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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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.