Trump Recovers Taxpayer Cash On Obama's Failed Solar Plant Deemed 'Obsolete' Before Ever Opening
President Trump righted another Obama-era wrong by recovering taxpayers hard-earned money blown previously on a solar plant that was deemed pointless before ever going online. Not only was the plant obsolete but it cost more than it made and never lived up to its claims:
The plant’s technology was designed to generate enough power night and day to supply a city the size of nearby Sparks, Nev. (population 100,000), but it never came close. Its power cost NV about $135 per megawatt-hour, compared with less than $30 per MWh today at a new Nevada photovoltaic solar farm, according to BloombergNEF.
According to DailyCaller, the Department of Energy reached a settlement Thursday to recover $200 million in taxpayer funds from a loan the Obama administration distributed in 2011 to finance a $1 billion solar power plant that was deemed obsolete before it could officially go online.
The settlement between DOE and Tonopah Solar Energy must now be approved by a bankruptcy court, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.
The DOE provided a $737 million loan to Tonopah in September 2011 for the purposes of financing the $1.1 billion Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nevada. The agency disbursed funds for the plant in 2011 and 2013 before the project experienced problems requiring improvements, rendering the Crescent Dunes obsolete by 2015, Bloomberg reported in January.
The Wall Street Journal editorialized that Crescent Dunes was a “fiasco” that missed its start date, never met its electricity output projections and frequently was offline.
In short, even the liberal media outlet referred to this Obama-relic as the money pit it really was but until now, no one would pull the plug.
While Trump’s Energy Department supports renewable energy and has given $741 million to solar projects, a senior administration official told the Review-Journal that the $200 million settlement, if approved, “secures taxpayer money that was squandered by the previous administration’s failed energy pet projects.”
Add that to the copious amounts Trump saved taxpayer from shelling out in the bum Iranian Nuclear deal, also orchestrated by the Obama administration, and I think it's fair to say that the President has more than earned his keep. Don't you think?