Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Firm Takes Millions, Goes Bankrupt and Leaves Toxic Mess Behind

A taxpayer-funded “green” energy company that went bankrupt in July 2012 didn’t just leave behind a legal mess for its creditors – it left behind a mess of contaminated water and toxic carcinogens.

Image Source: Associated Press.

And its up to the owners of Abound Solar’s deserted 37,000 square foot facility to clean up the broken glass and hazardous wastes.

The mess left by the company, which was awarded a $400 million loan guarantee in 2010 by the Obama administration, and the damage done to the facility will cost an estimated $3.7 million to repair, according to The Northern Colorado Business Report.

“As lawyers, regulators, bankruptcy officials and the landlord spar over the case, the building lies in disrepair, too contaminated to lease,” according to the report.

The facility, which is currently too contaminated to be leased, sits unoccupied and collecting dust. The property owner tried to get one of the bankruptcy trustees to clean up the mess, but officials said the waste places “humans at imminent and significant health risk.”

Professionals are going to have to be called in if the property owners want it to be useable.

Oddly enough, unsold inventory that could have been used to recoup some of the losses, including thousands of solar panels, mysteriously disappeared, according to the National Legal and Policy Center.

"If a coal, oil or gas company pulled something like that the EPA would send out SWAT teams and the U.S. Marshals to track down the offenders, bankrupt or not," the group said in a report.

The latest news of the toxic waste is yet another embarrassment for President Barack Obama who praised the failed company in 2010 as an excellent “clean” energy investment.

"The second company is Abound Solar Manufacturing, which will manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs," said the president. "A Colorado plant is already underway, and an Indiana plant will be built in what’s now an empty Chrysler factory. When fully operational, these plants will produce millions of state-of-the-art solar panels each year."

Fast forward two years and Abound Solar lays off roughly 400 employees and files for bankruptcy protection.

“It became the third clean-energy company to seek bankruptcy protection after receiving a loan from the Energy Department under the economic stimulus law,” Fox News reported.

“California solar panel maker Solyndra and Beacon Power, a Massachusetts energy-storage firm, also declared bankruptcy. Solyndra received a $528 million federal loan, while Beacon Power got a $43 million loan guarantee,” the report adds.

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Featured image Abound Solar.

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