. This is a long term investment that will make more money than it loses. All of you people that think this is a waste of money ( and were silent about 2 expensive wars) should really look carefully at the numbers b/c then you just might see that we will be much better off economically in 10-15 years than if we pass up opportunities like this. As an example, we export roughly $400 billion overseas per year. Over ten years that is 4 trillion ( not including inflation and a rise in oil price). You’re telling me we can’t afford a few billion to help move things in the right direction? Get with it and stop thinking short term and look at the big picture.
Sven

There is no doubt Bush increased the debt tremendously. But frankly, he hasn’t been president for quite a while now. The stupid wars Bush started are amazingly still being waged and President Obama is not doing anything differently, except perhaps spending even more than Bush somehow. I assure you spending like this will end up badly.
- http://lightngreen.com Zachary Shahan
  
  Yes, I agree that we should be looking to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible, but I think getting out of this war is a lot more difficult than getting into it was. I hope he will get us out of there soon but it is not as simple as turning a switch at this point.
  
  As far as general spending & economic health, I think this is a good graph to take a look at: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2010/02/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-compares-job-losses-under-presidents-obama-and-bush.php?page=1
Sven

This is so awesome. The government using money they don’t have to help clean energy. I’m like so excited.
- http://lightngreen.com Zachary Shahan
  
  Sven, investment in the clean energy sector is creating jobs and creating money in the long-term. If you look beyond a window of a few months, you can see that this is bringing money into the US.
dc2ndtest

Wat to go Mr. President. Without targeted spending like this, we will be trapped by the status quo special interests and subject to the dlationary spiral down/job losses the Senator from South Carolina has always wished for in order to punish the nation for your election.

Even the chairman of the Fed has warned against reductions in stimulus spending at this time. With our 10 year treasuries trading below a yield of 3%, there is no issue of market concern for default risk and, as Erin pointed oiut on Squak Box lasst week, interest costs to service our present outstanding treasury debt IS LESS THAN THE AMOUNT REQUIRED TO SERVICE THE HIGHEST DEBT LEVEL DURING THE CLINTON AMINISTRATIONS.
- http://lightngreen.com Zachary Shahan
  
  yes, we are in tremendous debt, and it is because of Bush’s 8-year run. Obama’s efforts to re-stimulate the economy are going well, but it is no small well we are sitting in right now.
American Truth

Great investigative reporting – NOT. Check the cost of solar vs. utility scale clean wind power and you will see that this was a 2 billion grandstand. Oh, and as for the last paragraph: Keep drinking the Kool-Aid.

Obamao will soon see that America wants clean energy, but understands economics 101. We promise a November to Remember.
- http://lightngreen.com Zachary Shahan
  
  Economics 101 these days would be cutting subsidies to fossil fuels, and maybe transferring some of those to clean energy. Wind is not going to do it alone and there are many special advantages to solar. As Susan wrote earlier this week, Obama is moving on cutting fossil fuel subsidies and persuading other major countries to do so as well: http://cleantechnica.com/2010/06/30/obama-gets-g-20-to-end-558-billion-in-fossil-fuel-subsidies/ He (or his administration) is also doing a good job of helping clean energy get to the place it needs to be, something definitely worthwhile for national security, the economy, and a high quality of life.
ArcticFireGuy

Why not..? We have nothing but money! Although I haven’t quite figured out how you can improve the economy by taking money from the people via taxes… then give it to a corporation… who will then employ the people from whom the taxes were taken.. and pay them with the money that was taken from them in taxes.

But then I didn’t really understand how giving AGI all of that money helped the economy either. But Golly, things have sure gotten a lot better since all of that TARP money got spent. Thank goodness Obama is President!

Even if I don’t really understand why thats a “good” thing… I mean, it must be good right?