You want oil? We own it. You want gas? We own it. You really need to see this cartoon.

[WillParkinson]

[TBF]

1. So true. K&R

[dogknob]

2. Breathable air and drinkable water are next on that list

[RoccoR5955]

58. Water is on the list thanks to hydrofracking.

The more that they say it's safe, the less I believe them. Exxon-Mobil will not be satisfied until it owns EVERYTHING.

[truedelphi]

78. So very sad, so very true. n/t

[ixion]

3. exactly...

but even so, they're working on capturing the solar market, and as soon as they feel the competition has been eliminated, that will suddenly become 'feasible'.

[CrispyQ]

4. Some comedian once said:

"If they could put a meter on the sun, we'd have solar everything by sundown tomorrow."

[Wind Dancer]

5. So true!

I'm surprised they haven't found a way.

[KittyWampus]

9. they are now beginning to tax Wind Energy

[Tesha]

6. That's an oldie but a goodie! Thanks for posting it! (NT)

[WillParkinson]

7. I had never seen it before...

It struck me as so true I had to share. Glad to know it's been out there for a bit.

[Tesha]

17. I've Googled for it several times and never found it -- that's why I was...

...so glad to see it again!

Tesha

[sce56]

21. I remember it not only a K&R here but a cross posting on Facebook!

[G_j]

8. right on nt

[ThomWV]

10. "You want the Congress and President to work for you?" "We Own the Congress and President"

The Court too.

[Bozita]

11. !

[Kaleko]

35. That needs to sink into American minds still high on hopium.

[lonestarnot]

12. Most beautius cartoon. Analogous to OWS movement!

K & R!

[libodem]

14. Most beautius indeed

Well put. That's what I tell my cat.

[annabanana]

13. Oh watch them, WATCH them! They are coming for our

water . . . .

[AnneD]

18. It is already here....

In the county my brother live in, they want all the wells registered and they will meter them and charge you what you draw out. My brother says if they do that, he will figure a way to charge the county for the water that seeps from the ponds he built to recharge the underground table. Needles to say he is pissed. Right now his wells are grandfathered in, but he is "Annie get your gun" mad.

They thought they had a range war over fencing, wait until they start fighting over water.

[WillyT]

15. K & R !!!

:kick:

[RevStPatrick]

16. Someday soon, they'll figure out how to do this...

[WillParkinson]

19. Well they recently found a 3-eyed fish which the Simpsons deftly prophesied

So it's likely they're working on it. :)

[RevStPatrick]

20. That's right, I forgot about that!

http://gizmodo.com/5853988/the-simpsons-called-it-three-eyed-fish-caught-outside-a-nuclear-power-plant

[Fire Walk With Me]

22. Grin... K&R!

[usrname]

23. Actually, for solar power

there's a separate bit of problem. A good problem. Part of the reason that Solyndra went bankrupt is that they mis-estimated the revenue they could get from solar power. They expected X amount of dollar per Kwh generated. But the power from solar was getting cheaper and cheaper and so the amount of power generated did not produce enough revenue and that's why Solyndra went bankrupt. That's a good problem to have because it makes solar power viable.

The cartoon is still fitting and funny, though.

[jonthebru]

57. I saw an interview with a Saudi Prince a while ago.

It was when oil was really high. He said honestly that they don't want high oil prices because it makes alternative power sources more feasible. Lower prices make solar and wind and the others seem expensive so utilities don't invest in the new sources. Very sad that the "powers that be" don't get that the Saudis absolutely do not have our interests in mind. Most of us understand that fact.

[MH1]

24. Bingo! nt

[pink-o]

25. I had that cartoon taped to my refrigerator in 1980

How tragic that all these years later we're still dealing with the same bastards putting up the same stumbling blocks and manipulating the same low-info portion of our population!

[L. Coyote]

48. And then came Ronald Reagan, the tool-in-chief

[ooglymoogly]

54. You want refrigeration...we own the electricity. nt

[pink-o]

67. LOL!

:toast:

[Marazinia]

26. You want labor? We own the labor.

A good argument for solar. Although it's still expensive to make solar panels, new technology may soon change that. And perhaps the powerful will be truly insane and will try to stand against it. I would hate to think that anyone is that crazy, but you never know. They have a proven track record of nuttiness, after all.

As for the rest, we own more than they think. What if we said to them, get your rich carcass out to the coal mine and haul the coal out yourself, then. Get your oil out of the ground yourself, and the water, and run the power plants and mine the uranium.

They don't own anything, not even the non-renewable energy resources they think they own, without us. Without us, they shiver and starve and die in their unheated, unlit mansions. Remember that.

[Jack Rabbit]

27. I first saw that cartoon in the seventies

Spreading self-serving lies is nothing new for corporate giants. These days it's the global-warming-is-a-hoax hoax.

[obxhead]

28. Once solar becomes more viable by rising costs of the other energy

sources they will own that too.

They are already invested at low levels in the technology.

[Enthusiast]

29. That's it, in a nut shell.

With a moderate effort we could move from fossil fuels to solar and wind. But the politicians are bought -both parties. Unfortunately we also are going to lose medicare and social security because the politicians are bought. And we are going to continue wasteful counterproductive wars because the politicians are bought.

Oh, you say the Democrats are better, they're not as owned by the corporations? Then why is Max Baucus on the super committee? This is the guy we know sold us out on health care. Who appointed him?

[Marazinia]

30. No, the Democrats aren't better

Americans need to wake up and vote Green, Libertarian, or Socialist. Let the twoparty die, because they've never been two parties, they're one party, owned by the same people, and those people aren't us!

[Enthusiast]

34. I will vote for individual good Democrats.

There are NO good Republicans or Teabaggers.

[Marazinia]

71. Dennis Kucinich

He's the only one I'd consider supporting as of right now, based on his voting record, not on his rhetoric.

[OwnedByFerrets]

55. Ding DIng Ding

[ChadwickHenryWard]

31. They'll find a way to make money off of it.

That is the core function of capitalism. They will get their lucre. But only once everything else has collapsed. We should be proactive and start a national firm to produce solar power, especially since the private sector seems to be bungling it so badly.

[krispos42]

32. K&R n/t

[Uncle Joe]

33. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, WillParkinson.:thumbsup:

[BEZERKO]

36. Nice!

[lunatica]

37. Yup. Solar power will make all the others obsolete

[hunter]

38. I can't make a solar electric panel, nor can I afford to buy one.

What next?

This cartoon makes no sense.

Big corporations own the solar energy business just like they own fossil fuels and nuclear power. It's not as if you can grow solar panels organically in your backyard and give them away to family and friends, or sell them like peaches at the local farmer's market.

If you want to quit using nuclear power and fossil fuels, quit using nuclear power and fossil fuels. Quit buying stuff made and transported using nuclear power and fossil fuels.

If substantial numbers of people could quit being such dedicated consumers there wouldn't be any reason to keep old dirty power plants running.

[RoccoR5955]

59. If you didn't need electricity

Solar heated hot water is quite cheap, and can be made with materials that you can get in any hardware store, or might have lying around.

[AdHocSolver]

62. Congratulations Hunter! You are the only poster in this thread who suggested a workable solution.

The reason the "One Percent" are "winning" is because they stick together. The reason the "99 Percent" are getting screwed is because they are competing against each other in a rigged game.

Expanding on your superior insight, if one doesn't like jobs being outsourced, stop buying overpriced imported junk. Demand that retailers offer American-made products or refuse to shop there.

If you understand that the stock market is rigged, stop buying and selling stocks. As a group, the majority of investors cannot beat the system. Anyone who believes that they can consistently beat the system is naive.

Anyone who believes the propaganda that you can win in the stock market by investing for the long haul has evidently not heard of Enron.

If banks hit you with all kinds of unreasonable fees, then switch to a credit union, or at least a different bank.

Stop falling for every gimmick that they use to separate you from your money.

Nobody forced investors to buy mortgage-backed securities. A little skepticism would have prevented a lot of economic problems.

[Jamastiene]

39. I can't believe I never thought of that one.

Brilliant! K&R

[caseymoz]

40. Funny. But I have to break it to you:

It isn't near feasible, at least for the level of energy we demand. Twelve percent of our current demand would be very highest I'd expect solar to provide. I don't wish to discourage anyone, however, because 12 percent is significant, but if anybody thinks we can rely totally on solar, wind and geothermal, for all our energy needs, they're dreaming and should sit down and do the math sometime.

Also, if you ever get solar, wind and geothermal to the point where they do provide a significant amount of power, expect environmental damage to become significant, too. We simply can't support the population we have on the planet now.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

[truedelphi]

41. The problem with your statistic is that it is overlooking a lot of what is

Happening.

First of all, the twelve percent figure might be valid if we included all the land masses in the world.

Obviously Alaska, Siberia, Scandinavian countries, The Artic and Antartic et al are not going to be able to do 100% solar.

But Colorado has 301 days of sunshine each year. Ditto Arizona, New Mexico, many parts of Texas, Utah, a lot of California. Plus often the Midwest could be happily relying on solar. And Chicago could easily do a solar/wind combination - they are not called the Windy City because of wishful thinking but because of reality.

My neighborhood on the shoulders of Mt Konocti in Northern California could be one hundred percent off the grid by using solar technology combined with wind technology.

Also and you may not have heard about this - NASA is planning on solar powered space stations that will do nothing but collect solar energy and ZAP it back to the earth. So one reason why there is such fervor to cut back NASA isn't because of the meme "Why put people on Mars when we cannot solve our problems here?" but its opposite: because the Powers that Be fear that this type of technology would free mankind from

[caseymoz]

46. There's about two calories available per square centimeter

So far so good. I began to do the rest of the math the hard way, then I found this:

http://www.mpoweruk.com/solar_power.htm

which gives me a shortcut. The world's energy needs might be met, with ideal efficiency and ideal placement (not including significant inherent losses in transport and storage) with a total of 118,000 km sq. area of solar panel. The US has 1/17 of the world's population, but has 5 times the world average energy expenditures per person. So:

118,000 sq. km x 5/17 = 34,706 sq km of solar panels to live at our current affluence level. Remember line losses and storage are very, very significant too. So you can double or triple that area. We'll double it. About 70,000 sq km will be needed, minimally. Note: that's the size of South Carolina.

Meanwhile, the materials needed, the area of land covered, and the fact that you're extracting heat from the atmosphere will have a significant environmental impact. Not to mention the fact that you're crowding out plants from the best sunlight on the planet, competing with them in their niche. Whenever humankind has competed head-to-head, it has always won. So you could expect more extinctions. That's going to have a negative environmental effect, too. And remember, the population will grow, as it always has when we've had a plentiful source of energy.

Though as I think about it, extracting heat from the atmosphere right now would not at all be bad. But it's generally a trade-off just the way any other energy source is. This is not going to "free" mankind. Two things will free mankind: either reduce the population or solve the problem of interstellar space travel.

I hope you see why I'm skeptical.

PS added with edit: you apparently didn't know what I meant by "efficiency" if you began to tell me about differential sunlight. I meant how much of the sunlight shining on a panel can be converted into electricity. The best ones we have are 8% efficient. Second Law of Thermodynamics says you're not going to get near 100% of it. Seventy percent is cited as the theoretical limit .

As for NASA beaming us electricity from space, first, what would be the environmental impact of it? Beaming it in the microwave spectrum is not going to be environmentally friendly. Second, that might end up being less, not more efficient than gathering it on earth, simply because you gather it once with 8% efficiency beam it down, and then have to gather it again with 8% efficiency, and probably you have loses storing it twice, instead of once. (I know the numbers might not be that low, but since you're multiplying them, that doesn't matter that much.

Just because somebody has an exciting idea doesn't mean it'll work.

[truedelphi]

63. Your arguments remind me of the rguments that someone around 1900

Might have come up with against the automobile.

"Ain't no way you are improving your life by getting one of them contraptions... Who is going to repair the damn thing when it breaks down? And it's not as tolerant of the nasty roadways we have currently as my horse Sammy is - how will it handle mud and puddles? My horse is amazing -- when I ride into town, he can just amble its way off the road and find a better path, if the road has turned soupy in all the rain, but your electric buggy there4 is bound to have problems.

"Do you realize how much effort it would take to have a decent road system built and maintained?"

And the old duffer complaining like that had a point - if the undertaking had some deadline, and everything necessary to convert from horse-based travel to car-based needed to happen overnight. But it was a gradual process.

So too will solar/wind- based energy be gradual.

Anyway, I think the notion of worrying 'bout the "transport" of the energy to each home would be solved by having every house have its own solar panels. And although twenty years ago, people I knew in Colorado who were basically off the grid did need to cover most of their roof with panels, now the panels are much more efficient, and you could probably operate a small two bedroom place the one I live in by using less than one fifth the square footage of my roof.

I'd need some type of storage batteries, but those could go in the garage.

For a while I was working out how to run our dryer off solar panels, as that is the biggest drain on our household energy budget. And several friends were very discouraging - not possible to do the project with solar - especially given that I am pretty much a newbie in terms of working with motors.

But I did figure out how to do it, and tomorrow will offer a photo of my amazing invention. And it cost far less than my friends the experts predicted!

[hunter]

68. Our automobile culture isn't sustainable.

It will be gone when the cheap oil is gone. And then the superhighway system will fall into disrepair. We'll return to railroads and concrete two lane highways reminiscent of the 1920's and 30's.

In the long view the naysayer of 1900 is correct.

World automobile use peaked in 2004 and we are now on the downward slope. As it becomes more difficult to extract oil from the earth, it becomes more difficult to own and operate a car.

Switching from gasoline to expensive full sized, full range, highway capable electrics will be impossible for most people. Local roads will be opened up to small, very nimble low speed vehicles, making conventional automobiles even less useful and desirable.

The old fart in the SUV is going to be getting a lot of finger from folks zipping around on bicycles, motorbikes, and little electrics, some of which can burn rubber at 0-35 mph and cut ahead of a gasoline powered car from any stoplight.

A surprising number of teens today are not interested in automobiles and are not bothering to get their drivers licenses until they are eighteen or older. When I was a teen in Southern California this was unheard of. If you didn't get your drivers license shortly after your sixteenth birthday you were an outcast. Quite a few of my kids' friends have moved to cities and the last thing they want is a car because it greatly limits their choice of housing.

[caseymoz]

69. I'm not arguing that the automobile culture is sustainable.

You don't have to preach to me or inform me about it.

But our food production also depends on oil, and for no other reason but population pressure, not culture. The loss of oil means mass starvation.

I'm not here to advocate for the oil industry. What I'm saying is, there's no good way out of the energy crunch and "population bottleneck" that's coming. Solar will do something, but it will not do anything near enough.

The only things that would have saved us would have been space colonization (in the 20th century) and/or fusion power. Neither one of them came through.

And civilization after oil, if it exists at all, is not going to be something that we can create, it's going to be something imposed on us.

[truedelphi]

75. i totally agree with you about how the automobile

is not sustainable, as we have currently set up the dynamics of the automobile.

Should we actually get around to having an automobile that runs on a different method of renewables, then it could be sustainable.

I just watched a race car that can do 170 mph and all of it was solar! With panels on the car itself!

but I wasn't making the points I made to defend the car industry - just to show how overwhelming it would have been for both the opponents and the proponents of an automobile culture to make a case for that culture in the year 1903, say. And so it is with those who have convinced themselves of how solar technology is not possible. They are using the realities of the current day scenario, and they simply cannot think out of the box as far as the dreams-made-into reality that occurs as the future takes place, day by day.

[caseymoz]

70. My argument is different.

A similar argument to mine would have been, "There's not enough oil in the ground to run these things." That argument wasn't made, was it?

Nevertheless, those who criticized of the car were, in fact, right, but they became wrong simply due to luck. It turned out those problems you listed were easier to solve than they thought. Luck. It was the best answer and the absolutely rational one to bet against the car. It was the likeliest one to be correct.

Good luck is not going to be the case for every invention you desire to succeed. It is superstitious to expect innovation to come through the way you think it will on every product you think is cool, in fact, on most inventions.

Examples abound, in fact, failures have pretty much boxed us in now. Space travel, for instance. We thought we'd have colonies on the moon and Mars now. It did not happen, because space turned out to be far more daunting than we thought, and gave us far less direct returns than needed. I mean there's high radiation, the zero-g is fatal to us, plus the fact that it takes a lot of resources to put anybody in space, let alone land them on another planet. Unlike automobiles, technological fixes for space travel did not come through and relativity still binds us close to the earth.

Then there's fusion. If you invested in fusion in the 1950s, it would have been a good bet. Don't say the oil companies have suppressed it, either. We spent tens of billions on developing it.

The simple fact is, though, most inventions are not going to change the world, most have one flaw or another that ruin them and that are never fixed. So, I stand by my criticism of solar. If you could demonstrate that the problems I see are much easier/cheaper to solve than they look, then it becomes more rational to think solar will become substantial. Until you do that, no.

You don't know what I mean by "transport of energy," and I was afraid you wouldn't. That does include in house, and that's nothing compared to the problem of storage and the toxic chemicals produced by that.

Batteries, BTW, are environmentally very polluting. Whereas the automobile started out when people had no care about the environment.

The actual trouble, however, is that if we do solve the problems and get solar to work without covering over Arizona, the population will grow. We will keep needing panels and wind turbines until it is unsustainable.

I'm glad you got it to work for your dryer. Now try it for everything, including your car. Run a plane on it.

Just to show you how much of this is dependent on luck, here is a quote by a scientist in the 1930s: “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”

Who said that? Why, Albert Einstein in 1932. Yes, the guy who knew more about physics than anyone, and whose incidental predictions are still discovered to be right to this day.

PS- Petroleum is solar energy. It's energy that the earth has stored. But it took hundreds of millions of years to gather that much. You're not going to replace a gallon of gas with a solar panel in five minutes. There's not enough energy there.

[truedelphi]

72. One of the problems with thinking about scientific-based

Realities inside a linear construct is that science does not advance in a linear mode, it advances exponentially.

One example: when I graduated HS, I never considered becoming an engineer, because I lacked the ability (and the interest) in spending half my time for next three to four years using a slide rule.

However less than ten years later, I attended engineering school -as both the availability of handheld calculators and the inexpensive pricing of these items made them a possibility for each and every student to have what amounted to a small, math-focused personal computer.

And that happened in just nine years!

[caseymoz]

74. But haven't answered my argument because you have no answer.

I'll answer your statement about exponential growth of knowledge. You can't expect exponential anything to continue. You put bacteria in a petri dish with a food source, and they will grow exponentially. If you infer at any time that it's going to continue forever you will think that bacteria will very soon break from that petri dish and cover the earth. It doesn't. Why not? Because something limits it. And outside of the petri dish with the ability to grow that fast, it never covers the earth because, again something limits it.

Science might advance exponentially now, for this brief period. There's no reason to expect it to continue, and there's no reason to think science is going to find something that makes solar energy or renewable sources viable. Again, look at fusion. Better yet, look at faster than light travel. Science is not cooperating with us on that. What if, no matter how much research we put into over eons the final answer is, it's impossible? Why, science is still advancing exponentially, but it still doesn't help us.

Now, my argument said that you can never correctly anticipate a particular invention to overcome its technical problems in a given amount of time no matter what the investment in it. The science might not come through. Ever. In the case of energy, though, we have a time limit considerably less than forever.

And why do you get to start your post with something as condescending as, "One of your problems is . . ."? You wonder why progressives get a bad reputation. Well, one reason . . .

[truedelphi]

76. The reason that I avoided answering your arguments is because for most people

What you are saying does not apply. I already have friends who live in trailers who have managed to install solar and wind technology, use batteries as backup devices, and do it all on a very small income.

They are mostly off the grid, but do use wood as a fuel on really cold days in Lake County Calif. Which there are not that many of (maybe two weeks when it is below thirty degrees, usually.)

But they could care less about your analysis of our nation needing the entire area of whatever Carolina state you mentioned - as that area is already available to the populace and it is owned by everyone in their own house - it is called a roof! So what if inorder to free my neighborhood from P G & E and their outrageous bills and their smart meters - your roof and my roof and another thirty five hundred roofs have to devote some portion of their square footage to the solution by installing solar panels and a wind turbine on their roof!

There are now wind turbines that can be mounted in pretty much the same way as a person would mount an attic fan. Not very big, not unsightly!

I have no idea why you are fixated on things like calories per kilowatt and the rest of it - people are doing it cheaply and telling their local utilities Bye Bye, every day of the week.

[caseymoz]

79. If you thought roofs were sufficient, why were you mentioning gathering in space?

I'm sorry if you find me disagreeably pessimistic, and that I refuse to join you in your non-linear euphoria due to what you regard as the limits of my puny mind. I'm not saying we shouldn't try it and take it as far as we could. I'd invest in it. I just wouldn't bet on it solving our energy needs at their current level. If we could drop our yearly energy expenditure down to what the rest of the world gets by with on average, then I think solar would become significant portion. However, that would mean some level of squalor.

South Carolina was a low estimate. If roofs were sufficient, we'd have them installed by now, last decade. I mean, it would be like what DVDs did to VHS. People would have noticed that they could do away with their electric bills before. When something is that clear people don't pause, they don't beat around the bush about it.

Would your care if your friend sends some of that electricity he generates up to Minnesota? Along those power lines you said weren't applicable here? You already agreed solar energy is not evenly distributed. I'm glad it works so well in California, but you must see now that you have to get it from the places that it's generated to places that need it. Or else have it go to waste in areas that have enough of it.

So, the wind turbine the size of an attic fan will power, what? An attic fan? When the wind blows? That's not a lot of electricity.

Let's see at the end how many people install them and tell their utilities bye-bye. The houses in the places where solar is most viable apparently are going to do it first. After that wave is done, then see what happens.

[truedelphi]

77. Also, perhaps it didn't register inside your framework of analytical abilities -

But I did do this: I critiqued your methodology.

If someone's methodology is not deemed to be appropriate to the task at hand, criticizing the actual statements is a waste of time.

I have confirmed for myself that your methods of analysis regarding the discussion at hand are overly literal, overly linear, and lack any sort of value as related to discussing the creation of a society that moves away from the current paradigm into the paradigm of the future.

GIGO.

I also am disinterested in tasting the stuff my spouse sometimes pulls out of small containers that get lost inside the fridge.

Strictly speaking, I could analyze your "arguments," but why would I do so?

Just as, why would I taste the moldy stuff that is in the small containers? I can clearly see the food is moldy.

I can clearly see that your logic isn't logical.

[caseymoz]

80. No, you didn't critique my methodology.

You said I'm stuck in a linear mindset while science advances exponentially. That's not a methodological analysis. You never explained how exponential advancement of science has anything to do with a "mindset," or how scientific advancement can possibly be juxtaposed with a mindset, or defined what an "exponential" mindset would be. Apparently, however, it somehow refers to your thinking.

The same fuzziness applies to a term like "overly literal." What? You mean I say what I mean? Or what?

In fact, all you did was cover your optimistic hubris with empty, undefined terms. What you perceive I lack might better called "optimistic hubris," which requires a term like "exponential thinking" to justify itself.

To compare my argument with rotten food and is simply an insult and a deception. Logic doesn't have aesthetic qualities such as taste. You're not supposed to be a critic about it. Your supposed to be an analyst when you look at logic. It's not like entertainment.

If optimism underpins your entire mentality, then, yes, you will find what I say distasteful. But taste is how you judge food or entertainment. It's not how you think rationally, and if you have to resort to critique, maybe optimism demands too much from your thinking.

Since we're at the insult stage now, I apparently have pushed this as far as I can. It's better to stop here.

[WillParkinson]

51. It isn't near feasible...

Perhaps. But the question is why isn't it feasible? Because it's much easier to maintain the status quo and ignore trying to find other alternatives. People are coming up with fascinating ideas but a lot of them are being shut down due to the fact that no one wants to invest in them.

You are correct, though. We cannot maintain the planet with the number of people we currently have. But we have to do whatever we can to make it work as best we can. There really isn't another alternative to that.

[caseymoz]

52. Please see my answer to him, it's not a matter of having better engineering.

At first blush, it doesn't look like it, but the solar constant is too low and that Second Law of Thermodynamics is killing us. If we didn't use petroleum, solar could never come near replacing it. And the numbers for wind are even worse.

I agree with you that we have to invest wisely and find something. And solar will be in the mix.

But I wish cold fusion had turned out.

[RoccoR5955]

61. They want you to believe that myth

Just because solar is only 12 percent now, doesn't mean that this is all that is feasible. Don't forget wind, and small scale hydro, because these are important.
Though I will agree that population is a huge problem, and must be dealt with, we still would have the energy problem if it was dealt with.
Though there is no such thing as a free lunch, with a little work we could decentralize the means of power production. Just a little bit of work, from a lot of people could make a huge difference. This scares the pants off of big businesses, because without controlling power production, they cannot sustain their huge profits. They don't want solar mainly for this reason, nor do they want ANY small scale of power production.

[Zoeisright]

42. That's my favorite editorial cartoon ever.

[truedelphi]

43. Thanks - that is a great find. K & R.

Please read my reply upthread about how NASA is planning on having solar satellite stations that could collect the sun's power and ZAP it back to us.

Meanwhile, The Powers that be are trying to cut back NASA funding faster than a cat on a flock of sparrows.

[DeSwiss]

44. K&R n/t

[OVERPAID01]

45. No Joke, they own the solar too...

Titanium is needed to build the panels, when solar energy started to take off back in the mid to late 90's oil companies bought up all the titanium Fields and refused to sell to the solar companies...look it up.

[DemOhio]

65. Interesting

Do you have a source or link. Its kind of hard to just look up something like that.

[paulrfrank]

47. Corporatology

I think Monsanto has a patent on that . . .

[wakemewhenitsover]

49. Kick, as in kick big oil's ass n/t

[democrank]

50. Sad but true

[Systematic Chaos]

53. the manufacture of solar panels is killing countless thousands in China and elsewhere.

There is a waste product (silicon tetrachloride) from that which you can't do shit with once you have it, and it's HIGHLY toxic and being dumped all over the land and water in China.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/greater-oversight-needed-solar-panel-manufacturing-disposal.php

Fukushima many times over, just with a different method of delivery.

And those "guidelines" at the bottom of the above article for "cleaning up" the manufacturing process? As yet there is really no feasible alternative.

So no, I don't support solar and neither should anyone else. Wind, geothermal, tidal...that sort of thing, yes many times over before solar.

[yodermon]

56. to hell with panels. what about concentrated solar power?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

[Laluchacontinua]

60. The cartoon is misleading.

SAN FRANCISCO — In a move that could shake up the American solar industry, General Electric plans to announce on Thursday that it will build the nation’s largest photovoltaic panel factory, with the goal of becoming a major player in the market.

“For the past five years, we’ve been investing extremely heavily in solar,” said Victor Abate, vice president for G.E.’s renewable energy business. “Going to scale is the next move.”

Mr. Abate said G.E. had completed its purchase of PrimeStar Solar, the Arvada, Colo., company that made the thin-film photovoltaic panels...The global conglomerate’s entry into the highly competitive photovoltaic market is likely to prove a significant challenge to First Solar, the thin-film market leader and the dominant manufacturer of cadmium telluride panels.

Mr. Abate said that G.E.’s solar effort would parallel the rise of its wind energy business. “It’s a $6 billion platform and it was a couple of hundred million dollars in ’02,” he said of the company’s wind division. “When you look at G.E., we’re very good at scale. In ’05, we were building 10 turbines a week. By ’08, we were doing 13 a day.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/business/energy-environment/07electric.html


Calling it a major milestone, the Obama administration on Monday approved what investors say will be the world's largest concentrated solar power plant and one that more than doubles all of U.S. solar output and can power at least 300,000 homes...Developer Solar Millennium, a company based in Germany, says the plant will generate 1,066 construction jobs...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39836641/ns/us_news-environment/t/worlds-largest-solar-plant-gets-us-ok/

Solar Millennium is a German globally active company in the renewable energy sector founded in 1998 in Erlangen, Germany..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Millennium


Just because you can't monopolize the sun doesn't mean you can't monopolize solar.

[GTurck]

64. That's...

why we won't see solar power in this country. There is no way to keep it from people who have solar panels if they don't pay their bills. There is no way to make it a limited resource whose price can be manipulated either.
However, the 1% keep the price up so that only they can afford this infinite resource. The Crawford Ranch was so endowed. For us it would cost minimum $60,000 for a refit.

[blue neen]

66. Perfect!

Absolutely right on!

[Blue_Tires]

73. kick