Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes
"The NYT writes in an editorial that for the last few months, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy, by pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive. 'The coal producers' motivation is clear: They see solar and wind energy as a long-term threat to their businesses. That might seem distant at the moment, when nearly 40 percent of the nation's electricity is still generated by coal, and when less than 1 percent of power customers have solar arrays. But given new regulations on power-plant emissions of mercury and other pollutants, and the urgent need to reduce global warming emissions, the future clearly lies with renewable energy.' For example, the Arizona Public Service Company, the state's largest utility, funneled large sums through a Koch operative to a nonprofit group that ran an ad claiming net metering would hurt older people on fixed incomes by raising electric rates. The ad tried to link the requirement to President Obama. Another Koch ad likens the renewable-energy requirement to health care reform, the ultimate insult in that world. 'Like Obamacare, it's another government mandate we can't afford,' the narrator says. 'That line might appeal to Tea Partiers, but it's deliberately misleading,' concludes the editorial. 'This campaign is really about the profits of Koch Carbon and the utilities, which to its organizers is much more important than clean air and the consequences of climate change.'"
Re:Buggy whips?
By jonwil
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2014-Apr-28 08:57
• Score: 5, Insightful
• Thread
If some rich person becomes less rich because people no longer want the dirty polluting coal their companies extract from the ground, GOOD. If that means a bunch of people no longer have a job going down into a hole every day digging out that filthy stuff, GOOD.
Just like the motor car made the horse obsolete as a means of transport, there will come a time when mankind invents a technology (or technologies) that make the use of coal for generating electricity obsolete and that will be a GOOD thing for the planet.
It doesn't have to supply all our power
By sjbe
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2014-Apr-28 09:00
• Score: 5, Insightful
• Thread
Using locally produced solar energy in a northern area that sees peak energy usage in the middle of winter is not really a good idea
They don't use air conditioning in Germany? Solar isn't going to fix every problem but even if it can solve just part of the problem then it remains a good idea. Why would you not want to use relatively clean solar energy for at least those times when it is available? The only credible argument against solar power is an economic one. No it will not be able to supply all our power needs but neither is any other single source of fuel. They all have drawbacks of one sort or another. What seems abundantly clear however is that any technology that allows us to reduce use of fossil fuels at reasonable economic cost is a good thing.
There is this stupid tendency here on slashdot to dismiss partial solutions to any problem as unworkable. Solar does not have to supply all our energy needs to still be a good idea. The economics of it still need to make sense but there is no principled reason why it should not be a significant part of the energy supply equation.
Re:Buggy whips?
By RazorSharp
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2014-Apr-28 09:31
• Score: 4, Insightful
• Thread
No, they're just dicks.
Or are they?
Yes. They're definitely dicks.
Re:Buggy whips?
By DrLang21
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2014-Apr-28 09:39
• Score: 4, Insightful
• Thread
They will just have to find another job.
I don't really disagree with your points, but this is an extremely naive statement. Many of these people are too old to make a radical career shift that will keep them in the middle class. When ever there is a radical shift in a large employment industry, there is economic devistation for a lot fo families. The steel industry is a good example of this. Yes most of them found new jobs, but the shift in economic buying power was dramatic and lasted for generations.
Re:Buggy whips?
By sjbe
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2014-Apr-28 09:46
• Score: 4, Insightful
• Thread
True enough - the world has survived such things, but countries whose dominance is closely tied to such things often fare poorly during and after such transitions.
The economic power of the US is not strongly tied to fossil fuels. The US uses them heavily but so does every other industrialized nation on earth. Nations whose economic output is primarily tied to fossil fuel mining (like Saudi Arabia) should in theory worry about such things but the US could relatively easily switch to new sources of power within reasonably short time scales. Most of the economic output of the US is not based on mining or distribution of fossil fuels.
Unless the U.S. starts, pretty damned soon, to find an alternative to fossil fuels, it's economy is in for a beating, the likes of which few have scarcely imagined.
Exactly what do you think is going to replace fossil fuels that is not going to be available in the US? Seriously, I'm all for replacing fossil fuels with cleaner sources of energy but there is NOTHING out there presently or in the reasonably likely future that is likely to do more than dent the use of fossil fuels for at least the next 30-40 years.