From The Daily Caller
Shell Announces Major Pivot To Green Energy
11:29 AM 12/26/2018 | Energy
Jason Hopkins | Energy Investigator
Royal Dutch Shell revealed an ambitious plan to double its investments in green energy in what appears to be the next phase in the oil giant’s efforts to decarbonize.
Shell will boost its expenditures on low-carbon energy to $4 billion a year — a staggering increase from its commitment to spend $1-$2 billion annually on green energy within the next two years. The Netherlands-based company has a total budget of $25 billion, the rest of which will still be spent on hydrocarbons.
“I would like my current business to be financially credible enough for not only the company, but shareholders, to want to double it and look at more,” Maarten Wetselaar, the integrated gas and new energies director for Shell, stated to the Guardian in a Tuesday report. Wetselaar indicated that if Shell sees enough return on its investments, the company will likely spend more on green energy development from 2020 and beyond.
Shell, under pressure from climate change activists, has made a number of environmentally-friendly commitments in recent years.
The oil and gas giant announced plans earlier in December to establish strict carbon emissions targets, and will incentivize senior executives to follow through on these targets by linking it to their pay.
A Shell logo is seen at a gas station in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 12, 2018. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
“We will be systematically driving down our carbon footprint over time,” Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden stated to the media. “We all know the benefits of energy but there are associated effects that we have to manage.” (RELATED: Oil Companies Opposing Washington State’s Tax, But Promoting A Federal One)
Shell is a pledged supporter of the Climate Leadership Council, a group that supports the implementation of a carbon tax to fight global warming and establish a new welfare system to offset higher energy costs. The Dutch oil company has increasingly involved itself in carbon pricing battles in the U.S., where the company has praised carbon tax bills introduced in Congress and has quietly held talks with environmental groups regarding a carbon tax.
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investing, fighting climate change, and a new welfare system
Watch your wallets!
CARBON TAXES ARE DESTRUCTIVE AND IMBECILIC, BECAUSE THEY DO NO GOOD AND CAUSE GREAT HARM, BY DRIVING UP THE COST OF EVERYTHING.
FULLY 85% OF GLOBAL PRIMARY ENERGY IS FOSSIL FUELS – ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUELS TOMORROW AND IN A MONTH ALMOST EVERYONE IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD IS DEAD.
Supporting Summary Information:
1) There is no catastrophic global warming crisis – it is a false crisis. Climate is relatively INsensitive to increasing atmospheric CO2.
2) There is no “more extreme weather” happening now than before – also a false crisis. There is no credible evidence to support this allegation.
3) Green energy is not green and produces little useful (dispatchable) energy. This has been proved in Germany and elsewhere.
4) The world is colder than optimum for humanity and the environment – cold weather kills 20 times more people than warm weather.
5) Atmospheric CO2 concentration is not alarmingly high, it is alarmingly low for the continued survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
6) Carbon taxes are destructive and imbecilic, because they do no good and cause great harm, by driving up the cost of EVERYTHING.
7) Most politicians are so incompetent that they should not even opine about energy matters, let alone set policy.
8) Cheap abundant energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple!
9) Environmental harm from green energy schemes includes accelerated draining of the vital Ogalalla Aquifer for corn ethanol production in the USA and clear-cutting of the rainforests in South America and Southeast Asia to grow biofuels. These actions continue to cause huge environmental damage.
10) Green energy schemes have been sharply increased energy costs, vital electrical grids have been destabilized, and Excess Winter Deaths have increased – and green energy schemes typically do not even reduce CO2 emissions.
11) Based on the evidence, including the Mann hockey stick and the Climategate emails, global warming and green energy are the greatest scams, in dollar terms, in the history of humanity. Many trillions of dollars of scarce global resources have been squandered on global warming/wilder weather/green energy falsehoods.
12) A fraction of these wasted trillions could have put safe water and sanitation systems into every village on Earth, and run them forever. About two million kids below the age of five die from contaminated water every year – over sixty million dead kids from bad water alone since the advent of global warming alarmism. The remaining squandered funds, properly deployed, could have gone a long way to ending malaria and world hunger.
Told you so, years ago.
Regards to all for the Holidays, Allan
You’ve got a good handle on the today’s popular doomsday fad. It’s about the sixth of my lifetime, but the most persistent so far. (I’m pushing 70). I’m hoping to live long enough to see another one, if only because this one has gotten so tiresome. “AAHHHHH!!!!! We’re all heading off a cliff!” sucks as a daily headline.
My question is real, not rhetorical, and I’d be much obliged if you address it. Any ideas what the next doomsday fad will be after this one fades?
It wouldn’t surprise me if the AI movement is the next doomsday fad – that AI robots will become so ‘human like’, AND with enough of our selfish/greed aspects, they could take us over and then we become their slaves. . . or take over the world . . or something like this.
As per Michael Crichton, there always seems to be something to create ‘A State of Fear’.
Hi Tom,
It is difficult to predict great manias, because they are irrational. I still believe that our only remaining 2002 prediction will hold true, and that will be for moderate global cooling, starting any time in the next decade. The warmists will hesitate for only a moment, before they say “You see? We were correct! It’s wilder weather, caused by CO2”. In effect, they will be stating a blatant falsehood, that “cooling equals warming”, but then they have already stated similar contradictions when they predicted “the end of snow” and we got “more snow”.
There is already a new false mania and it is “Trump is the devil” and similar nonsense. It gets regular play in leftist media every day, and it is believed by the usual imbeciles. In fact, the extreme leftists are the devils in our midst, as they seek to destroy our energy systems, and thus our economy and our free society. This is not a radical viewpoint – over 100 countries around the world have already taken this disastrous path, and are now pseudo-left military dictatorships, governed to benefit the few at the top.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/15/u-n-conference-climate-alarmists-out-of-touch-with-energy-reality-as-worlds-nations-embrace-increased-use-of-fossil-fuels/#comment-2557476
Regarding the past, in a debate in 2002 with the leftist Pembina Institute, we wrote (1):
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Past decades of actual global observations adequately prove that these two statements are correct to date.
Regarding the future, I also wrote in an article published 1Sept2002 in the Calgary Herald (2):
“If [as we believe] solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
Regards, Allan MacRae
Calgary
Source:
(1) CONCLUSIONS from our REBUTTAL, APEGA DEBATE of 2002 on the KYOTO PROTOCOL
Sponsored the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta
By Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Dr. Tim Patterson and Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
The PEGG, November 2002
Originally published at:
http://www.apega.ca/members/publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Now at:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
(2) KYOTO HOT AIR CAN’T REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS
By Allan MacRae
Calgary Herald, September 1, 2002
Excerpted at:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/10/polar-sea-ice-changes-are-having-a-net-cooling-effect-on-the-climate/#comment-74283
If a tree falls in the forest and everyone hears it, does it still not make a sound?
It wouldn’t surprise me if the AI movement is the next doomsday fad – that AI robots will become so ‘human like’, AND with enough of our selfish/greed aspects, they could take us over and then we become their slaves. . . or take over the world . . or something like this.
As per Michael Crichton, there always seems to be something to create ‘A State of Fear’.
Maybe they will want to run the brothels instead of just working there.
What the heck is a “climate change activist”? Are these nutters active in making the climate change? I’ve got news for them – the climate changes naturally without any help from activists.
A climate change activist is a person who fights against climate change by trying to make others reduce their CO2 emissions.
+💯
Perfect definition.
I will use that frequently, if you don’t mind.
A climate change activist is a person who uses CO2 emissions to fight against climate change by trying to make others reduce their CO2 emissions.
Fixed it –
Tom, also approaching a magic number having just played 76 trombones.
It is possible the next “crisis” is already here as some stupid British government minister has today stated ‘they’ are going to increase the tax on plastic bags to 10 pence each. Yes you guessed it – it’s to save the “planet” from the next apocalypse.
Stay young and happy.
“climate change activist” They need a title to feel important.
An Ox e Moron?
Presumably they feel that they need some carbon taxes in order to make their “green” investments profitable.
Meanwhile, they certainly wouldn’t be the first company that would like to make the same profits while actually having to produce and sell less of their product. Again, some government intervention to ensure high prices will help.
Shell will go bankrupt. Dutch company, who cares.
Shell will not go bankrupt. However the return on shareholder equity will drop over time, because it lacks an advantage it can use to outperform the competition. It’s as if an airline were to invest in NY taxi medallions.
I think you’re correct, however, it’s possible that all other majors take a similar path, the net result being a waste of resources by all. Likely, cost for this virtue signaling is off loaded onto taxpayers by the efforts of lobbyists, lawyers and accounts.
So, we end up paying more for less.
….It’s as if an airline were to invest in NY taxi medallions.
Good one Fernando L!
Shell has been funding some coastal projects, let us kindly say naive, projects through the Nature Conservancy. NC has ventured into the marine realm with extensive experience on continents, and now served by expert computer types. It’s going to be an interesting experiment.
Criticism about such companies in general has been the control moved from engineers and geologists to lawyers and accountants.
Or rickshaw manufacturers.
Or good old fashioned buggy-whips
The green crap they are getting into are subsidized, and therefore can be profitable to break even.
Some will turn into a white elephant over time, but others won’t.
(This a true example of subsidies going to big oil.)
This, unfortunately, is the correct answer. If you get governments to force citizens to buy your product, or like Musk, to help pay for others to buy your product, you can be profitable even if your product is a money loser in a free market.
Hi Don,
I predict that governments will be ending subsidies for green energy over time, because these subsidies are unaffordable and counterproductive. Then you will see a multitude of wind turbine towers and solar panels that will have to be scrapped because they no longer work and are eyesores on the landscape.
Then everyone will ask “Why did we build these useless monstrosities in the first place?”, as if that was the first time they realized they have been screwed by green falsehoods, lies that some of us clearly stated were false decades earlier.
Regards, Allan
______________________________
In a debate in 2002 with the leftist Pembina Institute, we wrote:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
I don’t want one penny of my money to go to green activists or wind farms, so I guess I won’t be buying Shell gas anymore.
Thanks for the heads up.
Klem,
Gee, who are you going to buy from? Exxon is investing in renewable energy projects. So is Chevron. So is BP. So is Total SA.
Subsidy mining is good business.
I think BP is backing away. It was a disaster for them.
My thoughts exactly. I don’t usually care which station I spend my money at, but this is different. This will ultimately drive up the cost of everything. So, good bye to Shell.
“This will ultimately drive up the cost of everything.”
What drives up the cost of everything are the subsidies these Green Energy projects require.
As far as I’m concerned, these companies can do anything they like as long as they don’t get my tax dollars to do it.
What this “green energy” is all about is stealing more money from the taxpayers of the world.
NO subsidies for Green Energy. Let’s see how viable this green energy is then. Let’s see how eager Shell is to go Green then.
Wake me when Shell starts producing less gasoline and diesel. Expanding into Subsidy farming is hardly ‘decarbonizing’.
Shell has been into Solar for a decade, and BP into Wind just as long. I remember back when one of the Sim Cities games came out and all the Wind Farm power plants had little BP signs.
Is it still Virtue Signaling when you’re making a profit by ripping off the public?
~¿~
“Expanding into Subsidy farming is hardly ‘decarbonizing’.”
Nicely put! 🙂
Shell toyed with solar at least 30 years ago,mainly in the Middle East where at least sunshine is reasonably reliable.
Unfortunately, so are sand storms.
Shell has been withdrawing from refining for a number of years. It now owns no refinery in the UK, where once it was the largest refiner with three major refineries and a couple of smaller ones that specialised in asphalt.
It downgraded its US refining presence by JV with the Saudis initially, before selling their interest in Motiva entirely.
Shell’s goal is to rise the oil price which can be as high the lowest price of the competition. Wind and solar are expensive. Just let the negative image marketing (equals environmentalist lobby) and politicians destroy nuclear and coal.
A bit late to the party, Shell…
https://renews.biz/49917/renewables-drive-enel-growth/
I guess they’re counting on taxpayer-funded handouts.
General Electric jumped onto this bandwagon, too.
I feel sorry for their stockholders
I’ve been boycotting shell products for years
I’ll buy my GASOLINE elsewhere. You saw what happened to GE investment in green energy. I have read enough on this forum to know this green energy crap is just plain CRAP! Carbon taxes make matters worst for everyone that include those less able to shoulder and absorb these new taxes. Reading about and viewing the graphs on the cost of green energy in Germany and Denmark is appalling. Self-imposed lunacy, “glutton for punishment” mentality. How about R&D investment rather than carbon taxes?
Shell game; had to be said . . .
LOL!
It is green-washing, exploiting new markets/subsidies and killing off competition from coal.
I have an idea. Maybe they could paint their gas pumps a nice green colour…and maybe add a few flowers and a bee or two. That would help.
Charles Nelson
Too late. Back in the 80’s the BP Chief Exec said “We will own the colour green” so they painted everything green.
Hot Scot,
…Back in the 80’s the BP Chief Exec said “We will own the colour green” so they painted everything green….
Let’s see now, that would have been Lord Browne Fracker, the chap who changed British Petroleum into Beyond Petroleum, quit BP, hopped out the closet and started fracking all over North England if my memory serves me right. I guess BP Solar didn’t work out.
Cheers
“started fracking all over North England”
In public??
Not just that, he hired people to watch.
what is the pay scale for something like that?
(free market … not Davis-Bacon)
I’m not sure, but I’ve heard that working on drilling rigs pays pretty good.
My brother rose to a high level on the management heirarchy of Shell, working in Australia, Africa, Japan, London and so forth. I must stir him up, see what’s happening to his fine company. What a laugh! As silly as the Synod of the Church of England
Large companies are not stupid. They go where the money is to maximise their returns to shareholders. Hence Shell and all the rest are “energy” companies – oil, gas, wind, hamster cages, whatever. If governments throw billions, nay trillions, of our money at so-called green projects, they will suck up the free moolah faster than you can say Elon Musk. The fact that they can virtue signal all the way to the bank makes this all a once in a lifetime business opportunity.
Agreed, one can criticize their morality but from a profit perspective they are being sensible.
“large companies are not stupid”
LOL General Electric has put over 10B into their wind turbine division. In the last few years, their stock price has dropped 90% for that decision and others.
UN Environment
Energy Finance
Renewable Energy
“Financing the change” to renewable energy.
Follow the links on the webpage for more information.
http://www.unenvironment.org/explore-topics/energy/what-we-do/energy-finance
And:
UN Environment
Search results: sustainable development financing, 315 items.
http://www.unenvironment.org/search/node?keys=sustainable%20development%20financing
Global financial resources are shifting out of fossil fuels and into renewable energy. At present, how much money will shift into renewable energy is still unknown. Part of the UN Global Agenda.
That’s because they introduced a Bonus Program based on “climate performance”. Evil and Stupid. Van Beurden should spend a day in the cold like the old people in my apartment building do. Hope they go broke.
This is definitely Shell late to the party.
These oil companies will pursue anything that sounds green no matter how uneco-logical it sounds.
Forest giant Weyerhaeuser partnered with Chevron in 2008, attempting to plant switchgrass between the trees in its plantation forests. How eco-logical is that?
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/1489/chevron-weyerhaeuser-form-joint-venture
Catchlight (the Cheveron JV) fizzled about the same time Kior flamed out.
https://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/23/the-catchlight-chevron-biofuel-project-stalls-out/
One day a market guy told us that profits can be generated if a business operates between 2 assymptotic limits.
Zero selling price and infinite volume or infinite selling price and zero volume.
Any business would have to find it’s comfort zone then stay above the curve and in time move to the region of low volumes and higher prices. Less hassles, less logistics, less transport, more profits.
Boosting hedge profits, a.k.a. carbon market seems to add a third dimension to the model. Recover profits from taxes generated by the product being sold.
By virtue of Occam’s razor, amongst all hypothesis the simpler one is the best. Which I interpret as, amongst all financial models, the simpler one will survive. Even if it takes one or three revolutions/wars to establish.
Ratio Temporis, brace for impact, survivors will be counted after the smoke clears.
More simply, it’s the Business 101 rule for the setting of prices: Balance margins and volume.
Ceteris paribus. Business 102 gets into things not being equal. Loss leaders, etc.
Remember BP Solar? That closed about 9 years ago. Remember the name change to “Beyond Petroleum”?
Yep. They even had the BP signs removed from fuel trucks and storage tanks.
Guess it was judged bad press to associate their credentials to kerosene guzzling CO2 spitting aircraft.
Shell just realised that it’s far easier to join the gravy train of free government money than it is to drill expensive holes in the ground at its own cost.
Which they are still spending 80-90% of their capital budget on.
In 2017 Shell spent about $290 billion to generate $305 billion in revenue. About 90% of the $290 billion was operating expenses, less than 10% was capital expenditures ($21 billion). Less than 10% of the CapEx was devoted to green schist. They’re upping the CapEx to $25 billion, in part to fund virtue signalling.
The march of the activists continues through big corporates stuffed with know nothing bureaucrats.
Either this is a morsel of epic hypocrisy or it’s a hubris addled corporate suicide note.
As sometime Shell contractor I’d wager my own money on the latter.
It’s a morsel of virtue signalling.
Doubling the drop in the bucket…
Revenue US$305.1 billion (2017)
Operating income US$15.48 billion (2017)
Net income US$12.97 billion (2017)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell
To satisfy the financial world’s virtue signalling requirements.
Natural gas is considered to be “low-carbon energy” according to some definitions. CCS for enhanced oil recovery could also fall into this category.
“Royal Dutch Shell revealed an ambitious plan to double its investments in green energy in what appears to be the next phase in the oil giant’s efforts to decarbonize.”
In other words, Subsidy mining.
Fire the current executive leadership team and replace the Board members who back this destructive madness.
There was a huge huge energy company call Tenneco.
They were famous for buying high and selling low.
They bought expensive oil investments at the peak of the early 1980s oil boom.
They had a huge natural gas pipeline system that was sold at the bottom of the natural gas price cycle.
They eventually left energy altogether because the then current CEO was from a farming background and like John Deere tractor. Which was what the remnants of Tenneco became.
Either fire the fools who have taken over one of the greatest energy companies of all time, or short the stock.
The impact this deliberate destruction and looting by the climate kooks will have on Houston is difficult to over state.
The good news is that as Shell self destruct, there is a good chance that the assets will go on the market St fire sale prices.
And talented workers will leave and take their talents and skills to less stupid companies. Or even form their own.
Unless the climatocracy forbids the sale of energy assets and bans more work…
The age of stupid is arriving so much faster than I thought possible.
🤪
Recharacterized, Redistributed, Renewable green-backs.
Apparently the level of green stupidity emanating from this company has no limit. Shell lost our family as customers a few years ago, after their ad campaign where the son berates his father for working for a ‘planet killing’ oil company.
I’ll walk for gas to another station before spending money at Shell.
Sounds like a bad case of the Stockholm syndrome to me.
Probably a political gambit to gain leverage with all the bezerko gubmints out there. In this age of information the ascendancy of falsehood is jaw dropping. Some might say Satanic.
On the downstream side, will the war on plastic negatively impact Shell’s Appalachian project?
https://www.ohio.com/news/20181010/utica-summit-hears-update-on-6-billion-shell-project
On the green wash side, it’s IH2 technology appears to be effective (if you like expensive fuels). https://www.shell.com/media/speeches-and-articles/2018/asia-and-shell-work-together-on-solutions-for-energy-transition.html
https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fec.europa.eu%2Fenergy%2Fsites%2Fener%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2F29_laxmi_narasimhan-ih2_advocacy_lead.pdf
The 3rd link is bad. Use this if interested in Shell’s IH2 biomass to fuel tech: https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/29_laxmi_narasimhan-ih2_advocacy_lead.pdf
On thge positive side, Shell is installing CCS protocol DC fast chargers for electric cars in its stations.
So why isn’t Shell smart enough to help finance advanced nuclear reactors?
Shell had a historical failure with nuclear investment resulting in what was then a record write-off nearly 40 years ago. The corporate memory lives on.
They’re looking to build a pipeline into the taxpayers pocket.
The paradigm of green energy investing is USA mortgages all over again. Self-interested activists decry what they perceive as a societal wrong. Media shills push the narrative encouraging self interested politicians to enact legislative solutions. Highly regulated corporations yield to pressure IF the financial costs of failure are back-stopped by tax payers. Failure occurs suddenly in the case of mortgages but unwinds more slowly in energy.
The definition of “failure” is likely a key difference in this analogy. The sudden loss of trillions in value locking up the world economy crystallizes the mind. Trillions in mis-investment over many decades will manifest in lower standards of living over time. One of the many sentiments expressed broadly by Yellow Vests in France was a sense that standards had slipped from a generation earlier.
Those expressing that sentiment might reflect on the US mortgage fiasco. Activists and politicians in economically distressed areas where most of the sub-prime mortgages did not care about the solvency of the financial markets. If houses were built in Detroit they could rightly consider themselves successful. The real fault lay with those who should and did know better but went along.
This demonstrates why alarmists who talk about “the fossil fuel lobby” as some nefarious force that will doom mankind are economic illiterates. Supposedly, the world needs to spend trillions and trillions of dollars, but corporate interests will be opposed because they won’t benefit? How does the world spend trillions and trillions of dollars with corporate interests not benefiting?
If people are worried about corporate lobbying bending the will of government, they should be a lot more concerned about corporate interests who stand to make gabillions of dollars from alarmism than those who stand to be net losers because there is an order of magnitude of difference between the two sides. And if there is money to be made, why wouldn’t oil companies participate?
Time to unload my RDS A stock. Returns will be decreasing.
Maybe they are investing in government subsidies.
The oil companies (in the shape of IETA – International Emissions Trading Association) are the principal promoters and beneficiaries of global warming. They have made a fortune from carbon trading and replacing coal generation with gas. They also have close partnerships with the Green movement.
Naomi Klein – big green = big oil.
“Large parts of the movement aren’t actually fighting those interests – they have merged with them,” she writes, pointing to green groups that have accepted fossil-fuel industry donations or partnerships
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e373bd70-3d8e-11e4-b782-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3IlD0mBsv
Wow, that’s an awfully expensive virtue-signal.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=south+park+we%27re+sorry+gif&&view=detail&mid=D1A0B38AD227BC6C16F8D1A0B38AD227BC6C16F8&&FORM=VRDGAR
It is concerning when corporate executives get caught up in political fads.
Crude’s price is likely in a long bear market. Virtue signaling will make it worse for shareholders.
The stock has declined from E31 in May to 25.
WTI has dropped from $77 in early October to 42.
On the way to much lower levels.
The financial world is in the early stages of a post-bubble contraction.
Go wind and solar! (and subsidies)
When you sleep with dogs…..
Michigan legislator (speaking about utility bill passed this November/December timeframe) said it was the utilities who pushed requirements of percent renewables in the energy mix.
Why could this be? Only thing I can imaging is
** the feds require some percent, and subsidize it.
** If state also requires same thing, then state will add to the subsidy
** Double subsidy can enable utility to profit.
Shell – the latest “green energy” short opportunity. We’ll see what their shareholders say when Shell’s stock price starts declining relative to their peers.
Move over , EITC . There’s a new wealth redistribution vehicle in town!
Just following the money, and getting the corporate snout into the global subsidy trough. People are throwing money away, why not pick it up? No offence, its just business.
When the fox preaches the passion, farmer beware your geese
Activists think Big Oil is against the efforts to fight global warming. But Big Oil is really Big Business, not Big Ideology. If they see a way to make money that doesn’t involve oil, they are free to go for it. If they see they are going to be hounded to death for selling oil, you can expect them to try to diversify.
A two week worldwide demonstration oil production shutdown would wake everybody up. I’m old enough to remember the 1974 oil embargo. Long lines of cars waiting to buy gasoline, fistfights etc. A real eye-opener. Or how about a wind turbine and solar panel shutdown? The sudden drop in electricity prices would also be quite educational for the unwashed masses.
Shell should start by closing all of its gas stations in 2019. Yes, those over priced stations that only respond when forced by local competition to be competitive.
Sooner or later Mr van Beurden will have to confront the confused contradictory objectives he is trying to achieve, let alone the hypocritical position he is taking. I get the feeling he is trying to be loved by everybody.
I am old enough to remember when the Esso Corporation changed its name to Exxon and became a self proclaimed energy company, not oil company. They did this because all the experts were saying that the world’s supply of oil would be depleted in the next couple of decades.
If people weren’t so damn stupid and ignorant, an awful lot of nonsense just wouldn’t happen.
Climate activists are quite close now to forcing more expensive energy down our throats. Final phase is to politically and socially treat carbon users as social outcasts. But climate will still be the subject of the State of Fear
Most green energy, especially grid-connected wind and solar power, never made economic sense because of intermittency and the lack of viable grid-scale storage (aka a “super-battery”).
Intermittent green energy requires essentially 100% conventional back-up generation, and it is far more economical to simply run the back-up generators 24/7 and never build the green nonsense in the first place. This reality has been obvious to energy experts since forever.
So how did many trillions of dollars get wasted on green energy nonsense, when these fatal flaws were well-known decades ago? There are two possibilities – politicians who supported green energy schemes were ignorant fools, or they were taking bribes to support this nonsense. Both possibilities are true.
Heavily-subsidized intermittent green energy schemes are the biggest scams, in dollar terms, in the history of the planet. Told you so, years ago.
Regards, Allan
Bye, Shell!