We hear so much from the fossil fuel lobby that the free market should determine our energy future–that government shouldn’t favor one technology or fuel over another. When implemented, this view typically favors the incumbents which in this case are fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. Very convenient.
But does the industry believe its own rhetoric? The Koch brothers, the much-maligned fossil fuel titans, were in the news last week after their legislative stalking horse, the innocuously named American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), was discovered pushing legislation in the states that would establish fees (read: taxes) for hooking solar panels to the existing grid. (Yes, I know it’s not exactly a tax because the utilities who are also lobbying for it collect it. Again, very convenient.)
Now these are the same Koch brothers who say they hate taxes and anything that looks like a tax and certainly anyone who wants to raise taxes. But taxing solar panel owners is essentially what they are doing in an attempt to make increasingly competitive electricity from solar less competitive with fossil fuels.
If they or their surrogates were true to their libertarian principles, they would be fighting to repeal all energy subsidies embedded in federal and state policy including those for fossil fuels. But, of course, they aren’t. With apologies to Matthew, a contributor to a very famous book, beware of false libertarians who come to you in conservative clothing but inwardly they are ravening pigs–pigs who continue to feed at the government trough while conspiring to prevent any competitors from dining with them.
When they say it’s about principle, you can be almost 100 percent certain that it’s really just about power–the power to impede an energy transition that is both necessary and inevitable.
What’s changed the landscape so dramatically is the swiftly falling price of solar energy–so swift, that those in the fossil fuel industry who said solar would never be competitive with fossil fuels are very worried. And, many believe the downward price trend will continue.
Now there is a cost to utilities and to society to have people hook up their solar panels to the electric grid. But given the worsening outlook for climate change and given the broad uncertainties surrounding prices and supplies of fossil fuels (which are finite and MUST decline some day), it seems foolish at this point to discourage solar installations as a matter of policy.
The states that fall for this Koch-brothers-inspired-ALEC-implemented nonsense will almost surely find themselves LESS competitive in the future as they continue to rely on fossil fuels, the prices of which have been climbing for more than a decade even as solar experienced its dramatic price drop. (Even U.S. natural gas, now in the mid-$4 range per thousand cubic feet (mcf) and therefore declared cheap, remains at levels over 125 percent higher than the average price Americans paid in the 1990s, i.e., $1.92 per mcf. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) delivered to Europe is more than twice that and more than three times the American price for deliveries to Japan.)
The development of solar might not be where it is today without government research and financial incentives. But the amazing advances and astonishing price drop are vindicating those who advocated public support of solar.
Solar energy is one important response to the twin crises of climate change and fossil fuel depletion. Admittedly, it addresses only part of our energy needs: electricity and heating. We still need to find a compelling substitute for oil which remains the dominant fuel for the world’s transportation system.
But it is telling that solar is fast becoming so important that those who said it could never be competitive are now having to campaign actively against it. That should tell you all you need to know about whether the solar energy revolution is real.
Image of cabin with solar panels via Wikimedia Commons. Author: Hillebrand Steve, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Originally from Public domain images website.
