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I remember that 20, maybe 25 years ago, the major oil companies were all rebranding themselves as "energy" companies because "we all knew" that we had to be wea
by HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
I remember that 20, maybe 25 years ago, the major oil companies were all rebranding themselves as "energy" companies because "we all knew" that we had to be weaned off oil and onto alternative energy sources. Then somehow that effort seems to have petered out.
What happened?
- njovin 2y agoThey realized it was cheaper to buy politicians than to actually change anything.
- smolder 2y agoThat is all branding. They greenwash themselves publicly but still to this day show PowerPoint presentations to investors about how they are working to undermine renewables and electric transportation in order to fatten their wallets. (Source: climate town youtube channel.)
- beart 2y agoI think the shale revolution probably changed the calculus. It removed the "dependency on foreign oil" argument from the debate completely in the U.S. (though you still hear it mentioned from time to time without merit). It also reduced the cost of energy in the U.S. which eliminated a lot of the economic pressure.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoI hadn't even thought of that. I bet you're right.
- smsm42 2y agoTurned out unicorn farts are not a good source of energy, nuclear energy is a good source but is scary because scary, and the rest is way too hard (and slow) to scale to the energy levels we need. Yes, I know some tiny country managed to produce 100% of it's energy by some exotic source, just as I know somebody implemented a fully functional OS in Brainfuck. That doesn't mean Brainfuck is a viable industrial system programming platform. And exotic energy is still not a viable stand-alone solution for overall world energy needs (especially if you count transportation). So PR is one thing, but the reality turns out to be a bit different.