Essay by Eric Worrall
$5 Billion Green Energy investment slashed – “Weaker-than-anticipated growth in the market”
BP stirs controversy after halting operations for new type of fuel: ‘Weaker-than-anticipated growth in the market’
This pivot from a major global energy player like BP is a significant blow.
By Brent WigginsMay 24, 2025
Oil giant BP has ceased a project to produce “clean jet fuel” at its Castellon refinery in Spain. The move signals a broader concern and shift in the company’s approach to cleaner energy initiatives. BP’s decision raises questions about the commitment of major energy corporations to transitioning away from polluting, dirty energy sources.
What’s happening?
According to a Bloomberg News report cited by Reuters, BP paused its investment in producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at the Spanish facility. The reason given was “weaker-than-anticipated growth in the market” for these cleaner alternatives.
Halting clean energy plans comes on the heels of a more strategic overhaul BP announced in February. The company revealed plans to increase its investments in oil and gas production while slashing spending on renewable energy projects by over $5 billion annually.
…
BP CEO Murray Auchincloss stated that the energy transition “has not proceeded at the pace we would have thought,” citing strong ongoing demand for oil and gas, per Reuters. His perspective might reflect current market dynamics.
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Despite these setbacks, the broader push for cleaner energy continues globally. …
Read more: https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/bp-sustainable-aviation-fuel-castellon-refinery/
You have to admire the unfounded optimism of climate advocates. Artificial intelligence is crashing their dreams of a renewable powered future, global demand for oil and gas is surging, even Spain recently pulled back from their disastrous plans for a 100% renewable grid, after their recent major blackout. But greens still think it is credible to claim “the broader push for clean energy continues globally”.
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“Weaker-than-anticipated growth in the market”
what a nice way to say that nobody wants that overpriced crap.
Market rules
and idiots govern…
Petroleum is finite. It won’t end at 2:00 PM on some Tuesday afternoon,
it will just get more and more expensive. So what’s next?
Produce hydrocarbon fuel from coal. South Africa’s SASOL has been
doing exactly that for years.
In other words, develop an alternative that can compete…
Price wise
Energy wise
Capacity wise
Without the need for government subsidies to be profitable
Or government mandates to be adoptable
And let the market decide!
Without Government interference in it, the market has been very good at finding what works at an affordable cost.
Government’s job is to weed out the “snake oil” salesmen.
The problem has been that many of those salesmen have been or are now in office.
Actually you are still wrong. Every time you post this crap you are still wrong.
We’ve got well over 100 years worth of oil and gas left.
By trying to replace oil with other things you are just making all of us poorer.
Please cite evidence for your 100 year assertion. I hope that you are right, but I’d like to see proof.
Also, at what price per bbl ?
Another Green bubble that crashed 👍 🥳 😁
“the broader push for clean energy continues globally”
Like everything else the elites are “pushing” on us (DEI, gender mutilation, open borders, 15 minute cities, CBDCs, depopulation, and all the rest), this too will fail.
If any of these things were actually good for us, they wouldn’t need to “push” them…
Without subsidies and tax credits, there wouldn’t BE any ‘sustainable fuel’!
Regulation can also do it. Do not underestimate the ignorance and malice of governments.
President: We’ve got to jump on this clean fuel thing.
Engineers, Chemists: We can make it but it will be cost prohibitive
President: Its the future, get on it.
Eng/Chem: Well we did it but it costs 10X.
President: Well make the process more efficient
Eng/Chem: Its already 98% efficient
President: Well cancel the d*mn project then, how did I get talked into this?
Eng/Chem: Well we tried to-
President: Shut up, you’re all fired.
Alarmists – well…so who do we pressure to make stupid business decisions next?
Any time that legislators with law degrees, and little understanding of science, are in a position to advance their personal ideologies, we will experience disastrous outcomes. One of the reasons that all communist economies have failed is the hubris of the ‘leaders’ who think that they are knowledgeable enough to run a country based on their personal view of how things should work.
And, so far, in EVERY single case, they have failed. BUT, let’s not give up so soon, just keep trying, running that play until you get it right!! Right?
Exhibit
Heck, Marx told them all they think they need to know: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Marx was an economist- so his comment proves how dismal that “science” is.
I sold my shares in BP the moment I heard about their move to “clean energy”.
May be time to buy back in under the new management. We’ve seen this before with BP where a failed autocrat trashed them, got kicked out and then they revived. Bob Horton is one case in point.
Anyone paying attention knows that all technology approaches to reducing the “carbon footprint” of commercial aviation, e.g., hydrogen fuel, biofuel, electric/hybrid electric propulsion, have one objective – making commercial air travel unaffordable for all but the wealthiest among us.
“making commercial air travel unaffordable for all but the wealthiest among us.”
Except that “the wealthiest” use private jets, not commercial.
To exist, commercial airlines need to keep prices affordable to the bulk of the population.
Good point. I should have written non-military aviation. Also noteworthy is that the death of commercial aviation would not just take with it air travel for the masses, but 100s of thousands of jobs at Boeing, Airbus, United, Delta, Qantas, British Airways, Lufthansa, etc. But I suppose all the unemployed could learn how to code or choose among the many green job opportunities!
At the ultimate expense of the taxpayers, who support the idiocy while being unable to enjoy any of the rewards! That is the elitists viewpoint, after all.
One can tell that the article was intended as propaganda by their willful use of the inaccurate words “polluting” and “dirty.” An objective description simply would have referred to “carbon-rich” energy sources.
Who is Brett Wiggins, is he trying to kiss up to AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg for future work.
For cleaning dirty energy, I recommend the Tide “Power Pods” with Oxi Boost. For that “outdoor fresh” clean scent, make it Tide.
You can check the effectiveness of your project at you nearest Tide gauge.
“Time and Tide wait for no man.”
— slight rephrasing of the proverb attributed to Chaucer in his Prologue to the Clerk’s Tale circa 1395.
Weaker-than-anticipated growth in the market.
Greater than anticipated growth in (common sense and) a lack of money.
Back in 2008, claims were being made that biofuel source crops could be genetically engineered to triple the quantity of sugar available from each individual plant.
The alcohol produced from these genetically engineered crops could then be used to produce gasoline and possibly even diesel at prices competitive with petroleum-sourced gasoline and diesel.
As this claim went, drilling for petroleum would become a thing of the past within two decades time. It’s now 2025 and those who were making this claim in 2008 now have only three years left to make their vision real.
To be fair to George W., his main goals were to promote energy security and, perhaps more importantly, to expand the products of US farmers (e.g. Iowa, S. Dakota et al), so that farmers there had jobs. In that regard, other than making crappier, lower energy density ICE fuel, it was a success for the US. Still is actually.
I doubt that he believed in climate crapola for a minute.
As we have seen predictions of this ort have ALL been proven to be nothing more than pie in the sky! In other words, BS!
You kind of knew it was never really going to fly.
Meanwhile another green BP project is sinking:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/05/25/bp-may-cancel-teesside-hydrogen-project/
Sunk too
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/bp-cancels-one-of-the-biggest-green-hydrogen-projects-in-the-uk/2-1-1787937
SAF has always been a fraud. The money thrown at is has been only for the purpose of looking like the aviation industry cared and was doing something while almost everyone always knew it was never going to happen.
We made quite a lot of SAF at a company where I worked, and it was beautiful fuel. No aromatics, no smoke, clear as water and shelf stable for years and years, meeting all jet specs. We flew test flights with USAF and United. Too bad it cost about $25/gallon to make.
But with another $10/gallon of subsidies, they could get that cost down to $22/gallon. So I guess there is hope.
“BP Cancels “Sustainable Jet Fuel” Project”
So, “Sustainable Jet Fuel” is no longer sustainable? Irony’s not dead yet!
This only means there’s not need for them to virtue signal anymore.
Few fuels are more sustainable than Jet-A and Jet-A1, so BP and other refiners have just been pissing away money for no reason.
This video should put all this climate change nonsense to bed, and form the basis for a lawsuit against all the climate fraudsters. It clearly demonstrates that CO2 has no impact on temperature and it brings all the data needed.
https://app.screencast.com/YhtT15qlGLIsC
BP’s decision makes it ripe for a politician to come up with the bright idea of nationalizing the company so that SAF production can proceed.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Wow . . . the BP sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) project turned out itself to be unsustainable.
What great irony.
Gosh, the market place is speaking. 😉
Aviation is vulnerable to the climate catastrophist push because it depends on government approval of aircraft design, provision of airports in many cases, route licenses internationally, local noise rules, and the lead-in-avgas panic.