Ebon officially pulls the plug on Albuquerque factory

On Saturday morning Albuquerque Journal readers were greeted with the front page above the fold headline that “Ebon Solar had abandoned plans for $942M Albuquerque facility.”

But, if you followed the Rio Grande Foundation you’d have known back on March 20 that Ebon had given up the ghost at Mesa del Sol as had Maxeon. There are all kinds of reasons for the failure of Gov. Luhan Grisham’s economic development agenda, but a big part of it is that SHE wanted to control it by picking and choosing specific companies rather than adopting tax and regulatory policies to make New Mexico more attractive to investors and businesses.

The GOOD news? Unlike these failed solar plans data centers are real. They are necessary and they don’t need direct subsidies to work (that doesn’t mean they won’t receive subsidies, of course). On the other hand, unlike solar panel factories data centers are NOT supported by radical environmental organizations. Thus, they will stir up far more controversy and opposition.

RGF is supportive of data center development, but we STILL believe that New Mexico needs to adopt free market policies like GRT reform, elimination of the personal income tax, deregulation, education reform, and real anti-crime initiatives in order to be more attractive as a destination for jobs and economic growth.