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Climate Concerns Are Pushing Oil Majors to Look Beyond Fossil Fuels

92 points by oblib 8y ago

_FKS_ 8y ago
Nuclear. It's the only thing beyond fossil fuels. If we want to somehow retain our standards of living.
- RodericDay 8y ago
  our "standards of living", by which you mean our tendency to grossly disregard our commons, should go down
- standardUser 8y ago
  Reality, Portugal and basic logic all beg to disagree.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- amluto 8y ago
  Solar, wind, and storage can do the job, too. Storage is tricky, but it can surely be done with enough R&D. And nuclear isn't a magic wand. We either need to suck it up and use plants that can fully burn the fuel (by reprocessing or otherwise) to eliminate long-term waste or we need to come up with something useful to do with the long-term waste. The USA has failed pretty badly on the latter, and the former needs engineering and, as I understand it, some degree of willingness to accept increased proliferation risks.
  - vslira 8y ago
    Is there any hope beyond developing nuclear (fission / fusion) tech for this world to sustain 10 billion humans consuming as much energy as an average Californian?[0] As the gp said, the objective is maintaining and improving our quality of life. I don't know if solar/wind + storage can do that[1]. [0] Ok, "maybe" this is a high bar, but the point is: unless it gets too cheap to measure, energy will be scarce for large swathes of the world population [1] I honestly don't know. Any pointers to how much energy per capita would be produced in peak renewable?
    - amluto 8y ago
      In a world where everyone consumes as much energy as the average Californian, the average wealth everywhere will be decently high.
    - philipkglass 8y ago
      https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/ https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/ California: 199 million BTU per capita per year [0] -- 210 gigajoules. Multiplied by 10 billion, that's 2100 exajoules per year (2.1 * 10^21 joules). That's equivalent to steady yearlong consumption of 67 terawatts. This was the first open-access article I found about global solar generation potential: https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/sepm/article/view/1218/1159 https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/sepm/article/view/1218/115... It states "The current global solar potential technically available was estimated at about 613 PWh/y." That's 70 terawatts. So there is technically enough potential from solar alone, but it would be a tight squeeze. There are also some countries that cannot meet even annualized needs this way because they are densely populated and located in areas with relatively poor solar resources. Belgium and the Netherlands, for example. Note also that the article says nothing about storage. Storage is the biggest question mark hanging over proposals to fully decarbonize without using nuclear technology. Early news from utility-scale storage implementations is encouraging but there is still a very long way to go. Finally, note that commercial nuclear power too would have to undergo radical transformations to deliver a steady 67 terawatts of electricity. Breeder reactors would be necessary. Currently there is 1 breeder reactor in the world large enough for commercial electricity production [1]. The proposed follow-up design to this reactor is now on indefinite hold [2]. It would take a bit over 76,000 BN-800 reactors to generate 67 terawatts. The world currently has fewer than 500 operating power reactors. As a general principle, you should treat any proposed miracle-solution that "just needs a few years of engineering work" with extreme skepticism, whether the claimed miracle is a much better battery or a much better reactor. Most of them die between the press release and the factory floor. [0] Primary energy, not energy available to do work. But to avoid nitpicking I'm just going to do it The Hard Way and assume 1:1 joule replacement with electricity from non-combustion sources. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dkarl 8y ago
    We either need to suck it up and use plants that can fully burn the fuel (by reprocessing or otherwise) to eliminate long-term waste or we need to come up with something useful to do with the long-term waste. This is what I always thought, but... is that really necessary for nuclear power to play a valuable role in minimizing global warming? Ruining a few places on the planet (even the occasional large area such as Chernobyl) seems far preferable to global warming with the attendant disruptions to agriculture and political and economic stability. There are better choices than nuclear power, but if we can reduce carbon emissions faster by augmenting them with nuclear power for the next century or so (preferring cleaner choices when we can, but preferring nuclear over fossil fuels) then I don't see why it isn't worth the downsides many times over.
    - azeirah 8y ago
      I mean sure, if you were King of the world, you could just decide that it's worth the risk... The problem is not what, the problem is how. We already have plenty imaginary solutions, if we spend enough money, we can do the nuclear, do the wind, solar, water. We have the resources, and I believe we have the knowledge and r&d capacity to make up for any gaps. I don't have anything else to add, I don't know what else I can do, I get that the technology is not impossible nor utopic... But the sudden switch required by our civilizations and societies surely does look utopic... ...
      - ianai 8y ago
        Nuclear is not imaginary. And waste is not the horror it’s made out to be. Radiation intensity drops off quickly. Nuclear is a realistic, short term turn around from oil. We could quickly replace the worlds largest, dirtiest shipping container ships with nuclear vessels and make a significant cut in emissions.
  - 8bitsrule 8y ago
    I'd prefer to move to a world where fuel costs (extraction, refining, transportation, pollution, toxins, ...) move asymptotically toward zero. The sun generates the energy, with huge surpluses. Anyone who wishes to can just collect, store and distribute it. Until the sun goes red. Where will all of that saved money go? These chaps see it going into the same old pockets, and so naturally they're racing to get their fingers in the pie. I'd prefer to see all that saved money invested in all life on our planet.
- CptFribble 8y ago
  The problem is education. Most people are afraid of the word "nuclear," reacting with knee-jerk fear and dismissal. Most people don't understand how radiation works or the difference between different kinds of waste. Even people who have a reputation for "knowing better" spread misinformation, like John Oliver, who did a video on nuclear power with a bit essentially saying, "Look at all this nuclear waste we have! It covers a whole football field to three stories!" Without any context of other waste from solar panel manufacturing, or even easy ones like the X billion tons of particulate matter we breathe out of the coal plants. The other problem is humans are famously bad at estimating risk, combined with the "everything is a profit-investment" mindset we all have. When people say "nuclear is so expensive" what they really mean is "it's hard to turn a profit before twenty years, I want my money back sooner than that, lets build some more gas wells." We need some kind of national organization, with lots of capital, to take on the initial financial risk and spread it around so no one person is left on the hook in a life-destroying way. Imagine if that organization had a department with decades nuclear operations experience. (I'm talking about the government, and the Navy, btw)
  - makerofspoons 8y ago
    We should rebrand it- people forget that the original name for an MRI scanner was an NMR scanner- nuclear magnetic resonance. Of course nuclear scared people so in response to patient concerns nuclear was dropped from the name and now people line up to stick their appendages in them. Instead of nuclear we should be saying 'Molten Salt Reactors' and similar accurate (but less scary) names for what we want to have built.
    - Wingman4l7 8y ago
      It always boils down to rebranding, doesn't it.
  - jointpdf 8y ago
    I was hoping to dig up some stats that showed nuclear is more popular than you might think, but...yeah, no. Based on this poll, it looks as though the Fukushima incident knocked ~10% off of public support for nuclear energy. I wonder what the best way to shift the conversation on nuclear would be. In particular, I wish that environmentalists (and I consider myself one) would adopt a proper risk-based view of nuclear power. [0] http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/14/energy-climate-appendix-detailed-charts/ps-05-10-18_report-26/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/14/energy-climate-appendi...
- mytec 8y ago
  I agree. Outside of energy, we'll still need oil for asphalt, plastics and other synthetic materials. It doesn't seem like those needs are going away anytime soon.
  - smt1 8y ago
    Some of that oil can at least be substituted with other sources of hydrocarbons, especially natural gas (just like coal->ng): https://www.bcg.com/en-au/publications/2017/energy-environment-upstream-oil-gas-multiple-paths-peak-oil-demand.aspx https://www.bcg.com/en-au/publications/2017/energy-environme...
briantakita 8y ago
Many of the prevailing climate advocacy groups are heavily influenced & financed by the hegemonic oil interests. The strategy is control over markets. With carbon credit, a global (trans-national) governance, legal, & financial framework can be placed over a large percentage of the economy. Select companies, that have access to enough capital to adhere to compliance, can be deemed "good corporations" & get preferential treatment in their respective markets, shutting out small entities that don't have access to large capital. Notice that localized movements that focus on pollution prevention (e.g. reducing pollution in a watershed) are often de-emphasized, unless there is strategic value to large players. Instead, the call is always for more centralization, into the hands of large capital. Citizen led local efforts are allowed to grow & be taken over by agents of these large interests, who then redirect the efforts of the local entity toward the goals (e.g. carbon credits) of the environmental hegemon. The transition from fossil fuels does not hurt the owners of the oil companies, because these same entities are leading the transition. Instead they seek to use different technology, legal frameworks, & economic frameworks to consolidate & prolong their positions in the global world order.
- smadge 8y ago
  They are trying to squeeze every last ounce of profit they can out of the carbon economy with the full knowledge that it must be dismantled within the next few decades. It’s a cynical game, externalizing the catastrophic costs of climate change on to billions of current and future people for the benefit of shareholders and executives, a tiny minority.
  - briantakita 8y ago
    They are actually in control over the movement to "end" the carbon economy. It's relatively easy to measure, quantify, & tax carbon dioxide emissions. It's more difficult to be concerned over the plethora of industrial environmental toxins that affect local areas & ecosystems, such as lead, methane, cadmium, etc; which cut into the profits of many industries. The carbon credit movement serves multiple purposes: * to consolidate governance, legal, & market authority to a bureaucracy (which is controllable with capital) * to create a carbon market that is exposed to financialization (derivative products) * to distract attention of environmental activists away from environmental toxins (especially toxins that affect local areas which would affect profits) * to create a barrier of entry for competing technologies, systems, & communities into the markets * to create a movement of concerned people who believe in an ideology that they control With the excessive fear re: CO2 emissions, the population is more willing to accept suggested measures (by these same hegemonic entities), to "solve" (via carbon markets) the "problem". Perception is reality...
khana 8y ago
What's your major? Oil.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>Shell also bought a Dutch company called NewMotion, which makes chargers for electric cars in Europe. They can recharge a battery in 30 minutes. Problem of charging electric cars solved! Existing gas stations will add 1-2-3-4...-X charges as needed.
- warkdarrior 8y ago
  30 minutes to charge still reduces the throughput of the gas station (because filling up with gasoline only requires 10 minutes not 30), meaning that now they'd have 1/3 of customers, meaning that they'd need to make their charging prices really high to make up for the lost revenue.
  - mac01021 8y ago
    They'll actually have 5% of the customers, because the other 95% percent will live in the area and have been charging their car at home all night.
    - zdragnar 8y ago
      Which means they would go out of business. Gas stations make pennies per gallon of gas at most; the bulk of their profit comes frim in-store purchases.
      - mac01021 8y ago
        Which is weird. I buy something in the store less than once per year.
        zdragnar 8y ago
        A brief search shows between 3-5 cents average markup in the US, which lines up with what I've been told from first hand sources, which means somewhere between one and two hundred dollars per day from gas sales. That's definitely not enough income to keep a gas station afloat.
dreamer_soul 8y ago
I work at KOC (Kuwait Oil Company) which is like one of the biggest producers of oil second to Saudi aramco in the region! Recently the whole oil sector in Kuwait is pushing an strategy where most of the electricity consumed by all the oil companies in the country is going to come from solar. But the cynic in me thinks that it has more to do with cost and adhering to worldwide standards than environmental reasons Please note that this is personal opinion
- johnny99 8y ago
  The solar resources in Kuwait are exceptional--this may be more about pragmatic cost optimization than anything else. With the falling cost of solar, if they can save the oil that would otherwise be used for operations and then sell it, I imagine they come out ahead. The irony is that the same forces creating this profit opportunity for them will eventually lead their customers to seek new energy sources as well, and shrink their market.
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    Right. Their margins on oil are far better than most anyone down the supply chain. If people couldn't get enough of my banana art, I'd stop eating them as a snack and go for an apple instead. Full disclosure, I don't like bananas, and no one is buying my banana art.
    - aaron695 8y ago
      You now have to go buy an apple, pay tax, your not an apple expert so learn about apples, have a place to keep it (Probably not with bananas) as well as create more banana art, sell it and pay more tax. Or you can just eat the banana you have. On top of that, you are not dog fooding. And one wonders, if you're "truly" happy to eat apples why you don't create apple art.
- austincheney 8y ago
  I have noticed it does not take long for solar panels in Kuwait to be coated in layers of dust. Does this reduce efficiency by any measurable amount?
AngeloAnolin 8y ago
I recall 10 years ago when an oil & gas company was in the process of re-branding themselves and wants to call them "The Energy Company" given that the thrust for organizations and governments were geared towards reduction of greenhouse emissions caused by fossil fuels. This was also promoted heavily by environmentalists and climate change advocates who have added to the mounting pressure that these companies have to tackle. Not to discount as well the heavy tax burdens for these companies to operate. But the sheer reality is that whilst there is technology available to harness these clean sources (solar, wind, wave, etc.), these companies cannot easily abandon the investment that they already have in terms of infrastructure, process and technology in the extraction of current sources. It goes alongside that the demand for fuel fossils is in essence a never-ending demand that needs to be supplied, for which supplying them makes a lot of business sense. Look around the street corner and count the number of vehicles that rely on traditional energy source (gas, diesel) as opposed to the vehicles that require other form of energy (electric). The ratio is probably 100:1. Even with the advancements in the field of being able to fully harness the energy provided by fossil fuels (and thereby minimizing consumption), it is still a stark reality that the demand for it is there. Oil companies are certainly looking beyond fossil fuels, but until there is an actual business incentive to go full thrust on renewable energy vs gas/diesel/fossil fuels, then the latter is here to stay in the long run.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  For reference, ExxonMobile controls 70 BILLION barrels of oil. That's 70 billion * $70 ~= $5 trillion at current prices. On top of this, most years, their reserves increase, not decrease. No company is going to walk away from $5,000,000,000,000 in potential revenue unless the margins are very negative.
  - gdpgreg 8y ago
    1)Your wrong, they have 28billion barrels equivalent in proven reserves 2)they make more than that because they're vertically integrated
    - 8y ago
Proven 8y ago
No sane person is concerned. They're rather pressured into pretending they care, to avoid punitive taxes and other manifestations of State violence.
yogthos 8y ago
These companies are responsible for creating a catastrophe on a global scale. We might literally go extinct because of them. All their assets should be seized to repair the damage, and people responsible should be tried for crimes against humanity.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  If you seriously believe that, then you are equally guilty of crimes against humanity for being an accomplice to these acts with your consumption of their products. After all, they haven't forced you to buy their goods.
  - cazum 8y ago
    Oil industries have the financial resources to influence policy, public opinion, economics and business practices. Individuals do not. Blaming the consumer for buying bad shit when there is not only no equivalent on the market, but an active campaign to supress any alternatives is simply being dishonest. And I am forced to buy their products. I need my car to get to work. I can't afford an electric vehicle. If I don't work, I can't have a home or eat. Thus my choice becomes: consume oil or die.
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      > I need my car to get to work. For the past 7 years, I've been able to walk/bike/take the bus to work instead of the car. And this isn't even in a walkable urbanist utopia. You chose to live and work in places that require a car to get to work. You probably eliminated all the options that would have enabled you to not use a car, and society does not make it easy to make that choice. But that choice still does exist. This is the problem with the rhetoric that seeks to place the entire blame for our fossil-fuel dependence on Big Oil: it ignores the fact that most of those lifestyle decisions were made without the influence of the oil industry, and often in pursuit of other goals. It wasn't Standard Oil who said "gee, let's decamp people from the inner cities into these large sprawls of white-picket-fence housing tracts"--that was real estate developers who pushed for that. Nor did Standard Oil cause the decline of streetcars, commuter rail, and interurban rail service: that was a vicious ridership/profit death spiral, somewhat helped by GM specifically but more heavily caused by an overregulated rail industry in comparison to the underregulated private automotive transit. There's a lot of blame to go around. Don't pretend that we, as a general society, deserve none of it.
ryanmercer 8y ago
ExxonMobile has ads in my Instagram and Facebook feeds almost daily showing ads for how plastics make the world better (ehhhh) and showing green tubes trying to look like they're making algal oil fuel and saving the world.

92 points by oblib 8y ago

_FKS_ 8y ago

Nuclear. It's the only thing beyond fossil fuels. If we want to somehow retain our standards of living.

RodericDay 8y ago
our "standards of living", by which you mean our tendency to grossly disregard our commons, should go down
standardUser 8y ago
Reality, Portugal and basic logic all beg to disagree.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
amluto 8y ago
Solar, wind, and storage can do the job, too. Storage is tricky, but it can surely be done with enough R&D. And nuclear isn't a magic wand. We either need to suck it up and use plants that can fully burn the fuel (by reprocessing or otherwise) to eliminate long-term waste or we need to come up with something useful to do with the long-term waste. The USA has failed pretty badly on the latter, and the former needs engineering and, as I understand it, some degree of willingness to accept increased proliferation risks.
- vslira 8y ago
  Is there any hope beyond developing nuclear (fission / fusion) tech for this world to sustain 10 billion humans consuming as much energy as an average Californian?[0] As the gp said, the objective is maintaining and improving our quality of life. I don't know if solar/wind + storage can do that[1]. [0] Ok, "maybe" this is a high bar, but the point is: unless it gets too cheap to measure, energy will be scarce for large swathes of the world population [1] I honestly don't know. Any pointers to how much energy per capita would be produced in peak renewable?
  - amluto 8y ago
    In a world where everyone consumes as much energy as the average Californian, the average wealth everywhere will be decently high.
  - philipkglass 8y ago
    https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/ https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/ California: 199 million BTU per capita per year [0] -- 210 gigajoules. Multiplied by 10 billion, that's 2100 exajoules per year (2.1 * 10^21 joules). That's equivalent to steady yearlong consumption of 67 terawatts. This was the first open-access article I found about global solar generation potential: https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/sepm/article/view/1218/1159 https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/sepm/article/view/1218/115... It states "The current global solar potential technically available was estimated at about 613 PWh/y." That's 70 terawatts. So there is technically enough potential from solar alone, but it would be a tight squeeze. There are also some countries that cannot meet even annualized needs this way because they are densely populated and located in areas with relatively poor solar resources. Belgium and the Netherlands, for example. Note also that the article says nothing about storage. Storage is the biggest question mark hanging over proposals to fully decarbonize without using nuclear technology. Early news from utility-scale storage implementations is encouraging but there is still a very long way to go. Finally, note that commercial nuclear power too would have to undergo radical transformations to deliver a steady 67 terawatts of electricity. Breeder reactors would be necessary. Currently there is 1 breeder reactor in the world large enough for commercial electricity production [1]. The proposed follow-up design to this reactor is now on indefinite hold [2]. It would take a bit over 76,000 BN-800 reactors to generate 67 terawatts. The world currently has fewer than 500 operating power reactors. As a general principle, you should treat any proposed miracle-solution that "just needs a few years of engineering work" with extreme skepticism, whether the claimed miracle is a much better battery or a much better reactor. Most of them die between the press release and the factory floor. [0] Primary energy, not energy available to do work. But to avoid nitpicking I'm just going to do it The Hard Way and assume 1:1 joule replacement with electricity from non-combustion sources. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dkarl 8y ago
  We either need to suck it up and use plants that can fully burn the fuel (by reprocessing or otherwise) to eliminate long-term waste or we need to come up with something useful to do with the long-term waste. This is what I always thought, but... is that really necessary for nuclear power to play a valuable role in minimizing global warming? Ruining a few places on the planet (even the occasional large area such as Chernobyl) seems far preferable to global warming with the attendant disruptions to agriculture and political and economic stability. There are better choices than nuclear power, but if we can reduce carbon emissions faster by augmenting them with nuclear power for the next century or so (preferring cleaner choices when we can, but preferring nuclear over fossil fuels) then I don't see why it isn't worth the downsides many times over.
  - azeirah 8y ago
    I mean sure, if you were King of the world, you could just decide that it's worth the risk... The problem is not what, the problem is how. We already have plenty imaginary solutions, if we spend enough money, we can do the nuclear, do the wind, solar, water. We have the resources, and I believe we have the knowledge and r&d capacity to make up for any gaps. I don't have anything else to add, I don't know what else I can do, I get that the technology is not impossible nor utopic... But the sudden switch required by our civilizations and societies surely does look utopic... ...
    - ianai 8y ago
      Nuclear is not imaginary. And waste is not the horror it’s made out to be. Radiation intensity drops off quickly. Nuclear is a realistic, short term turn around from oil. We could quickly replace the worlds largest, dirtiest shipping container ships with nuclear vessels and make a significant cut in emissions.
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  I'd prefer to move to a world where fuel costs (extraction, refining, transportation, pollution, toxins, ...) move asymptotically toward zero. The sun generates the energy, with huge surpluses. Anyone who wishes to can just collect, store and distribute it. Until the sun goes red. Where will all of that saved money go? These chaps see it going into the same old pockets, and so naturally they're racing to get their fingers in the pie. I'd prefer to see all that saved money invested in all life on our planet.
CptFribble 8y ago
The problem is education. Most people are afraid of the word "nuclear," reacting with knee-jerk fear and dismissal. Most people don't understand how radiation works or the difference between different kinds of waste. Even people who have a reputation for "knowing better" spread misinformation, like John Oliver, who did a video on nuclear power with a bit essentially saying, "Look at all this nuclear waste we have! It covers a whole football field to three stories!" Without any context of other waste from solar panel manufacturing, or even easy ones like the X billion tons of particulate matter we breathe out of the coal plants. The other problem is humans are famously bad at estimating risk, combined with the "everything is a profit-investment" mindset we all have. When people say "nuclear is so expensive" what they really mean is "it's hard to turn a profit before twenty years, I want my money back sooner than that, lets build some more gas wells." We need some kind of national organization, with lots of capital, to take on the initial financial risk and spread it around so no one person is left on the hook in a life-destroying way. Imagine if that organization had a department with decades nuclear operations experience. (I'm talking about the government, and the Navy, btw)
- makerofspoons 8y ago
  We should rebrand it- people forget that the original name for an MRI scanner was an NMR scanner- nuclear magnetic resonance. Of course nuclear scared people so in response to patient concerns nuclear was dropped from the name and now people line up to stick their appendages in them. Instead of nuclear we should be saying 'Molten Salt Reactors' and similar accurate (but less scary) names for what we want to have built.
  - Wingman4l7 8y ago
    It always boils down to rebranding, doesn't it.
- jointpdf 8y ago
  I was hoping to dig up some stats that showed nuclear is more popular than you might think, but...yeah, no. Based on this poll, it looks as though the Fukushima incident knocked ~10% off of public support for nuclear energy. I wonder what the best way to shift the conversation on nuclear would be. In particular, I wish that environmentalists (and I consider myself one) would adopt a proper risk-based view of nuclear power. [0] http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/14/energy-climate-appendix-detailed-charts/ps-05-10-18_report-26/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/14/energy-climate-appendi...
mytec 8y ago
I agree. Outside of energy, we'll still need oil for asphalt, plastics and other synthetic materials. It doesn't seem like those needs are going away anytime soon.
- smt1 8y ago
  Some of that oil can at least be substituted with other sources of hydrocarbons, especially natural gas (just like coal->ng): https://www.bcg.com/en-au/publications/2017/energy-environment-upstream-oil-gas-multiple-paths-peak-oil-demand.aspx https://www.bcg.com/en-au/publications/2017/energy-environme...

briantakita 8y ago

Many of the prevailing climate advocacy groups are heavily influenced & financed by the hegemonic oil interests. The strategy is control over markets. With carbon credit, a global (trans-national) governance, legal, & financial framework can be placed over a large percentage of the economy. Select companies, that have access to enough capital to adhere to compliance, can be deemed "good corporations" & get preferential treatment in their respective markets, shutting out small entities that don't have access to large capital. Notice that localized movements that focus on pollution prevention (e.g. reducing pollution in a watershed) are often de-emphasized, unless there is strategic value to large players. Instead, the call is always for more centralization, into the hands of large capital. Citizen led local efforts are allowed to grow & be taken over by agents of these large interests, who then redirect the efforts of the local entity toward the goals (e.g. carbon credits) of the environmental hegemon. The transition from fossil fuels does not hurt the owners of the oil companies, because these same entities are leading the transition. Instead they seek to use different technology, legal frameworks, & economic frameworks to consolidate & prolong their positions in the global world order.

smadge 8y ago
They are trying to squeeze every last ounce of profit they can out of the carbon economy with the full knowledge that it must be dismantled within the next few decades. It’s a cynical game, externalizing the catastrophic costs of climate change on to billions of current and future people for the benefit of shareholders and executives, a tiny minority.
- briantakita 8y ago
  They are actually in control over the movement to "end" the carbon economy. It's relatively easy to measure, quantify, & tax carbon dioxide emissions. It's more difficult to be concerned over the plethora of industrial environmental toxins that affect local areas & ecosystems, such as lead, methane, cadmium, etc; which cut into the profits of many industries. The carbon credit movement serves multiple purposes: * to consolidate governance, legal, & market authority to a bureaucracy (which is controllable with capital) * to create a carbon market that is exposed to financialization (derivative products) * to distract attention of environmental activists away from environmental toxins (especially toxins that affect local areas which would affect profits) * to create a barrier of entry for competing technologies, systems, & communities into the markets * to create a movement of concerned people who believe in an ideology that they control With the excessive fear re: CO2 emissions, the population is more willing to accept suggested measures (by these same hegemonic entities), to "solve" (via carbon markets) the "problem". Perception is reality...

khana 8y ago

What's your major? Oil.

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>Shell also bought a Dutch company called NewMotion, which makes chargers for electric cars in Europe. They can recharge a battery in 30 minutes. Problem of charging electric cars solved! Existing gas stations will add 1-2-3-4...-X charges as needed.

warkdarrior 8y ago
30 minutes to charge still reduces the throughput of the gas station (because filling up with gasoline only requires 10 minutes not 30), meaning that now they'd have 1/3 of customers, meaning that they'd need to make their charging prices really high to make up for the lost revenue.
- mac01021 8y ago
  They'll actually have 5% of the customers, because the other 95% percent will live in the area and have been charging their car at home all night.
  - zdragnar 8y ago
    Which means they would go out of business. Gas stations make pennies per gallon of gas at most; the bulk of their profit comes frim in-store purchases.
    - mac01021 8y ago
      Which is weird. I buy something in the store less than once per year.
      - zdragnar 8y ago
        A brief search shows between 3-5 cents average markup in the US, which lines up with what I've been told from first hand sources, which means somewhere between one and two hundred dollars per day from gas sales. That's definitely not enough income to keep a gas station afloat.

dreamer_soul 8y ago

I work at KOC (Kuwait Oil Company) which is like one of the biggest producers of oil second to Saudi aramco in the region! Recently the whole oil sector in Kuwait is pushing an strategy where most of the electricity consumed by all the oil companies in the country is going to come from solar. But the cynic in me thinks that it has more to do with cost and adhering to worldwide standards than environmental reasons Please note that this is personal opinion

johnny99 8y ago
The solar resources in Kuwait are exceptional--this may be more about pragmatic cost optimization than anything else. With the falling cost of solar, if they can save the oil that would otherwise be used for operations and then sell it, I imagine they come out ahead. The irony is that the same forces creating this profit opportunity for them will eventually lead their customers to seek new energy sources as well, and shrink their market.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  Right. Their margins on oil are far better than most anyone down the supply chain. If people couldn't get enough of my banana art, I'd stop eating them as a snack and go for an apple instead. Full disclosure, I don't like bananas, and no one is buying my banana art.
  - aaron695 8y ago
    You now have to go buy an apple, pay tax, your not an apple expert so learn about apples, have a place to keep it (Probably not with bananas) as well as create more banana art, sell it and pay more tax. Or you can just eat the banana you have. On top of that, you are not dog fooding. And one wonders, if you're "truly" happy to eat apples why you don't create apple art.
austincheney 8y ago
I have noticed it does not take long for solar panels in Kuwait to be coated in layers of dust. Does this reduce efficiency by any measurable amount?

AngeloAnolin 8y ago

I recall 10 years ago when an oil & gas company was in the process of re-branding themselves and wants to call them "The Energy Company" given that the thrust for organizations and governments were geared towards reduction of greenhouse emissions caused by fossil fuels. This was also promoted heavily by environmentalists and climate change advocates who have added to the mounting pressure that these companies have to tackle. Not to discount as well the heavy tax burdens for these companies to operate. But the sheer reality is that whilst there is technology available to harness these clean sources (solar, wind, wave, etc.), these companies cannot easily abandon the investment that they already have in terms of infrastructure, process and technology in the extraction of current sources. It goes alongside that the demand for fuel fossils is in essence a never-ending demand that needs to be supplied, for which supplying them makes a lot of business sense. Look around the street corner and count the number of vehicles that rely on traditional energy source (gas, diesel) as opposed to the vehicles that require other form of energy (electric). The ratio is probably 100:1. Even with the advancements in the field of being able to fully harness the energy provided by fossil fuels (and thereby minimizing consumption), it is still a stark reality that the demand for it is there. Oil companies are certainly looking beyond fossil fuels, but until there is an actual business incentive to go full thrust on renewable energy vs gas/diesel/fossil fuels, then the latter is here to stay in the long run.

mywittyname 8y ago
For reference, ExxonMobile controls 70 BILLION barrels of oil. That's 70 billion * $70 ~= $5 trillion at current prices. On top of this, most years, their reserves increase, not decrease. No company is going to walk away from $5,000,000,000,000 in potential revenue unless the margins are very negative.
- gdpgreg 8y ago
  1)Your wrong, they have 28billion barrels equivalent in proven reserves 2)they make more than that because they're vertically integrated
  - 8y ago

Proven 8y ago

No sane person is concerned. They're rather pressured into pretending they care, to avoid punitive taxes and other manifestations of State violence.

yogthos 8y ago

These companies are responsible for creating a catastrophe on a global scale. We might literally go extinct because of them. All their assets should be seized to repair the damage, and people responsible should be tried for crimes against humanity.

jcranmer 8y ago
If you seriously believe that, then you are equally guilty of crimes against humanity for being an accomplice to these acts with your consumption of their products. After all, they haven't forced you to buy their goods.
- cazum 8y ago
  Oil industries have the financial resources to influence policy, public opinion, economics and business practices. Individuals do not. Blaming the consumer for buying bad shit when there is not only no equivalent on the market, but an active campaign to supress any alternatives is simply being dishonest. And I am forced to buy their products. I need my car to get to work. I can't afford an electric vehicle. If I don't work, I can't have a home or eat. Thus my choice becomes: consume oil or die.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    > I need my car to get to work. For the past 7 years, I've been able to walk/bike/take the bus to work instead of the car. And this isn't even in a walkable urbanist utopia. You chose to live and work in places that require a car to get to work. You probably eliminated all the options that would have enabled you to not use a car, and society does not make it easy to make that choice. But that choice still does exist. This is the problem with the rhetoric that seeks to place the entire blame for our fossil-fuel dependence on Big Oil: it ignores the fact that most of those lifestyle decisions were made without the influence of the oil industry, and often in pursuit of other goals. It wasn't Standard Oil who said "gee, let's decamp people from the inner cities into these large sprawls of white-picket-fence housing tracts"--that was real estate developers who pushed for that. Nor did Standard Oil cause the decline of streetcars, commuter rail, and interurban rail service: that was a vicious ridership/profit death spiral, somewhat helped by GM specifically but more heavily caused by an overregulated rail industry in comparison to the underregulated private automotive transit. There's a lot of blame to go around. Don't pretend that we, as a general society, deserve none of it.

ryanmercer 8y ago

ExxonMobile has ads in my Instagram and Facebook feeds almost daily showing ads for how plastics make the world better (ehhhh) and showing green tubes trying to look like they're making algal oil fuel and saving the world.