David Brin- The Yiddish word chutzpah means gall and utterly arrogant nerve. It should be re-spelled to koch-spah after this news… that the ever-meddlesome Koch brothers are now funding a major campaign against state efforts to ramp up solar energy. It would be one thing if they limited their goal to ending tax rebates and minor subsidies for solar and wind… hypocritical, given how much they have benefited from vastly larger oil-gas-coal subsidies, tax breaks and almost free access to resources on public lands. No, they are also targeting net metering which is the law allowing a homeowner who owns a rooftop solar unit to sell excess power back to the utility. Please read that again. The Koch brothers do not want you selling your excess power to the market. Their beef is with filling energy markets with millions of little-guy producers. Their institute proclaims that its aim is to preserve the public utility power company concept -- a state mandated monopoly system in which single companies control all access to energy. Some enterprise capitalists! Some libertarians! But lets dig deeper to the heart of it. WHY are the Kochs (and their Saudi partners) doing this right now? Because solar energy is taking off. Because efficiency and durability rates have been skyrocketing, in part because we had the wisdom to use some mild incentives to boost an important new industry, the way US Postal contracts stimulated air travel, in the 1920s, or public roads spurred the rise of the automobile. Only with this difference: renewable energy systems are improving far FASTER than airplanes or automobiles did, in their nascent days. And more spectacular tech advances loom on the horizon, that they can see coming fast. Dig it well. The Kochs would not be doing this if renewables werent taking off and a looming threat to the brothers bottom line. Millions of autonomous citizens, generating and selling their own power is no longer a sci fi pipe dream. It is coming true fast… and the parasite dinosaurs are bellowing.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 01:35:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015