Al Gore said it Wednesday night on the Daily Show (clip if you're in the US):
Al: Well the problem is that some very powerful corporations do make their money from the old ways of burning coal and oil.
Jon: That's the thing. Who? Give me a name.
Al: You mentioned one. Exxon Mobil.
Jon: So give them, say, "You've got the solar thing. You're done. Have the sun! It's yours!"
Al: Because if we switch over to renewable energy then all the money they're making from the old, dirty fuels, they're not gonna make as much anymore, and that's why they're fighting against it. ... A lot of these new technologies are not ones that are naturally controlled by one or a few big corporations.
Jon: Well, they will be.
Al: But solar panels, the sun shines everywhere, and you can put solar panels on the roofs of homes and buildings, and it's widely dispersed. Same with wind power, same with a lot of the new approaches, and so the older companies that established control of the old patterns, they don't want to change.
That's why the big companies push nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas as
the solutions in our clean, green energy future. They've established control
over these resources, and they would take the sun if they could. Just like
Burns.