Green Fail: Massachusetts Solar Company Abandons Plant, Moves Operations to China, Taxpayers on the Hook for $50M

Posted by on Mar 14, 2012 at 8:19 am
evergreensolar

Another green success story. Boy, they’re really piling up the victories, aren’t they?

Evergreen Solar is asking a bankruptcy judge for permission to walk away from its former plant in Devens.

The company, which received tens of millions in state aid before shuttering its facilities last year and moving its manufacturing operations to China, filed the notice in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware on Monday.

Interested parties including MassDevelopment, which helps finance and develop new projects, have until Friday to respond to the filing.

A spokeswoman for MassDevelopment declined comment Tuesday, saying the filing speaks for itself.

Evergreen received more than $20 million in grants and $11 million in tax and lease initiatives from Massachusetts.

That doesn’t include other tax benefits for road and utility upgrades, either. The real number is more like $50 million in tax money pissed away by this scam.

A spokesman for Massachusetts Development declined to discuss what will happen next with the plant, which cost some $450 million to build just five years ago. The development authority was one of the Massachusetts state agencies that pitched in to get Evergreen Solar going.

Evergreen Solar was one of several green-technology enterprises that filed for bankruptcy in recent years, a wave of failures that wiped out billions of dollars worth of public and private investment.

Now in the final phases of a planned bankruptcy liquidation, Evergreen has brokered a deal among creditors to share the pain of its demise.

Forget about shared success. Now we have to live with shared failure.

10 Responses to “Green Fail: Massachusetts Solar Company Abandons Plant, Moves Operations to China, Taxpayers on the Hook for $50M”

  1. Blue Hen on 14/14/12 at 11:14 am

    Jim ‘Baghdad Bob 2.0′ Carney: There are bushes in the picture. Obviously the blame belongs to Boooooosh.

  2. Mutnodjmet on 14/14/12 at 11:19 am

    HAPPY PI DAY! One of the earliest known approximations of pi date from around 1900 BC, found in the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus. Though the ancient Egyptians didn’t know the value of pi, they seem to have used an approximation during construction of the pyramids at Giza, Abusir, and Medium.

  5. jb books on 14/14/12 at 11:35 pm

    Was just thinking the same thing as Ozzy. A comprehensive list would be very helpful.

  6. bobdog on 15/15/12 at 3:17 am

    I’m just wondering. Has there been even ONE federally funded green project that has not been a total write-off?

    Even one?

  7. rich b on 15/15/12 at 2:23 pm

    bobdog posted: “I’m just wondering. Has there been even ONE federally funded green project that has not been a total write-off?”

    I think the word write-off is incorrect. The proper way to refer to these companies is PAY-OFF. Even Stevie Wonder could see what’s going on here.

  8. Blue Hen on 15/15/12 at 4:28 pm

    If only John Kerry were up there in Taxachoositz. He’d tell them a thing or two about offshoring American jobs……What? He is from there? And he’s busy hiding his $7M yacht? That he had built in New Zealand?………Never mind.

  9. Katherine on 15/15/12 at 7:16 pm

    I for one would love to see all the failures listed in one place, with links to their boards. It would be very instructive. My faith in solar power isn’t high, but I have a lot of faith in sunlight.