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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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Featured image whitehouse.gov.

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Comments (124)

crusaderx9
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 6:59pm
absurd, failure, incomprehensible levels of incompetence by every rational standard on the one hand; progressive political campaign money laundering scheme on the other

We have strayed as a nation…

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Landon410
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 4:43pm
what do you suppose the chaces are of a 30 year old educated white man with no debt and no criminal history getting hired there?

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- Outlaw_Josey_Wales
  Posted on March 19, 2013 at 5:52pm
  Is Michelle on the LG Chem payroll? Back in Chicago, Michelle had a ‘no show job’ at a hospital making $300,000 per year.
  
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Landon410
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 4:42pm
I’m working at the wrong place!

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fdraiden
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 4:26pm
Yes , we have that great bastion of integrity waiting in the wings, Hilliary Clinton. Lord help us!

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thegodfather
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 3:47pm
Obama should go with the Bloomberg method to get America off oil. Enact a law where all gas stations will be hidden from site. Since nobody can find gas stations, then everyone gives up their cars and stops driving. BINGO! America off oil. Peace, harmony, whales, polar bears reign throughout the planet.

The true genius of Bloomberg on display again.

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media-bias-steals-elections
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 3:12pm
Its not the job of President Obama to get Americans off the use of oil, any more than it is Rush Limbaugh’s job is to get rid of the minimum wage? Rush Limbaugh’s solution to unemployment, is very, very simple? Don’t pay people anything at all? Well, if you took his logic to the ultimate conclusion, what other point can you make? The ability of people to have money is the biggest obstacle to unemployment?

Rush Limbaugh is really a liberal? If the US Congress had figured out that the minimum wage was a way to gaurantee the value of the currency, instead of pad the pockets of union worker leaders, it would not have seen the light of day, because liberal Democrats were in charge?

So why is Rush comical? He’s partially right, if you realize he illustrates a different point indirectly? The purpose of the minimum wage is not to take the money that a hospital administrator gets from employee insurance monthly premiums as a second line of income, divide it up equally, and then give it to his employees? No, the minimum wage actually puts a “minimum value” on your currency?

No it’s not fair that doctors can “earn” that kind of money even though workers are more productive, is it? Rush is protecting trade secrets, or advancing communism? Is it ethical to make money? It depends on the context? The minimum wage is not a way to divide wealth equally, neither is getting Americans to stop using oil ethical?

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Hiswill
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 3:08pm
Read it and weep. Obama is a cash cow to all these companies, but taxpayers are the ones getting the short end of the stick. When will congress make the waste stop???

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:
1.Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2.SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3.Solyndra ($535 million)*
4.Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5.Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6.SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7.First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8.Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9.EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10.Amonix ($5.9 million)
11.Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12.Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13.A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14.Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15.Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16.Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17.ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18.Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19.Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20.Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21.Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22.Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23.Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24.Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25.Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26.GreenVolts ($500,000)
27.Vestas ($50 million)
28.LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29.Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30.Navistar ($39 million)
31.Satcon ($3 million)*
32.Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33.Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies tha

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- Hiswill
  Posted on March 19, 2013 at 3:12pm
  *Denotes companies that are now Bankrupt
  
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Mr Sanders
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 3:06pm
Let’s be honest. You have to be somewhere. Its probably the most important meeting of your business life that will make or break you. Its 300 mile away. Flying is not an option. The baby just dropped jam on your favorite suit and you’ve got to switch out in a hurry to get on the road. You left the house with a full charge. There’s a trafic jamb/crawl on the 405 Frwy N. Battery power is draining. You see a chaging station. You pull over and hookup…. for 20 minutes then get back on the road. The extra time you alloted for these instances gone. Yes sir! You’ve arrived at your meeting 20 minutes late – not a good impression to tell someone your car ran out of charge.

The point is….. with a Honda Civic you can get 40MPG and a 600 net mile range. If you want to have an all-electric car……. I want R A N G E!! I want an energy system that will last the life of the car!!

Why should I buy a car for, say, $50K thence in 5-6 years pay for the install of a new battery pack of $3-4K. This is the benefit of the Internal Combustion Engine; keep it liquified it could last 3-400,000 Miles. Once there is a storage energy device that can survive the test of time/mileage – we’ll talk & may be buy.

My papa always said batteries would be man’s limit & undoing.

There’s nothing worse than investing [tax dollars we don't have to spend] in a rabit hole that takes you nowhere.

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wopalope
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 2:57pm
Obama needs the kick back

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Oiam21
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 2:54pm
Who needs electric cars when you have the WikiSpeed car? Goes over 100 miles on a gallon of gas, Top speed is 149MPH and goes from 0 – 60 in 5 seconds. Only costs $25,000. Check it out!

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charjan
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 2:49pm
Contact Boeing for a battery supplier…

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kturn16
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 2:14pm
so let me get this straight..if we eliminate gas powered vehicles for battery powered ones..don’t we need electricity to charge up the batteries? Isn’t Obama also jacking up our Elec. rates as well??

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Tom70
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 2:09pm
There goes a couple of billion into a supporters pockets and total failure. Can anyone spell guid-pro-quo?

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Carlinpa
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 1:52pm
Argonne? how appropriate.
What has happens to our tax dollars? ans:They Argonne
What has happened to our senses? ans: They Argonne
What has happened to the Dreams of Americans? ans: They Argonne

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Bohump
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 1:37pm
Dream’s are Cheep ….. King Oboma … It’s Not Your Money !

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GuruMeditation
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 1:36pm
Impeach this moron.

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barber2
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 1:27pm
” A taxpayer subsidy ?! ” Now where have I heard that phrase before ?! How much more money is this economic madman going to spend in his War On Capitalism ? Obama is waging , not only a War on Women, he is waging a War on Every American. And , oh so cleverly. Under the guise of green energy , he is able to line the pockets of his cronies while destroying our economy. How stupid are the low information voters who allowed this fox into their chicken coop. Bye , bye , stupid little chicks.

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tothepoint
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 1:10pm
This is just another way for O to hurt our country financially. He and his gang are on a roll of
draining our Treasury and wasting it on himself, his family, his friends, green jobs which go bankrupt the next day, non-existent technology, illegal aliens, and on and on the waste goes.

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fergiedurgish
Posted on March 19, 2013 at 1:02pm
Government welfare to companies is illegal . . .

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