Oil Companies Balk At Following Obama's Green Lead

New York Times:

The Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions in the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation.

But the world's oil giants are not convinced that it will work. Even as Washington goes into a frenzy over energy, many of the oil companies are staying on the sidelines, balking at investing in new technologies favored by the president, or even straying from commitments they had already made.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[fleaba]

I'm curious to know if the oil companies are still backing hydrogen fuel. I went to a large meeting about 5 years ago, here in Northern Colorado, and all the major oil companies were getting in line for that, but don't know what that status is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not an oil supporter at all and roundly condemn the U.S. Supreme Court on their Exxon Valdez Oil Spill determination.

[LDnearthesea]

Probably not. See the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" for more info on how hydrogen fuel isn't the answer.

[friedfish2718]

gasoline (ie octane) has, per volume basis, 40% more hydrogen than liquid hydrogen.

[mayahbird]

So why did our Congress let them get so big????? Now we have another too big to fail?????
Congress makes all the laws.
We have 6 or so oil companies running the the fuel world. They can do whatever they want. Who is going to stop them???
Of course they are going to fight this. So would anyone who had their source of income under threat. Too bad they are so big. It would have been a lot easier if they were smaller and a lot more of them.
Just like the banks and the media and the auto industry. Same thing over and over again.
Where is the House and Senate????? Sitting in Washington getting their fat little raises every year gabbing away over nothing while the country goes to ?????

[LDnearthesea]

Teddy Roosevelt had Standard Oil broken up one hundred years ago. He used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It's still on the books.

[TxAggie]

"We" do not have 5 or 6 oil companies running the fuel world. Exxon, the largest American company is the 13th largest in the world and Exxon does not "control" the market. Are you referring to the OPEC oil carte. or the National state owned oil companies? By the way, there are over 5000 oil and gas companies in the United States alone.

[joewalters]

I couldn't even read the whole article through. This is insane. Of course they are not going to change without a fight. In my opinion, they are obstructions in the way of the world shaping a new future. They need to roll over. I say go after the car companies. Convince them that using alternative energies are essential to their long term survival. Go after the utilities too and just force them through legislation that discourages oil production and encourages green technologies. Invest money in NEW companies to serve as providers of alternative energy.

[LDnearthesea]

Hey Tex Ag: for you info, some local high schools near where I live put up some solar energy panels on the roofs of the buildings. Guess what? their electricity bills dropped by heaps! now other schools are thinking of doing the same. That could save California taxpayers lots of dough, as So Cal Edison and PG and E won't be billing these school districts like they've had!

[TxAggie]

That's great, I'm all in favor of doing everything we can but solar panels augment electricity generated by some other source, be it nuclear, natural gas, coal, wind or water generated but it cannot replace. We need it all.

Before I worked in the oil and gas industry, I was employed in the electric utility business (the most capital intensive industry there is). People love to hate both these industries but they sure like the product they produce.

[LDnearthesea]

Solar doesn't have to augemtn anything! There are several recently built housing units near to where I live in which all the homes were built with solar panels. I know people who bought a home there. They get virtually all their power needs from the solar panels. they actually sell back power to the grid! Get your facts straight!

[LDnearthesea]

Big oil hates solar, wind, tide, river current, electric cars and public transportation. They don't care how many people get lung cancer or asthma. Same with gas and coal. All three industries think they have some sort of Constitutional right to screw with the environment and technological advances that will make them obsolete.

[TxAggie]

Who is "Big Oil"?

[jsgaetano]

Well of course Big Oil is going to hate Obama.

These guys just spent eight years looting the world, and getting Americans to pay them outrageous sums of money (I call it Republican Tax).

Big Oil had their perfect vision of how the world should run for the last eight years... then those stupid kids (aka the American people) went and voted it. Even worse, they couldn't rig the elections to get their guy in this time! It just wasn't close enough to tie it up and have the Supreme Court appoint the Republican.

[Ira7]

For the last 3 weeks, all I've heard on the radio day after day, hour after hour, are commercials by the Petroleum Institute telling me how Obama's oil plans (tax) will decrease traditional oil investment, radically increase the price of gas and heating oil, and will just about destroy everything America stands for.

WHAT A GREAT BUNCH OF GUYS! THINKING ONLY ABOUT US!

Don't p*** on my head and tell me it's raining, okay? Enough's enough, and we've seen this act too many times before to be fooled by it:

Time for government to step in and get us away from oil once and for all.

[TxAggie]

Let me explain it as simply as I can. With reduced commodity prices drilling activity decreases (rig count down 50% vs last year), marginal prospects become uneconomic and are not drilled. Rigs leave the US, causing equip shortages down the road. Obama imposes new taxes on the oil patch in effect kicking it while it is down. Domestic production drops, jobs are lost. Imports increase as does the price of crude, gasoline prices go up and everyone blames "Big Oil". You happy?

[LDnearthesea]

Have you ever, ever heard of what a solar energy panel is? Do you realize that if every roof in the country had one on we wouldn't need this stinking oil? Then there's wind, tide, river current, and geo-thermal, and bil fuels that could be made from hemp. then there's the idea of more publica transportation and electric and hybrid vehicles. Get a clue!

[Paul]

The real problem is price volatility.

Exxon does a great job of finding, producing and delivering hydrocarbon energy to the US at the most efficient cost. But when the prices are swinging all over the place for crude oil, how do you make an intelligent invetment decsions?

Shell is in the process of expanding their biggest refinery in Houston to double its capacity. Problem is, gasoline prices have collapsed and gasoline usage has gone down. So the decision to increase gasoline production that was made two years ago - a big investment and something the US really needed at the time - has blown up in their face.

Same with drilling capacity and trained drillijg crews - those assets leak away when prices are down.

We need to tax imported oil and let domestic producers sell at the taxed price, keeping the difference. We should raise gasoline pump prices over, say, 10 years to $7/gal by taxing imported oil. That would drive down demand, improve automobile gas milage (because GM could make plans to build the right vehicles) and invest in a decent mass transit system.

We wouldn't be sending all those billions to places like Canada, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

[StuManChu]

They better get in line or there will bus loads of Acorns (brown shirts) rioting at their homes.

[helonias]

Someone should ask them how many green Patents they are sitting on

[TxAggie]

Oil and Gas companies invest their money in the search for oil & gas and they make a profit doing so!! What a shock and how evil!! That is as evil as computer companies making computers or car companies building cars or or any other business doing its business. THis is a rediculous debate. Greenies should go out there and be greenies. THis is still America and so for businesses still have the right to choose their business strategy. If anyone wants to develop alternative energy get after it what is stopping you? On the other hand why should any company pursue a strategy that simply does not make a profit, only the government can do that.

[friedfish2718]

I agree.

Besides, BP and Shell already have extensive holdings in wind and solar power.
Both BP and Shell are freezing their investments in wind and solar; their decision is
made not on ideological grounds but on business realities. Companies exist to
make money by providing service to the public.

There is no barrier for anyone to build a wind or solar power company.
Even under mean and evil George W Bush, the subsidies per MWh are around $24 for
solar and wind, less than $2.00 for nuclear, and less than $0.50 for coal.

The environmentalists are socialists/facists. They do not want to invest their own money, their
own sweat and build in their own backyards. They want to invest other peoples' money,
other peoples' sweat and build in other peoples' backyard.

[Repubnomore]

This is a naive point of view at the very least.

Big Oil controls vast resources and can squash any attempt at cutting into its pie. They can buy up patents, sit on technological advances, and dissuade others from providing venture capital for would-be competitors.

Big Oil's strategy is simple; lobby Congress for subsidies and lax regulations, spend a minimal amount on AE R&D, keep their own prices artificially high, and hoard cash. When the fight against AE is no longer in their best interest, they'll buy up the industry.

Defending oligopolies with the free market capitalism argument is completely illogical.

[TxAggie]

Exactly, businesses exist to make a profit or they will not remain in business. Wind and solar, however well intentioned simply do not have a large appliction in terms of the total amount of energy required by our country. Obama wants to double wind and solar in three years, that's great- that is exactly the pace of growth under Bush.

[LDnearthesea]

It's Big Oil and guys who think like you who are the corporatist Fascists!

[skatscan]

So let us sell cocaine!
Weed!
Child porn!
I mean, it's only business, and the profits are huge!

[TxAggie]

There is totally no correlation between energy and the above. By the way energy profits are not juge- they pale in comparison to many industries.

[huffnpuff147]

Invest? You mean the same way the Europeans invested in "discovering" America, or in "capitalizing" on the world's largest untapped labor force - African slaves? It's not an investment when it's used to simply move a resource from one place to another - that is called recouping fee for service.

It's time we invested in finding something that's truly nonexistent - competition with big oil; that is unless you can find an island full of big oil competitors just waiting to be "discovered" and exploited for profit.

[TxAggie]

There is a lot more to it than simply moving a resource from one place to another and I see absolutely no correlation to slavery. I compete with "Big Oil" every day as do the other 5000 independent oil and gas companies in the US. By the way, "Big Oil" is the foil we have against the National Oil Companies who control the majority of the known reserves. The beauty of America is "we" can invest in whatever we choose. Good luck with your investments.

[Repubnomore]

Oil and gas companies are part of an oligopoly. They control the prices we pay to inflate their own profits. They will milk their cash cow as long as they possibly can. When the time is right, they will buy up or take over the entrepreneurs that develop the clean energy industry.

The free market system only works at the micro level. An inventor / entrepreneur develops a product, markets it, and changes the market. Competitors emerge and with few exceptions, the pioneer never achieves a position of market dominance. The oil companies are counting on this scenario to play out in alternative energy.

It is naive to think that Big Energy is not actively involved in R&D for AE. They will withhold direct funds, thwart every development, and squash every small competitor until it is no longer profitable to do so. At that time, they will purchase the industry.

Defending the profit motives of an oligopoly is not defending free market capitalism or entrepreneurship. Our government needs to stop subsidizing Big Oil and tax them for not developing AE alternatives. Big Oil is holding us hostage.

[LDnearthesea]

It is eveil if it continues to pollute the air, caused more lung cancer and asthma, let alone global warming. get a clue!

[Clairvaux]

"Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead"

Who would have guessed??

[crayola 08]

change or die.

[LDnearthesea]

They won't die, they'll just try to keep buying up patents, lobby Congress and the Senate to keep the status quo: tax subsidies for them only, not for solar or wind, and keep polluting and causing lung cancers and asthmas to the US population.

[BilwhcIndie]

Why should they invest in Green if they do not want to? Are they do invest in Green just because Obama wants them to? Give me a break... if it is worth investing in Green, then investors will come and invest even without the government ecnouraging them. If there is money to gain for investors, and I believe there is, then investors will provide funds. There are major problems with wind power, especially offshore that have not been worked out yet. But to criticize big oil for not inveesting is just plain crazy. Are we not sick and tired of having the government tell us what to do?!?!?!

If you are not, I am. Does the government know how to run anything!?!?! Now the government is going to decide what type of cars GM can make... does the government know what the market is 5 years from now? I am not saying GM does either, but surely the government does not either and it is my money that is propping GM up!

[TxAggie]

Bingo!!! Thanks for a post that makes sense. FYI, "green energy i.e. renewables make up about 6.2% of the energy produced in our country, that includes biomass, wind and hydro (no new hydro dams in 30 years). Coal is 22.3%, natural gas is 23.3%, nuclear is 8.3% and oil is 40%. Instead of arm waving and demonizing the backbone of our energy base (coal, natural gas and oil) we should be about improving technology, including renewables but not to the detriment of our our core industries. The oil and gas companies that operate in the US are very good at what they do and instead of being allowed to do that they are taxed, harrassed, maligned and denied access while low paying, seasonal, so called "green jobs" are tourted as the savior of our economy.

[skatscan]

They are good at destroying our land, our shores, and rivers, that's wahy they deserve the tax breaks that make their work more profitable.

[Repubnomore]

If the taxpayers weren't subsidizing Big Oil and prevented them from making windfall profits due to their oligopoly power, I would agree with you that they should be allowed to do what they do best.

This isn't the case. Big Oil is actively withholding funds and thwarting the development of AE to protect its own cash cow.

Incentives and disincentives need to be employed by the government to put all AE researchers, developers, and entrepreneurs on an even playing surface. Otherwise, Big Oil will continue to squash any attempt to carve into its pie.

[MoeB]

Oil is NOT a renewable resource, which means we will run out eventually. Why is it bad for us to want to push these companies into being more aggressive about alternative energy? These companies are NOT going to get serious about AE while there is still tons of profit to be made from their current cash cow, oil.

I mean it's nice that you are so protective of the oil and gas industry. However, some of us are trying to be more protective of the planet. We can have a planet without oil, we cannot have oil without a planet. It is time to stop being archaic about how we get our energy...and if that means making it a bit easier for these companies to invest more in the energy of the future, then I can get behind that. If it means waiting around for amoral companies to decide that having a planet is good for business, then I'm not behind that.

[LDnearthesea]

Because the planet depends on it, and so do people. Why are you and others on this post so against new technologies? You sound like people who were against the light bulb 120 years ago!

[calirighty]

No the planet does not depend on it. It depends on YOU to change your ways. Stop buying their products and keeping them in business. No one forces you to use oil. And no one is against new technologies. What we are against i people like you anting to FORCE companies to invest in things they do not wish to invest in. No one is stopping you from investing your money any way that you want.

[DMEEPhD]

This is news? How can anyone be surprised? Did you think that the oil companies were going to work towards reducing their profits voluntarily?

The only increase in spending by the oil companies is on advertising telling us how green they are and how smart they are. The latest Exxon/Mobil commercials have them taking credit for nearly every automotive advance in the past 20 years, when in fact they have done nothing but book record profits!

Please, I may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night.

[LDnearthesea]

And they aren't green and they are lying. They know full well, as do the utilities like PG and E and so Cal Edison that if everyone had solar panels on their house, and there was more wind, tide, river current, geo thermal, and bio fuels they'd be out of business. they want to keep their oligarchical control over energy and it's use till the last drop of oil is used up! And unfortunately they hve a lot of political opwer to keep the status quo. But they cannot keep people individually from installing solar panelsfor their home, buying bio diesel fuel for their automobile, or buying a ticket on Amtrak for their next holiday.

[MoeB]

Exactly. They actually spend more money advertising telling us how they are going "green" than they actually spend GOING green.

[DMEEPhD]

My point exactly! All they give us is some Geena Davis look-alike telling us how wonderful the world would be if we drilled holes in every acre of pristine wilderness we have left.

Or how they can drill for miles and miles under water without the need for more offshore oil platforms. Of course, if this is the case (and it is, but that technology is 30 years old - nothing new here), why have 53% of the oil leases granted - and paid for - since 1980 gone unused? (According to the US Dept. of the Interior.)

[liminal67]

Greening the Greed!

http://pitchbendpost.blogspot.com/