Solar industry squares off with Warren Buffett, NV Energy
By Kyle Roerink, Las Vegas Sun
One of Warren Buffett’s senior vice presidents at Berkshire Hathaway Energy — NV Energy’s parent company — warned of the dangers of rooftop solar at an energy conference in July. His message was clear: Rooftop solar programs cut into utility profits.
Nine months later, Nevada’s burgeoning rooftop solar industry, 6,000 jobs and carbon-free energy production are facing a roadblock.
The impasse is part of a nationwide battle between solar and power companies that’s been fought in public utility commissions, legislatures and courtrooms. In Nevada, there is a debate about utility rates for residential solar producers, pushes for new legislation and questions about the expansion of an industry into territory traditionally dominated by what the solar industry calls NV Energy’s regulated monopoly.
At stake is the small share of the utility marketplace that the rooftop solar industry has won thanks to a policy known as net metering.
This is not really about solar – it’s about the energy sources they use now: coal, in all it’s forms, including bitumen, that comes from shale; natural gas, another of the fossil fuels, and, of course, oil itself. . .
Mr. Buffet buys “long-range” companies, because as he says in this case, people will always need energy, especially as the population still grows. . .the subsidies referred to in this story are not about solar subsidies, they are about the money made by depletable sources, as there’s still a very large depletion allowance – the more they use, they merely take large tax credit for. . .but that is in fact an unnecessary accounting “shadow”, as it is a way to ‘take credit’ for using something that the sun provides for free. . .put more & more profits in one column, while not putting the damage in another. . .that’s a ‘shadow’ we can no longer afford…
How do we think they accumulate the cash to pay for spills, etc., if it’s not from the obscene profits created by an allowance for taking it out-of-the-ground in the first place – it now should stay in the ground altogether. . .if that slack is taken up by more solar installations, that’s what really worrisome to the industry. . .as they should be. . .