Koch Brothers Going After Solar Energy Customers

[Pio1980]

I'd choose sustainable rooftop solar over a Koch affiliated source any day if I could manage it.

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by Pio1980

I'd choose sustainable rooftop solar over a Koch affiliated source any day if I could manage it.

The problem is that it's not viable without substantial support from government. If and when it becomes viable, that is, competitive with fossil fuels, then those same energy companies will likely be involved in it. If solar is so great, then it ought stand on its own.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by bhunter

If solar is so great, then it ought stand on its own.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...ss-which-ones/

Citizens for Tax Justice has analyzed corporate tax rates from 2008 to 2010. The report [PDF] examines over half of the Fortune 500 companies

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the richest industries get the biggest subsidies, starting with finance and Big Energy. That’s how the 1% operate.

Notably, 56 percent of the total tax subsidies went to just four industries: financial, utilities, tele-communications, and oil, gas & pipelines.

http://www.trainweb.org/moksrail/adv.../transport.htm

FACTS ABOUT TRANSPORTATION SUBSIDIES
A paper by the Missouri-Kansas Passenger Rail Coalition and the Ohio Association of Rail Passengers

Much is made of the $30 billion spent on Amtrak over the last 30 years, but in that same period the federal government spent $1.89 TRILLION on air and highway modes, according to the New York Times and Washington Post.

Since 1946, the federal government has poured billions of dollars into airport development. In 1992, Prof. Stephen Paul Dempsey of the University of Denver estimated that the current replacement value of the U.S. commercial airport system-virtually all of it developed with federal grants and tax-free municipal bonds-at $1 trillion.

Not until 1971 did the federal government begin collecting user fees from airline passengers and freight shippers to recoup this investment. In 1988 the Congressional Budget Office found that in spite of user fees paid into the Airport and Airways Trust Fund, the taxpayers still had to transfer $3 billion in subsidies per year to the FAA to maintain its network of more than 400 control towers, 22 air traffic control centers, 1,000 radar-navigation aids, 250 long-range and terminal radar systems and its staff of 55,000 traffic controllers, technicians and bureaucrats.
- James Coston, member, Amtrak Reform Council, 2001.

The purpose of this paper is to document subsidies highway and air modes of transportation have received over the years.
Much is made of the support Amtrak has gotten since its inception in 1971 by critics who overlook the huge amount of funding provided by all levels of government on behalf of the auto and airplane.

As has been noted by well known conservative Paul Weyrich, of the Free Congress Foundation, the current transportation system, dominated by highway and air transportation is by no means a free market outcome. Rather it is the result of massive and sustained government intervention on behalf of these two modes. Indeed, before government became involved on this massive scale, most transit and intercity rail passenger systems were privately owned for-profit enterprises.

There's plenty more where these came from.

Drug Company subsidies, Agricultural subsidies, etc, etc.

[bobabode]

Thanks TJ. That's one for my files.

[whell]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...ss-which-ones/



http://www.trainweb.org/moksrail/adv.../transport.htm



There's plenty more where these came from.

Drug Company subsidies, Agricultural subsidies, etc, etc.

Those are the "shovel ready jobs" we’ve heard so much about. Infrastructure spending is also a great way for Feds to pay back unions for their support at election time.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by whell

Those are the "shovel ready jobs" we’ve heard so much about. Infrastructure spending is also a great way for Feds to pay back unions for their support at election time.

No, what these are are a few examples of how government has subsidized business in this country from the very beginning.

Read a little history.

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroo...ad/grants.html

Without the assistance of the U.S. government, railroad construction between 1860 and 1900 would have been greatly curtailed. Building a railroad was an expensive venture. Private banks, fearing the railroad companies would need a long time to pay off their debts, were reluctant to loan money to the companies. To remedy the situation, Congress provided assistance to the railroad companies in the form of land grants. The land grant railroads, receiving millions of acres of public land, sold the land to make money, built their railroads, and contributed to a more rapid settlement of the West. In the end, four out of the five transcontinental railroads were built with help from the federal government.

[donquixote99]

Of course, hydro is solar. The sun does the work of vaporizing water that then precipitates to flow through turbines. Ontario Hydro and Quebec Hydro's power should be cheap; they have no fuel cost.

I'm more than half-convinced the best utility model is the old Bell 'monopoly.' We had 99.99999% reliability, and we had Bell Labs. Good stuff. What I don't know is what was different with them, compared to the scheming energy companies.... Though they are fundamentally different businesses. Bell was basically a network provider, a service business, while the electric providers are manufacturers/distributors.

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

Of course, hydro is solar. The sun does the work of vaporizing water that then precipitates to flow through turbines. Ontario Hydro and Quebec Hydro's power should be cheap; they have no fuel cost.

I'm more than half-convinced the best utility model is the old Bell 'monopoly.' We had 99.99999% reliability, and we had Bell Labs. Good stuff. What I don't know is what was different with them, compared to the scheming energy companies.... Though they are fundamentally different businesses. Bell was basically a network provider, a service business, while the electric providers are manufacturers/distributors.

Sorry DQ Quebec is very much hydro since they did the huge James Bay project and New York state is glad they did or they would be freezing in the dark.

Ontario 'Hydro's' last big electric plant was at Niagara Falls, since then starting with the Pickering Candu reactor they have been 100% nuclear with the Bruce Peninsula being the biggest installation. I suspect that there is probably a big cable running under Lake Ontario to Ohio. Of course their nukes do not require enriched uranium and might even run on thorium.

Yeah breaking up Ma Bell was dumb, but public ownership is really the only way to go with electric power generation. Trying to get all those dinky little power companied to agree on a nationwide grid is like herding cats.

[Tom Joad]

The only good Koch, is a dead Koch.

[whell]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

The only good Koch, is a dead Koch.

Right. Also, the punny little phrase Joad kill comes to mind.