ABSTRACT
This chapter rounds out the book by looking at how one may go about campaigning for feed-in tariffs (FITs). One might reasonably ask why campaigns are needed if the advantages of FITs seem so clear. Well, as alluded to in previous sections, the energy and electricity industry is highly politicized, with conventional energy companies investing billions of dollars into fossil-fuelled and nuclear systems every year and spending as much as US$255 million per year making ‘contributions’ to political parties and campaigns in the US alone (Sovacool, 2008, p230). Amory Lovins, the energy efficiency guru and committed advocate of pursuing a ‘soft path’ to energy policy by promoting renewables, once remarked that ‘hell will freeze over first’ before all politicians agree about energy issues (Sovacool, 2008, p235). In a world where oil companies spend millions of dollars purposely funding false anti-climate science, nuclear companies create clever organizations and media campaigns to manipulate public opinion, and the coal industry gives us the ‘Clean Coal Carolers’ at Christmas time to sing Deck the Halls (With Clean Coal), FITs – and renewable energy – will have their opponents. This chapter clarifies some of this opposition, and how it can be fought.
