The nitrates travel down rivers and into the Gulf of Mexico, where they boost the growth of enormous algae fields. When the algae die, the decomposition consumes oxygen, leaving behind a zone where aquatic life cannot survive. This year, the dead zone covered 5,800 square miles of sea floor, about the size of Connecticut.
Larry McKinney, the executive director of the Harte Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, says the ethanol mandate worsened the dead zone. “The government is mandating ethanol use,” he said, “and it is unfortunately coming at the expense of the Gulf of Mexico.” 
Europe’s suicidal green energy policies are killing at least 40,000 people a year. That’s just the number estimated to have died in the winter of 2014 because they were unable to afford fuel bills driven artificially high by renewable energy tariffs. -James Delingpole
President Obama’s campaign promises of millions of green jobs haven’t materialized. A draft report by the Government Accountability Office found that the Labor Department’s $500 billion program to train people for green jobs produced just 55 percent of its targeted job placements—and most of those jobs were not in the solar or biofuels industries. -Walter Russell Mead
Environmentalist, Liberal, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Energy, Waste
Electricity from new wind and solar power is 2.5 to five times more expensive than electricity from existing conventional power sources, according to a study published Tuesday by the free-market Institute for Energy Research (IER). IER’s study found that new solar and wind power are nearly five and 3.5 times more expensive, respectively, than electricity from existing nuclear reactors. IER also found green energy systems become more expensive and damaging to the power grid the more they’re used.
Liberal, Incompetence, Financial, Funny, Oops, Energy
Germany’s legislature voted Friday to sharply cut back on subsidies and other financial incentives supporting green energy due to the strain wind and solar power placed on the country’s electricity grid... Germany’s wind and solar power systems have provided too much power at unpredictable times, which damaged the power grid and made the system vulnerable to blackouts. Grid operators paid companies $548 million to shutter turbines to fix the problem... Germany will get rid of 6,000 megawatts of wind power by 2019.
Environmentalist, Oops, Energy
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, which uses hundreds of thousands of mirrors near the California-Nevada border, is capable of producing nearly 400 megawatts, but its roughly 350,000 solar-thermal, computer-controlled mirrors which reflect sunlight to boilers on the top of 459-foot towers, has apparently already killed dozens of birds. The intense 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit around the towers is burning birds flying through its path.
Environmentalist, Liberal, Funny, Oops
There had been only eight recorded sightings of the white-throated needletail in the UK since 1846. So when one popped up again on British shores this week, twitchers were understandably excited... But instead of being treated to a wildlife spectacle they were left with a horror show when it flew into a wind turbine and was killed.
Democrat, Environmentalist, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Waste, Jobs
President Obama’s green jobs training program, which was part of his stimulus, has failed on most key jobs measures, according to a new internal audit that found it was training workers who already had jobs that didn’t need green energy skills, and was failing to place new enrollees in jobs once they finished the training... Only 38 percent of those who have completed training got jobs based on it, and only 16 percent kept jobs for at least six months — the key measure of success for the program. “Outcomes for participants were far less than originally proposed,” the auditors said.
Incompetence, Funny, Waste
Federal government workers sing to President Obama about the Government Services Administration (GSA) "going green," all paid for by taxpayer dollars.
Environmentalist, Obama, Oops, Energy
California's attempts to switch to green energy have inadvertently put the survival of the state’s golden eagles at risk. Scores of the protected birds have been dying each year after colliding with the blades of about 5,000 wind turbines.
Warming, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Oops
"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Narrative, Oops, Energy
Several key White House offices were involved with the Obama administration’s messaging plans and other preparations as the collapse of the taxpayer-backed solar company Solyndra was imminent, newly released documents show. The latest White House documents delivered to House Republicans on Friday again highlight the extent to which senior administration officials braced for the fallout as Solyndra – a company President Obama had personally visited – was about to go under.
Federal agencies also have struggled to get stimulus money out the door in a timely manner, even for prosaic efforts that help local governments reduce energy costs. The rush of funding encouraged private-sector participants to inflate their job-creation projections as they angled for a piece of the action, insiders say. "They were obviously just guessing," said Robert Pollin, a University of Massachusetts professor and green-energy supporter who helped the Energy Department sort through loan applications. "If an undergraduate gave me a paper of that quality I would have probably given them a C or a C-plus."
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Energy
While we were out there, while we were building it – cause it is a half a billion dollar plant – everyone already knew that China had developed a more inexpensive way to manufacture these solar panels. Everyone knew that the plant wouldn’t work. But they still did it. They still built it.
Democrat, Environmentalist, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops
(Reuters) - Beacon Power Corp filed for bankruptcy on Sunday just a year after the energy storage company received a $43 million loan guarantee from a controversial U.S. Department of Energy program. The move comes about two months after solar panel maker Solyndra also filed for bankruptcy, setting off criticism of the government loan program.
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Energy
April 2011: The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $2.1 billion loan guarantee to Solar Trust of America for a solar thermal power plant near Blythe, Calif... April 2012: WILMINGTON, Del. — A California solar energy company that was unable to meet a deadline for an Energy Department loan guarantee last year has sought bankruptcy protection in Delaware. Solar Trust of America’s Chapter 11 filing on Monday listed assets between $1 million and $10 million, and liabilities between $10 million and $50 million.
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Energy
FBI agents armed with search warrants descended this morning on bankrupt solar company Solynrda this morning. The investigation comes after a request by the Department of Energy's inspector general, FBI spokesman Peter Lee told NBC Bay Area News. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy last week, shocking both workers and the Obama administration, which had given the startup hundreds of millions of dollars in low interest loans. Congress has demanded a hearing into the matter.
Democrat, Environmentalist, Liberal, Incompetence, Oops
President Barack Obama heads to an energy plant in North Carolina on Monday to talk once again about the job-creating power of a green economy. The catch? Nearly three years into Obama's presidency, the White House can't point to much solid evidence that significant numbers of Americans are scoring the green jobs the president has been touting.
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Energy, Economy
House Republicans are expanding their probe into the Obama administration's energy programs, investigating $500 million in green job training grants that placed just 10% of trainees in jobs, according to a government report.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama
A federal stimulus grant of nearly $500,000 to grow trees and stimulate the economy in Nevada yielded a whopping 1.72 jobs, according to government statistics. In 2009, the U.S. Forest Service awarded $490,000 of stimulus money to Nevada's Clark County Urban Forestry Revitalization Project, aimed at revitalizing urban neighborhoods in the county with trees, plants, and green-industry training.
Environmentalist, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Energy, Waste, Jobs
Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program.
Environmentalist, Liberal, Oops, Energy
ALTAMONT PASS, Calif. — The big turbines that stretch for miles along these rolling, grassy hills have churned out clean, renewable electricity for two decades in one of the nation's first big wind-power projects. But for just as long, massive fiberglass blades on the more than 4,000 windmills have been chopping up tens of thousands of birds that fly into them, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls and other raptors.