AVA Solar Makes A New Debute- Kanjorski Family Hits The Obama Jackpot

Here is the lead off story in the DailyCaller.
Obama awards huge loan guarantees to solar companies promising scant jobs gains

Paul supported legislation that passed the House in December to authorize billions of dollars for research into sustainable energy sources such as wind energy, biofuels, and solar energy,” the congressman’s website reads

Lightining Strikes In The Same Place How Many Times??

To Kanjorski Supporters, please explain your reasoning for allowing this type of exploitation. During the last election I wrote about AVA Solar and Russel Kanjorski's ties to a $3 million dollar subsidy from the government. Solar Power Authority penned this piece about the company.

A solar energy startup company in Fort Collins, CO has been getting lots of attention since announcing plans to build a factory and hire as many as 500 people in the next two years. The name of the company is AVA Solar (which stands for Air Vacuum Air) and they have developed a process for making inexpensive solar cells by depositing thin films on architectural plate glass. The process was developed by several researchers from Colorado State University led by W.S. Sampath. The researchers started AVA Solar specifically to go into business manufacturing solar panels based on this new process.

Business Wire lists this company profile about the AVA Solar including contact information for Russell Kanjorski. Here's a link to an article from September 14, 2007 quoting Russell Kanjorski about AVA Solar entering the solar arena.

In this article Russell Kanjorski boasts about the "tens of millions" raised for the company. Russ Kanjorski is quoted in this article that the company raised $104 million dollars for its operation. In this piece Russ Kanjorski talks about the grant they recieved from the Energy Department. Apart from the venture capital investment, the company received two rounds in 2007 and a grant from the Energy Dept. as a winner of the Solar America Initiative.

Read this article that highlights their initial grant of $ 3 million from the Department of Energy in 2007.

AVA uses a proprietary semiconductor process to manufacture a sheet of glass into ready-to-install cadmium telluride panels, Abely said. The company plans to focus primarily on the utility market when it starts shipping panels in 2009, he said.
“We will be very cost competitive in that market,” Abely said.

New investor DCM led the funding round, with participation from Technology Partners, GLG Partners and Bohemian Companies. Also participating was The Invus Group, who led AVA’s first round of an undisclosed value in June 2007. That same month, the company secured a Department of Energy grant for $3 million.

A seed round in February 2007 included investors John Hill, founder of Hill Carmen Ventures, and Doug Schatz, co-founder of Advanced Energy Industries, both of whom now sit on AVA’s board. The company was founded in January 2007.

Now comes this story from WeeklyStandard.com- One Job Forward, Two Jobs Back.

The Great Obamanomic Job Creation Machine rumbled into action again over the Fourth of July weekend, promising to spend as much as $2 billion to support creation of 1,585 “permanent” jobs by two solar energy companies. That comes to a potential cost of over $1.25 million per job.

Paul, what was that cost per parking space at Hazleton's Intermodal Center??

In his weekly radio address on July 3, President Obama chided the Republicans for failing to climb aboard his job-creation bandwagon, which he claims—against strong evidence to the contrary—has created or saved 2.8 million jobs over the past year. And he isn’t finished. He vowed “to keep competing aggressively to make sure the jobs and industries of the future are taking root right here in America.”

In fact, today, I’m announcing that the Department of Energy is awarding nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to two solar companies.

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. .  .  ..

Wait a minute...It used to be AVA Solar.

First is the willingness to commit huge sums of money for the creation of comparatively few jobs in favored industries. Abound Solar is supposed to create 1,500 “permanent” jobs, while Abengoa Solar is promising just 85 “permanent” jobs, according to the Department of Energy fact sheet, at its plant in Arizona. Add another 3,600 construction jobs, which will disappear after the three plants are built, and the cost per job created still amounts to $386,000—which is more than seven times the median household income in this country.

The Department of Energy’s commitment to the two companies comes in the form of loan guarantees rather than outright grants. The guarantees put them ahead of other private companies in the borrowing and investment queue—including companies that could be the next Apple or Microsoft. And they put public money at risk in the service of people who are out for private gain. The risk is real.

Russell Kanjorski, the vice president for marketing at Abound Solar, was one of the principals in another energy company in northeast Pennsylvania, called Cornerstone Technologies LLC, which attracted $9 million in federal grants before it halted operations in 2003 and later filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. As reported by the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, “Cornerstone reported $14,100 in assets compared with $1.34 million in debt” in its bankruptcy filing. The $9 million in federal grants to Cornerstone were earmarked by Kanjorski’s uncle, Representative Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises.


You can read the Times-Tribune reporter Charles Schillinger's story here. Ed Mitchell's comments.

His nephew works for the company, but is an executive and has nothing to do with securing federal projects, I don't believe," said spokesman Ed Mitchell. "The congressman doesn't know any of the executives of the company and has had no contact with them.

"The congressman has also had no contact with anyone in the administration to get the (loan commitment), and that's what it comes down to," he added. Okay Ed keep the BS flowing.

About job creation let's go back to the WeeklyStandard.

The same point may be made about everything the government does with the purported goal of boosting the economy and creating jobs. In making the case last year for the $787 billion stimulus bill, Obama and the Democrats claimed it would stop unemployment from going above 8 percent. Instead unemployment climbed to 10 percent and has remained at or near that level ever since. Rather than admit error, the administration is now claiming that the stimulus has kept unemployment from going up to about 12 percent.

Ed Mitchell, Paul Kanjorski...what did you want to crow about Hazleton's unemployment??