Utilities want to stop rooftop solar!
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<< But Houston, we have a problem. Humanity, in its wisdom, has created utility companies — corporate entities that make money by turning fossil fuels and nuclear energy into electricity and selling it to us for the highest price obtainable. They have converted the greatest public resource of all — the power of the sun — into a profit center for a select few. This is called capitalism and is alleged to be a good thing. But the result is that the utility companies have come to believe that electricity is their private domain.
The idea that ordinary people might harvest solar energy themselves for their own use, or even [gasp!] share it with their neighbors, is anathema to utility companies, which will do anything to stop that from happening so their revenue stream is protected. “It’s our electricity,” they shout, “and we will decide who gets it and how much they will pay for it!” To make sure that is the case, they spend millions of the dollars they receive from their customers to make sure local, state, and federal regulatory agencies are well stocked with people who will protect their business interests at all costs.
Not only that, they are guaranteed a predetermined rate of return on every dollar they invest. It doesn’t matter if an investment turns sour or is rendered obsolete by newer technology. Utility customers are required to pay the freight for failures, even if it takes decades to pay them off.
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Just as automakers kicked up a fuss and screamed about how nobody wanted an electric car, so too the utility companies refuse to engage with the future for fear that doing so might kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Greed, however, is not good. It will be the number one cause of the extinction of the human race. >>