Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy released a report on the interim results of its loan guarantee program, the federal government’s huge clean energy investment fund. The results, which show a surplus return and an expectation of $5 billion in profits, should finally silence the program’s critics.
These results actually understate the success of the program. The government’s investments also created 55,000 direct jobs and several hundred thousand indirect jobs. They financed enough power to light more than a million homes and to take the equivalent of 4 million to 5 million cars off the road. And loan guarantees to lenders don’t even require the government to put up capital unless there is a problem.
