Koch brothers fighting solar power.

In their quest to cripple solar power and protect the profits of their fossil fuels-based businesses, the Koch brothers have run into an unexpected and potent adversary: tea party conservatives.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80083886/

The greed here is astounding, rather than trying to work with greener energy they are working against it, and they want to charge people who are trying to be more environmentally friendly. You would save so much money by going solar, money that could be going to them and they don't like that. Why don't they just get in on the solar power market rather than going against it in a time where greener energy is needed?

what a bunch of cocks.

They have every right to fight solar energy. It would harm their own business if green energy took off. Since they are our overlords and naturally superior to us, they should flex their political power and use their prostitutes in the legislatures to do their bidding. Nothing wrong with that.

I fucking hate when people don't worship the rich.

Do you know how much the Koch brothers donate to charity? And to the arts? the Arts!!!! Do you like ballet and the theatre, just like the common American does? Then you should be sucking the Kochs' dicks.

BossPerson convinced me

Where can I go to give the Koch Brothers my money they deserve it more than I do

Its grown-ups in businesses like Koch Industries, and thousands of other businesses, that keep all your modern conveniences turned on and working so you can come to the web and spout your self righteous proclamations

Solar and wind energy are a joke. They cannot be relied on to provide consistent levels of generation. There is NO STORAGE ON THE GRID !!!

What that means is that if your wind turbine isn't turning, or the sun isn't shining, you have no electricity.

For every watt of solar or wind generating capacity you build, you must have a watt of traditional generating capacity available, running on hot standby, to back up your precious "green" energy.

All you environmentally friendly, green energy loving, Obama cock sucking little douche bags will be the first to complain when your lights won't turn on, your router won't connect you to the internet and you can't beat off to your favorite porno site because the sun went down and the wind isn't blowing.

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Why is this news. Koch industries is an oil based company. They sell oil and oil based products mostly for energy generation. Of course they are going to fight against anything that could take business away from them. And slightly off topic, solar energy is terrible. It's incredibly expensive, takes up an incredibly large amount of space for a significantly lower output then other energy sources and is only available for less then half of each day, usually at times when greater energy output is required. How about investing in more reliable and higher yielding forms of clean energy, nuclear, hydroelectric, natural gas, limited wind generation etc at least until we develop the proper technology to be able to harness and store solar energy.

@collegeboy64: Clearly fossil fuel reserves are finite - it's only a matter of when they run out - not if. Globally - every year we currently consume the equivalent of over 11 billion tonnes of oil in fossil fuels. Crude oil reserves are vanishing at the rate of 4 billion tonnes a year1 – if we carry on at this rate without any increase for our growing population or aspirations, our known oil deposits will be gone by 2052.

Yeh greener alternative energy is a stupid idea lets just burn through what we have and worry about it later, I really hope that people with your views are a minority, what's actually pretty scary is that these Koch brothers prob share your views.

@ferrari2001: yeah, but it's been decades now since their dad . They could've branched out into alternatives long ago and building better foundations for it while still drilling for crude. with little consequence. They fight for oil, because they want society to remain this dependent.

Just like a drug dealer.

Qft

I hate it when someone opposes government subsidization of their competitors. Our benevolent overlords clearly know what's best for us, and if they want to pick and choose winners and losers in a market it is entirely their prerogative. I think any time someone opposes this we should make childish jokes about their names and intentionally misrepresent their views. That would be the most reasonable, logical response.

Lysander totally loved Spooning with goats and hated the idea of people being allowed to communicate with one another, amirite?



In all seriousness, if you really want to understand the situation I'll provide some better context. In Oklahoma, energy utilities are compelled by law to purchase back at a retail price any excess energy generated by solar power users on their grid, which is immediately transferred to their neighbors. However, the solar power energy is itself indirectly subsidized by government, and it's unreliable and can't be stored on the grid. This creates a situation where not only are the taxpayers indirectly (and sometimes directly) subsidizing solar energy themselves, but the energy utilities are compelled by law to directly subsidize their competitors by being forced to give up all profit from their service in situations where their competitor also provides the same service, while also put into a situation where it becomes difficult to maintain a safe margin for energy on the grid without wasting it. They want this surcharge in order to help combat this.

Since this is Gamespot I'll put it into console war terms for you. Let's assume Sony was subsidized in part by government benefits, and Microsoft was required by law to modify its XBOX to allow Playstation games to be played on it. Then if you get tired of your Playstation titles you can just trade them back in to Microsoft for the full retail price of a comparable XBOX title. Don't you imagine Microsoft might have a rightful complaint about this?

Most of your comments belie a complete lack of knowledge of this situation, instead preferring a knee-jerk parroting of the hyperbole you're told you're supposed to believe, often delivered in the form of penis jokes, without doing the adequate research yourself to understand what's going on.

Now, full disclosure, I personally oppose any such surcharge on solar power. I oppose all such surcharges as well as sin taxes on principal. I also oppose government subsidization of one company or industry over another competitor, but while this is ostensibly aimed at combating that subsidy I do not accept the argument that *yet more government* is the appropriate means of fixing problems inherent in *too much government.* I will grant exceptions to this non-solution in only a few situations, such as state recognition of gay marriages where I don't think it's the state's god damned business who is getting married and it's not the state's job to regulate or grant special privileges to marriages; but if the state insists upon doing this it should do so equally for those of all sexual orientation. In the case of this surcharge I don't think it is an overtly beneficial change, though, and it opens the door to a lot more future harm and loss of liberty.

@ariabed:

I'm almost 50 years old. I've been hearing about how we are running out of fossil fuels all my life. And miraculously, we always find more, or develop new tech to harvest more from old fields.

I'm also an electrical engineer, and I am telling you that wind and solar, as any substantial contribution to the US electrical generation capacity, is bullshit. The grid has no storage. That means we need generating capacity on line and ready to match up to demand AT ALL TIMES. So every watt of "green" generating capacity must be backed up by traditional generating capacity (nuke, hydro or fossil), often times idling in hot standby mode (i.e. belching filthy, poisonous, ozone destroying, global warming causing, poor people hating, racist pollution in the case of fossil fuel plants) ready to take up the slack when the green plants can't produce.

Green energy subsidization by our govt is just another means of politicians rewarding their friends.

the koch brothers arent demented enough to share his views, but it helps keep their pockets as fat as possible

Of course. They're basically cartoon characters. They're rich and looking after their business interests. Basically they're dicks.

I'm highly disappointed in you brother since you forgot how they're in the business of making the people rich.

: I hope they both contract a very aggressive form of cancer.

@collegeboy64 What short sighted thinking, The earth is going to be out of oil by 2050, and on top of that the Oil we do have is going to become more and more expensive. I know you'll probably be dead by then, but for everybody who isn't, the short sighted thinking of worrying about it later rather than working on "Green" technologies is going to make life very hard in the future.

Honestly we should be putting more money into alternative development and Green RnD.

Doing anything less is setting us up for failure in the future.

Holy shit...business people trying to protect the interests of their business. It's insane! We've never seen this before! Oh wait...

First off I don't think we should count on always being able to find more oil as it is a finite resource (and if oil isn't rare now think about the prices of when it actually is), second I don't see the kochs arguing any of your points against green energy. They have a multibillion dollar business and they want to keep it that way regardless of what that means for everyone else's future. As Airshocker said this is nothing new, but I see no reason for the consumers (aka us) to defend them for doing so when the price of oil is already costing a small fortune and only projected to go up.

Those guys are the scum of the earth, bribing politicians left and right and always getting their way

@BossPerson: @airshocker: "Holy shit...business people trying to protect the interests of their business. It's insane! We've never seen this before! Oh wait..."

Yeh fair enough but why don't they instead of trying to fight against solar power why don't they get in on that shit, or start developing newer more sustainable greener energy, instead of just milking the earth of every last scrap of oil, and being in denial about climate change. This isn't just about making money this is about future of our energy supply and looking after the planet we live in.

@bossperson: "the koch brothers arent demented enough to share his views, but it helps keep their pockets as fat as possible"

Are you sure about that.

Billionaire oilman David Koch used to joke that Koch Industries was "the biggest company you've never heard of." Now the shroud of secrecy has thankfully been lifted, revealing the $67 million that he and his brother Charles have quietly funneled to climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming, most of which are part of the State Policy Network.

They sound pretty demented to me.

I meant they aren't dumb. Evil, probably, but dumb? No.

Another disadvantage for going green, someone on TV or radio the other day was saying how people can't get special tax breaks for investing in companies that promote green energy production, they can however get special tax breaks for money invested in oil and natural gas extraction and production. If they can change that law, maybe people can pump money in green industries that can better lobby lawmakers.

Maybe they don't buy into the efficacy of solar power, BossPerson. From what I've read it's not all it's cracked up to be.

@airshocker: yeh maybe but the Koch brothers are actually paying companies millions to climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming, that's just obsurd money that could be spent developing greener energy.

Maybe Koch are aliens they obviously don't give a gosh darn about the our planet.

You're free to become as rich as they are and invest your money where you choose.

Until then, worry less about how other people spend their money.

@airshocker; erm ok sorry to have bothered you.

Yes Solar Energy is crap. It may possibly be the least cost effective source of energy production that we have. It takes up huge plots of lands, is only available 10 hours a day, it's produces significantly less energy then other sources given the cost and size of solar farms. If we find a way to make energy collection more efficient and find a way to store the energy we collect then solar energy could be a great source of electricity. For now it's a waste of space and money.

When you actually start reading what people write and responding accordingly, then we can talk.

Renewable resources of energy like sun, wind, etc aren't efficient... yet. There has to be more research into those energy sources, and proponents of the fossil fuels industry are actively fighting THE RESEARCH! Forget currently operating sources of wind and solar, they are prevent the proper research from being done.

Hitching your tail to a resource that is finite isn't smart business. If the Koch brothers and their ilk really wanted to set themselves up long term financially, they'd be at the forefront of solar power, and then charge up the ass for it when they figure it out.

@airshocker: hey I don't want to argue with you I've had enough with arguing with people on here but what's your problem?

Why the **** did you have comment this sarcastic bullshit. The people who actually believe this are now spouting off their bullshit because they can't distinguish sarcasm which they see as encouragement.

@RadecSupreme: agreed. It's just scary and disheartening to know that there are people sticking up for these Koch brothers.

Some people just don't recognize blatant evil.

Nothing is wrong with that except when it comes to the extreme levels to what the Koch brothers have been doing.. To me they are the equivalent to what the tobacco industry had been doing in decades past in specifically spreading misinformation, undermining the government and numerous other things to avoid getting out that their product is harmful.. There is a line to be drawn, what the Koch brothers goal has been now is basically the systematic dismantling over the government and regulations for their gain regardless if it harms others.. They have been quoted in saying more or less this, while bankrolling conservative groups that last election were in favor of voter suppression.. IDK about you but that crosses the line to which the excuse of "protecting their interests" no longer remains valid.

Well it's not their fault the damn Sun is giving away all that free energy. We should nuke that commie bastard.

We need the new nuclear reactors types. They don't produce carbon. They're amazingly safe, and the don't produce near as much waste as the old.

A lot of the negative attention is paid for by the oil and gas companies to keep them down. Demand newer nuclear plants, replace the older ones, and let's stop worrying about this.