And you thought Solyndra was bad…here comes Bloom Energy

We’ve had a bunch of “green energy” companies bite the dust which have been funded with U.S. taxpayer money. The list seems endless. Solyndra, A123 Systems, Ener1.

Now enter Bloom Energy, a company which manufactures “clean energy” has found a new way to bilk the taxpayers.

They bussed 14 Mexicans up to Silicon Valley to work for them. Put them up in decent hotels while they were being trained. Gave them a $50 per day food allowance. Sounds good so far. Right?

But in order to avoid government and taxpayer scrutiny of how little they were paying the workers, a measly $2.66 per hour, they paid them in pesos by wiring the funds to a bank in Chihuahua. 

Fuel cell manufacturer Bloom Energy received two awards totaling $15.1 million from the 1603 Treasury Program to support installations for a variety of commercial customers. The company recently quadrupled the size of its manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, Calif. The total estimated value of the fuel cell projects is approximately $50 million.

And that’s not all.

The Treasury Department has awarded the firm more than $70 million as of October 2012, according to the latest records. It is unclear if those funds have been fully disbursed or if the Treasury Department has suspended future payments. The department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Hopefully readers are outraged but nothing seems to surprise anyone any more. But as predicted enter a whistleblower which triggered an investigation.

A U.S. district judge has ordered Bloom to pay $31,922 in back wages and $6,160 in penalties. A pittance for a company worth almost $2.7 billion.

Interesting that former Secretary of State Colin Powell is on the Board of Directors.

Crossposted at Unified Patriots and Grumpy Opinions