Exporting solar power is actually a booming business in the US
A new report from the Solar Energy Trade Association reveals — it’s one of the few sectors where USA actually have a trade surplus with China. Solar panels. And then we export it, raking in $1.9 billion annually. We export $5.6 billion worth of goods, and import $3.7 billion.
Pentagon Use of No-Bid War Contracts Balloons to $140 Billion
The Pentagon’s use of no-bid contracts has tripled since the United States was attacked on 9/11, in spite of promises to reform the controversial practice. According to a new investigative report from the Center for Public Integrity, no-bid spending has ballooned from $50 billion in 2003 to $140 billion in 2011. One instance cited in the report details how the Department of Defense awarded $50 million in sole-sourced contracts to an Arizona company in order to develop a lightning-shooting device that could detonate improvised explosives from the front of a vehicle. The Marines eventually canceled the contract. It was later revealed a separate company has developed the same technology for $1.5 million. So far this year, the Pentagon has allowed competition on just 55 percent of its war contracts, the lowest rate since 9/11. In addition to the Center for Public Integrity’s findings, the independent Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan is preparing to release a report showing that one in every six contracting and grant dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan has been wasted, totaling some $30 billion lost.
Exxon, Russia Reach Deal for Arctic Oil
The oil giant Exxon Mobil has reached a deal to tap the Arctic in exchange for training Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft on the controversial drilling practice known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The deal centers around a $3.2 billion exploration program for the Kara Sea on the Arctic Ocean and the Black Sea and an option for Rosneft to invest in Exxon drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico and oil fields in Texas. Under the deal, Exxon will use its $41 billion purchase of the Fort Worth-based drilling company XTO Energy to share expertise on fracking technology to draw natural gas out of shale rock. Fracking has come under wide criticism for contaminating water supplies.