Today we get the same treatment from entrenched interests. Power companies SELL electricity. Every time someone installs a series of EV panels on a house or business, that's X amount of profit down the tubes. Likewise, every time a power company sets up an EV power station or a wind farm the coal mafia, the folks that make a good living selling coal go nuts.
A good deal of the backlash against the science of 'climate change' comes from the PR efforts of the folks that sell fossil fuels. Every time an 'electric' car hits the road, it's like a stake in the heart of the oil mafia... can you blame them for fighting back against progress? For its part, 'government' has an obligation to not just to the present, but also to the future. And contrary to current belief, 'government' CAN pick winners and losers if it's in the public interest to do so. Government has the obligation to promote new technology without regard to 'old' technology and even to 'force' that new technology onto the public. That's how we got seat belts and airbags in cars.
Conclusion: Solar and wind are the future and man made climate change is real. The old guard doesn't like it, the old guard never does, but not that many people today would want to trot out to the outhouse, or saddle up a horse, or fuss with oil lamps either. Check in with me in a decade....by then even the 'old guard' will be installing solar panels... no kiddin'!
I don't see how they can do much more than slow down the solar boom. Rooftop solar is already cost-competitive with retail electricity in many states. The world market is now driven by the EU, China and Japan anyway.
A few years ago there was massive overproduction that forced prices down by 75%. Lots of solar got installed, but the inefficient companies couldn't make a profit and they've been dropping out. Investment in new kit dropped too, but now prices have stabilised a bit and big boys like First Solar, Canadian Solar, Jinko, Trina and Yingli are all turning profits.
It's time for another round of investment in new, higher tech kit to start. In a few years' time solar prices will drop even further and it'll be cheaper than new coal or gas power stations in a whole bunch of states. Koch and ALEC might be able to put red tape up that strangles solar for a while, but they can only slow it down, not stop it. When people realise they're paying massively over the odds for fossil fuel power and we get the next El Nino so temperatures soar and people worry about global warming again, I don't think ALEC and Koch will be able to stop solar.
It isn't that Kochs are against clean energy. They are against being forced to pay for energy boondoggles that attack America's prosperity (hence their name). When solar panels become more competitive, and I do have some confidence that they eventually will, they will begin to be welcomed by people like the Koch brothers.
None, really. The fossil fuel industry has been attacking solar power and every other "green" technology for years without success.
People like the Kochs don't have nearly as much power as you've been led to believe by the right-wing media. Nor do they have the money to kill solar, wind or another alternative endergy technology.
The real money (and power) is on the side of solar. Here's some examples: Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet hare heavy investors in alternative energy. The Kochs can't begin to muster the resources any of those three have.
The right wing "power" you fear is an illusion -- one carefully crafted and promoted by those same right-wingers for the sole purpose of intimidating people like you. Sadly, on that issue they have had a remarkable degree of success. You believe in their "power? Well, Gates or Buffet could buy the Kochs with their pocket change.
Contrary to what Climate Realist thinks it's the AGW cultists and the failed crony capitalist green energy fiascos and the extreme costs associated with so called renewable energies that is driving public opinion away from it.
Have you not heard about how turning food and agricultural waste into ethanol is doing more harm to the environment, the economy, and to food resources than any energy benefit it produces? Or how the most expensive, Well over $3 billion, 'clean burning' coal powered gasification power plant doesn't freaking work? I could go on.
Hell we even have a solar panel company in my state that gone broke and wasn't even able to pay $3.5 million power bill until it got a loan.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financial...
"Green energy" is far from profitable. Attempts to make it more appealing by making conventional energy, fossil fuels, more expensive haven't worked. It's not Koch or the GOP or AGW dissenters causing public backlash against "green energy." It's the costs and the fact that it isn't reliable in the 1st place yet the government at the behest of all these AGW cultists and ignorant leftists has been forcing it on society and making society pay the enormous costs associated with it and getting very little in return. .
I don't think the solar industry is in any danger as the sun is always there
Contrary to denialist claims, it is the denialists who have the political power, not the "warmers." If you have money invested in companies which make solar panels, this is of course, bad news. Fortunately, outside of the U. S., hard core denialists are basically a fringe group. Solar panels still sell outside of the red states.
It seems that Koch's Americans for Prosperity, and ALEC are teaming up.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-solar-kochs-20140420,0,7412286.story#axzz2zXQTkVde
In that light, is the solar industry effectively dead in all but the bluest states?
