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Obama Reveals Plan to Get U.S. Cars Off Oil…Using Tax-Payer Subsidized Firm That Has Yet To Produce a Battery

Mar. 19, 2013 11:24am Becket Adams

Obamas Plan To Get U.S. Cars Off Oil Revealed In Front of Tax Payer Subsidized Firm Mired In Controversy

President Obama listens to a research engineer explain electric-car technology during a tour of the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., Friday. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP).

President Obama last week at the Department Of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory at the University of Chicago outlined his $2 billion plan to get U.S. vehicles off of oil.

Argonne, you may recall, has been awarded more than $200 million by the U.S. government since 2009.

But here’s something interesting: Argonne National Laboratory actually partnered with LG Chem Michigan Inc. in 2011 to design electric vehicle batteries, the Washington Free Beacon notes.

Remember LG Chem Michigan?

That’s the tax-payer subsidized battery maker that has not produced or sold a single battery since being awarded a $150 million federal grant in 2009, according to a recent report from the Energy Department’s Inspector General.

“LG Chem was supposed to use Argonne’s design to produce the Volt batteries in its Holland plant once construction was finished,” the Washington Examiners’ Michal Conger notes. “But according to a recent Inspector General report, the company’s employees have been too busy playing video games to produce any batteries, despite spending $142 million”.

In fact, as noted elsewhere on TheBlaze, LG Chem Michigan employees were dying for work and would go out to volunteer around Holland, Mich., in order to have something to do.

“Through interviews with LG Chem Michigan management and other staff, we confirmed that employees spent time volunteering at local non-profit organizations, playing games and watching movies during regular working hours,” the IG report said.

“Even though the facility had produced a large number of test cells, the plant had yet to manufacture battery cells that could be used in electric vehicles sold to the public,” the report added.

So, yes, the president’s $2 billion plan to get U.S. vehicles off oil was delivered at a tax-payer subsidized “green” energy firm that in 2011 designed batteries for another tax-payer subsidized “green” energy firm that has yet to produce a single electric car battery.

–

RELATED:

Fed Audit Reveals Tax-Payer Backed Battery Factory Hasn’t Produced or Sold a Single Battery Since Awarded Fed Grant in 2009

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Comments (124)

slr4528
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:55pm
Isn’t there no over sight? How can he get away with funneling money to his friends? It seems more like a money laundering scheme.

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sinner-saint
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:47pm
What do you expect from a bunch of liberal marxist/communist/progressive social reject degenrate immoral retards who are mentally ill and have nothing but grape jelly between their two ears? Nothing but worthless human trash that waste your time and money chasing moondrops utopian fantasies and cannot live in reality. These people are very very sick individuals and they can’t be fixed. Not even God Himself wastes any of His time/effort on these folks. They are too far gone and way past the point of return.

Hell, half the young adults in this country aren’t even good enough to go into the military and die for our country because they are n mind/mood altering substances because of ADD/ADHD. They aren’t even good enough to die! That’s bad folks………..real real bad. Obama is just a burned out dope addict not in recovery. He has the mind of a child. He’s a choom gang brain dead wacko who I wouldn’t even give the time of day to. Piss on that dope smoking idiot.

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- Sargeking
  Posted on March 19, 2013 at 1:49pm
  That just about covers it. Thanks.
  
  Report this comment
BlasberryStrat
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:44pm
I also see this entire “green” scam as a huge “grant program”. The money invested by the tax payers isn’t for the end result of having “green” anything. It’s all about the transfer of money for simple high income jobs for those who brown nose enough to get it. Oby’s got to produce “jobs”, and this is exactly how he intends to do it and knows there is no end result. It’s the VERY same thing as cancer treatment and studies. No one can tell me that the hundreds of billions of dollars, billions of man hours, and ‘brainy people’, has come up with a big fat ZERO. And don’t give me that tired old “But if there was a hidden cure, they wouldn’t let the stars and Gov. officials die”. You bet they would – if it meant giving up the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS pumped in to the “cancer cure” scam. If ‘you’ were a major player, would ‘you’ want that golden goose to end? And don’t give me that “I want to cure people” crap. You’d be looking at the millions in income that would be “for your children”, then that devil would pop up on your shoulder and say “keep your mouth shut”. Hell science has figured how to curb if not cure AIDS within two short decades. But these people can’t even ‘curb’ cancer and keep it from coming back! Why? Because AIDS isn’t the “ultimate” golden goose that cancer is – period. Just look how many BILLIONS that comes in over the whole “Pink for Breast Cancer” B/S! THEY are driving Cadillac’s!!

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Ghandi was a Republican
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:43pm
Please explain heir stooge obama… Where will this power come from? How will it arrive to the vehicle in the first place? Will the Government seize property under feaux eminent domain arguments to run Millions of miles of power lines to and from the grid? How does this help anything? Why go down the wrong road?

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txswalker
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:32pm
Maybe we should start cutting and pasteing links to stories like this in places like the huff post comment sections. I dont think those dumb@$$es see anything like this

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MiCurmudgeon
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:31pm
The workers have been paid to show up and play cards all day ……paid by your kids and grandkids.

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oxycontinxx
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:24pm
hey burrrakkkk…………

another $2 billion for some dream of yours ?? nope. you already pi $$ ed away enough of the taxpayers $$$. the day may come when technology allows the country to move in the direction of non fossil fuel vehicles. it just aint today………….to early and TOO damn expensive.

forget it !!!

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BlasberryStrat
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:21pm
I love Oby’s speech when he stated that “Gov. has invested 2 billion dollars in to a plant located right outside of ‘Chicago’”. Uhhh…..yea. More like “I’ve given another windfall of cold hard tax payer cash to my buddies so they can invest in illegal guns and gambling materials”.

In my business I have seen a huge increase with the use of “battery powered Prius” cars. Since the formula of “one pot Meth” came out which uses the lithium material in batteries, I’ve seen 1) High increase in Body Shop business because thieves tear the Prius absolutely apart in order to steal the batteries (they’re too damm dumb to just pop the hatch and grab the batt’s). 2) High increase in insurance premiums across the board because of the payout that occurs with that one “green” policy holder and his “green” Prius (which includes replacing his “bongos”, “flowers”, and “pan-flute”).

These so called ‘green cars’ are nothing but junk. ALL of the over priced technology is within the batteries and charging system. You can’t even get the car paid off before the entire interior goes to hell and smells like dirty diapers. By the way, that ‘baby crap’ smell comes from the inferior plastics used in the dash and door trim. As the plastic breaks down – it smells like a baby crapping in your face. I know this because I’ve worked in Chevy dealer body shops for over 15 years, and looked in to “why” all sun weathered vehicles smell this way.

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fedlibertarian
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:18pm
The entire green movement is a massive hoax involving central bankers, hundreds of universities, companies, politician puppets, and of course media. These pathetic attempts at green energy are just payoffs to loyalists. We will never get off oil until it runs out because we need the Saudis to keep funding ‘terrorism’, to perpetuate the other hoax: military industrial complex; we pay companies partially owned by bankers with money they print through the ‘reserve’ to build weapons, these same bankers provoke/stage a war, then companies partially owned by them go rebuild the country with money they print (which puts us in more debt) to make it safe for more banks in the conquered territories. The facade we see is nothing more than Holly wood.

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dancing bear
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:15pm
The man is living in dreamland just like the rest of the boobs in Washington.Oil and coal are finite resources they are going to run out the more we and the world use the faster it will be gone.Maybe not now or in our lifetime the fact is we will have to turn to alternative energy sources. In the future I think we will be living in the sky in hydrogen powered zeppelins using sunlight and h2o as a fuel. For now we just keep dreaming.

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- oxycontinxx
  Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:26pm
  hey……..now i do like boobs………..of the female persuasion. so be careful how you besmirch the word……….
  
  (.)v(.)
  
  yum yjm
  
  Report this comment
lembrandt
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:15pm
This man is insane! WE have *four* times the oil reserves of the entire middle east…we have enough oil to last us 300 years! Not to mention natural gas….our *own* energy could produce tens of thousands of jobs and trillions in tax revenue and eliminate the national debt in its entirety!!

What in the H*** is he doing talking about turning us into a green country? The USA is being run by a corrupt Progressive/Socialist dictatorship and it will kill us all if we don’t do something…

We will be destitute if this man is allowed to continue. He leads a *minority* amount of people in this country who have assumed control via lies and voter fraud….stop this now.

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shorelineliz
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:15pm
And in future news:

666 million American vehicles named “PreeA$$” were stalled on every American Highway due to the fact that their car batteries ran out of juice while China enjoyed American gasoline sold to them at 10 cents a gallon. Rickshaws and bicycles plugged Chinese rivers but no one cared as they drove around in Mercedes, BMW, Hummer and other gas guzzling SUV’s. Chinese laughter could be heard from across the Pacific Ocean along all West Coast Towns and taunts of “stupid Americans” could faintly be heard on the wind.

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bannedfromCNN
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:13pm
OH, but he ‘cares’…

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- shorelineliz
  Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:16pm
  Like Clinton. I am sure he “feels our pain.”
  
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Seagal45
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:09pm
Why, why has this man not been impeached?? People need to pull their balls out of their pockets.

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- GuruMeditation
  Posted on March 19, 2013 at 1:35pm
  They have to have some first.
  
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RaydocX
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:08pm
Ahhh… the second term Solyndra… another donor, no doubt.
We’ll sink a few billion, only to have the plant shuttered and the newly rich owners off scot free.

When technology allows for competitive alternatives… and when regulations do not prohibit their creation and use, fossil fuel will be relegated to the same dust bin as the horse drawn carriage.

trying to ‘pick a winner’ whether solar, air, or hydrogen is guaranteed to fail and to cost us money we frankly do not have in the bargain, while potentially DELAYING the actual implementation of the eventual replacement… if you back lithium batteries, with their penchant for catching fire, and in so doing blunt hydrogen development (i choose that given it is the most abundant element in the universe), we could slow the time to getting off of oil.

it’s characteristic of the Left’s mentality, though… optimism is great, but realism is critical when planning and executing policy… just because you WANT hybrid energy to work does not mean it will work, even if you flood it with tax payer dollars.

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sundell1951
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:02pm
The worst part is HE DOESN’T CARE!!!

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Ghandi was a Republican
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 12:00pm
This business isn’t in the business of batteries. It is in the business of Federal Grants. Why would they expend the resources producing anything? It would be idiotic. It would make no business sense. Take the money and run. Set up, do it again. Look further and you will find a ‘consultant’ from solyndra or any number of obama crony shell companies in the mix. A photo op of a care in a room with people in white coats does not a company make. That staged environment looks ridiculously phony. It’s as phony as obama’s daily teleprompter recitals.

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elosogrande
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 11:58am
Not only incompetent and corrupt, but exceedingly stupid as well. This buffoon has no idea as to what needs to be done in order to get our country back on its feet.

Left-wing liberal Democrat dolts think everything can be fixed by ******* away more money. We have students coming out of our public schools who now rank 30th in the world, and these fools think that today’s teachers and teacher’s unions are doing good for our country. They do NOTHING other than create more Democrat voters to keep these turds in office. That’s all they’re supposed to do.

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mattmo79
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 11:56am
I have a battery made with Pixie Dust! Obummer can you throw a few hundred mil my way for production?

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Cabo King
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 11:54am
Oh another story you wont hear on the TV news……one SFN

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RodT82721
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 11:54am
We elect people, and pay them $175,000.00 a year, to oversee what the administration does.
The House, under the control of Republicans since the 2010 election, could end this madness. Yet all we hear about are hearings about how much to raise the debt limit and maybe a little decrease in the planned increases in the wasting of the tax payers money. (They call it “base-line budgeting”).

Barry and his brood are burning through $1.4 Billion (with a B) a year, to enjoy the good life in our White House, and travel the world to be admired.
Just making Barry use his own income, of a paltry $400,000.00 per year, for his living, would reduce more spending then anything suggested by Congress to date, and would keep the traveling POTUS in the office instead of on the golf course.

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pap pap
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 11:52am
Just what did you expect ?

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BlackCrow
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 11:52am
When I can drive 400 miles and recharge in under five minutes. When I can haul half a ton of whatever home from the big orange home improvement store then I might be interested. When the BTU per mile ratio begins to approach oil then come back and talk to me. Obummer is a failed lawyer! Don’t try to talk to someone with an engineering background. When you can do away with batteries and take power directly from the road possibly but the transmission losses will still make oil a better answer.

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Shasta.Red.Banks
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 11:50am
It has nothing to do with new green technologies, or changing our car’s power source. It has everything to do with continuing to pay off O’s supporters with our money.

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loveoursoldiers
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 11:49am
He wants us to have NO cars because he wants the the Big Satan to become a third world country….. yet another cleverly veiled action using the environment as a reason
Never made a battery?
doubleduh
Where are all the supposed intellectuals ? Another stupid move being accepted by the koolaid drinkers

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