BP abandons solar quest - MarketWatch First Take - MarketWatch

Smart business people make rational economic decisions. Kudos to BP. Meanwhile, politicians pander to the alternative energy proponents and spend our tax dollars to do it. A lump of coal for them this Christmas.

"...Despite all the negative fallout from its 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP has had huge success developing deepwater oil fields around the world. This, combined with high oil prices, is the engine driving BP’s profits.
Bob Dudley, the current American-born CEO of London-based BP, is clearly taking the company back to its roots in the oil patch. And when sizing up China, vanishing government funding and a world apparently more alarmed about the economy than the environment, he’s found it hard to justify BP’s dabbling in solar power.
Some day the oil industry will have to revisit alternative energy in a big way. They all know it. But, just like in government, it’s easier to kick that can down the road for future generations to deal with.
But for the time being, old fashioned oil-field profits are just too good to get sidetracked by all that solar stuff. Besides, it will likely be many years before history shows whose vision was the right one -- Browne’s, Dudley’s or China’s..."