…it’s well known that the renewable energy industry’s business model is entirely based on and utterly dependent on capturing public subsidies. It’s all about winning government goodies.—Yours truly, 8/28/15
Since the renewable energy industry cannot build itself by winning customers and investors on the strength of its own merits, they have to win politicians — who can force people to be their customers and investors.
Dan Way at Carolina Journal has the latest. He quotes one of the lobbyists, Paul Shumaker, as saying the big takeaway for Republican politicians is that “renewables are not the bad guys in the room.”
Way writes that the other lobbyist, Dee Stewart, “defended that concept of short-term, government-led investment in private markets for long-term gain.”
Telling politicians they need only short-term government support is something the solar lobby has been doing for a long, long time. All the way back to the 1970s, at least.
So the poll is pretty much the same old stuff as always. I went through it in detail last year and little has changed. As I told Dan,
“The main takeaway from this poll is this: When consumer costs aren’t part of the discussion, North Carolinians favor renewable energy sources,” and more options, said Jon Sanders, director of regulatory studies at the John Locke Foundation.
“The challenge for a poll to promote government favoritism and increasing purchase mandates for their special interest is to make those things sound like choice and competition. This poll manages that by hiding the costs to consumers and withholding other information from respondents as needed,” Sanders said.
