It's All About the 8%

From the New Yorker by Bill McKibben - Power to the People:

""Americans spend eight per cent of their disposable income on all forms of energy," David Crane told me.  Crane is the CEO of NRG, the country's biggest independent power provider; the company operates more than a hundred energy-generation facilities, selling electricity to utilities that, in turn, sell it to customers.  Nobody wants that eight-percent figure to rise, Crane said, because when energy prices go up the country tends to trip into recession.  But plenty of companies, including Crane's, would like to see a larger slice of that eight per cent.  "I'm interested in electric cars, for instance, not just because of the effect on air quality but because I want to take market share away form oil," Crane said.  "It's a brutal fight for market share.""