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Shell Ditches Wind, Solar, and Hydro
thefickler writes "Shell has decided to end its investment in wind, solar and hydro projects because the company does not believe they are financially sound investments. Instead Shell is going to focus on carbon sequestration technologies and biofuels. Not surprisingly, and perhaps unfairly, bloggers have been quick to savage the company: 'Between Shell's decisions to stop its clean energy investments and to increase its debt load to pay for dividends, the company is solidifying an image of corporate greed over corporate responsibility.' Is Shell short sighted, or is it just a company trying to make its way in an uncertain world?"
As a company, if they can make more money on oil than on wind, then clearly the shareholders will demand oil. Oil is there bread and butter. I wouldn't expect them to innovate on something that is outside of their corporate culture. Like with the movie and music and software industries; you get innovation and creativity from smaller independent entities, and conservativism from the established entities.
Controlled fusion is the next step for our species. We won't know how hard it is except for retrospectively, but we haven't got much time left.
Nobody wants to save energy. There are billions of people on this planet that would like to use half as much energy as an average American, and no amount of wind or solar is going to deliver that.
FTA: Since biofuels frequently lead to greater emissions than either diesel or gas,
That's not really true... Using Biodiesel can result in 75% less CO2 emissions, at the exhaust pipe.
Some Biodiesels, eg, based on Coconut oil, are incredibly low on emissions.
People who claim biodiesel releases more CO2 are making an argument industry wide, including the converting of existing land not used for agriculture to produce biofuels.
Which is a little dishonest, because there are other technologies being developed that make use of badly salt-affected land to produce Biofuel. (Algae based production)
These technologies actually improve the situation and make use of land that otherwise cannot be used at all.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Let's strap all oil company executives to bicycles instead, it would be a good learning experience for somebody that's never done any real work before~
While it is unpleasant that they are cutting back on other options, putting money into carbon sequestration actually makes a lot of sense for an oil company. Apparently something similar has been done for at least a couple of decades to use injected gas to extract extra oil from wells.
Compared to anything mentioned, the cleanest form of energy is nuclear power, all factors considered. It's the only thing we should be looking at in the long run as a primary source of power for the grid. Wind and solar are great for local uses but not on a large scale. They are incredibly land intensive for a very small output. A nuclear power plant's physical footprint for the power it generates is practically nil.
People just have to stop equating nuclear power with nuclear weapons, and realizing that modern reactors are far, far safer than reactors from half a century ago. Unfortunately, the United States has lost 30 or 40 years of reactor development time compared to other countries.
As usual, radical environmentalists are their own worst enemy. They advocate alternative energy, and then jump up and down when a new solar installation is built on a fictionally endangered habitat or a wind farm causes migratory bird strikes. You can't have it all ways.
You must find a viable replacement for fossil fuels before eliminating them or taxing them to death. Solar and wind alone are not a viable replacement at that scale.
GP says fuck the hippies and gets and Insightful. Parent says fuck the executives and gets a Troll.
Now, I'm down with the hippie hate, but I guess moderators really do like sucking corporate cock.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Stupidest idea ever. Funny. But not insightful.
Why do you think this? Large companies are conservative and short-sighted. Even "long term" planning is at most 10-15 years. The markets are even more short-sighted and especially stupid. "Shareholders" comprise two groups: long-term investors (e.g., 401k's) that want slow, consistent growth. And then there are the short-term traders. They are either idiots or the scum of the earth. Nobody here is willing to take on a good risk on the 20-30 year horizon.
You shouldn't have such blind faith in the free market. It is darn good at solving short-term problems. But, boom-bust cycles are a counterexample to long-term efficacy of "market value."
the land that "otherwise can't be used at all" is the naturally brackish wetlands that protect the oceans from our retarded corporate farming policies. "Biofuels" require the raping of nature. Nuclear is, unfortunately, the only plausible short term solution; solar and wind are nice eye candy but have failed miserably to scale or become financially viable. Long term, fusion is the only one that looks good now, but crystal balls are notoriously bad. The brutal reality is that any alternative energy must be cost effective to work. That's just all there is to it.
If those alternative energy sources were even remotely feasible you can be sure they would be all over them.
"Alternative" energy sources are feasible, but they just don't make as much money as oil. In the long run "alternative" energy sources (like wind for example) are much more economically feasible (to ordinary citizens at least) because they don't cause global warming, smog, lung cancer, asthma, etc.
Lets strap all of the environmental whack jobs to bicycles and have them the pedal generators to a cleaner tomorrow.
Generally people use ad hominems when they don't have a valid argument. Emotional appeals and rants often do satisfy the lowest common denominator in society however. It's one of the reasons why people like you often get Moderated Insightful.
Corporate Social Responsibility is another one of those dishonest and fraudulent business fads, flaunting secondary goal that often contradict with the primary goal of making money. When push comes to shove, guess which one would prevail. Shell is an oil company, set up to make money in oil business. Criticizing it for not being "socially responsible" (however you define it) is like berating a snake for not acting like a cow.
You want renewable energy, set up monetary incentive for it, and be prepared to pay for it.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
If they hadn't gotten into renewable energy, sure there would have been some good PR lost, but take a look at the backlash they're going to get now pulling out of it. The mistake was to get in if they had no staying power.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Put all objectivists into prisons and lock them into gigantic hamster wheels while collecting the hot air they generate while screaming about purestrain gold. This plan is guaranteed to generate enough power to launch five space shuttles per day for ten years, plus we would be removing all objectivists from society. There is no downside to this plan, if you disagree, you are wrong.
In fact, it's logical for the oil companies to be behind any future fuels. They already have much of the infrastructure required for it, there is no way any start up can build up to that level in a reasonable amount of time.
This isn't BIG OIL(ever notice how you can put "big" in front of any industry to make them sound evil?) killing renewable fuels, it's a business accepting that these technologies are unfeasible for them. Wind and solar are dicey at best as energy sources. Hydro is made impossible by the very same environmentalists trashing shell.
The issues with biofuel come about from the realities of BIG AGRICULTURE. In the US for example, corn is a staple crop. Why? Because of massive government subsidies, ethanol being one of them. Corn is a terrible way to produce it, but it's kept alive to keep money going to farms.
Biofuel is the here and now, it could be implemented on wide scales quickly and at reasonable cost. But to do so requires farmers to grow something more efficient than corn, and for oil companies to buy into it. BIG OIL isn't retarded, they know they're going to run out of oil and are poised to jump on whatever is next.
Of course, this is all moot because biofuel and solar/hydro solve two different problems. The problem of generating electricity is very different from that of powering cars. The main issue at hand is finding a way to store energy in a sufficiently dense, low cost package to power a car. Today's batteries are awful at this. All the clean power in the world doesn't mean dick if you can't store and harness it.
Bah, humbug.
Does this mean we can PLEASE break up/ditch/ignore the Corn Cartel... sorry, lobbying group... which is probably the single biggest reason that biofuel is expensive and inefficient and such a bad idea?
Although I'm unhappy to see Shells move, I can't blame them... they aren't really a R&D outfit, and other startups are taking over the role of expanding wind/hydro/solar and making it profitable. Now, if they would just dump all that money into deciding that algae (or, gasp, hemp!) is a much more efficient biofuel, and help get rid of Big Corn, then everyone could win...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
"[New energy source] or bust" is a very irresponsible thing to say; we need to learn to compromise. But I'll just focus on your particular suggestion of fusion:
Fusion is very promising, if only because it has no proliferation worries, but other than that all of the advantages that count are already available in fission reactors.
Think solar is renewable? Not as renewable as nuclear.
All we need is for the public to get their heads out of their asses and learn to accept compromise.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
Capitalism is the enshrinement of the profit motive. Not only do you worship it, but you're using unfair trade rules, corporate strongarming and even military action to "liberate" the rest of the world from all other methods of social organization.
When you stop thinking that you have the best country in the world, then you can start whining about things like this. Until then, however, bend over and take it like good little consumers.
Exactly. Consider their Energy Scenarios study. Essentially, after this study, they asked governments to take the necessary decisions. If you look at what they're doing, they clearly believe that 'scramble' is the scenario we face, and are preparing the company for it.
Shell are a far-sighted company. As with all chemical engineering companies, they need to plan now to build in 5 years, and their plants need to operate at a profit for 20-odd years. The point I'm making is that over time they've become very good at predicting the future.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
With BP, Arco and other companies at least acknowledging in TV ads that the current 100% reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable and other solutions, along with simply using less, are a must. Shell is an awfully wealthy company and investing 1% of the money they spend on locating new oil sources would finance an awful lot of school/university projects to come up with financially viable forms of alternative energy. This investment would have more than paid for itself just on PR value.
I have never been particularly loyal to any brand of gas, but I think I will start using the BP station 3 blocks down the road that I drive to get home anyway rather than Shell which is just at the highway exit.
"end its investment in wind, solar and hydro projects":
twas just a PR stunt so they, as oil company, could
make TV adds for themselves that for once didn't
involve a car.
*VVRRRRROOOOoomm*
-
side note: whats more free then water dropping from
the sky, light shinning from the sun and wind?
not a sound investment? lol
"Alternative" energy sources are feasible, but they just don't make as much money as oil. In the long run "alternative" energy sources (like wind for example) are much more economically feasible (to ordinary citizens at least) because they don't cause global warming, smog, lung cancer, asthma, etc.
So you need to get your government to legislate for these externalities, because at the moment these have no effects on the economics at all. Shell is inherently a long-run enterprise, you can't just pull a chemical plant out of your backside and start making money. Shell are looking at the long-run and saying that governments will not have the courage to make difficult decisions and so they will scramble towards biofuels as an eco-sop and a way of subsidising farmers.
See here, these have been published for some time, and give insight to what Shell are doing today.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Oh yeah and another thing. Oil companies are not 'energy companies' they are 'resource extraction companies' there's a difference.
This relates to an argument about making furnaces better. The furnace company has very little incentive to make a more efficient furnace because they do not have to pay for the consumables and they make a profit off of parts and service. One idea to make HVAC more efficient is to make vertical monopolies within the industry that provide the server of heating or cooling. If the manufacturer has to pay capital costs and variable reoccurring costs then they will make a machine that lasts forever and uses as little resources per unit of heating or cooling as possible. This is why GM killed the EV because they want you to consume parts and service for the (short) life of the car. If GM gave you the service of having a car and had to pay for gas, parts and service you would have 100mpg cars in 10 years that would last a million miles without service. Don't think a million mile per engine car is possible? Look at the Volvo PS-1800, 2 million miles on single engine made in the 1960s.
Oil companies have generated more super wealthy people on this planet than any other human activity; don't underestimate people's ability to do evil when it comes to trillions of dollars.
We don't have enough arable land on planet earth to fully convert from oil to biofuel.
Furthermore, it's a physical fuel that must be grown (on land, using fertilizers, pesticides and farm machinery), processed (expending energy) and then transported (expending energy).
Biofuel is only cheap because of gullible (or corrupt) politicians.
Stop the brainwash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic#Energy_payback_time_and_energy_returned_on_energy_invested
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/wind_turbine_lca.php
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/env/enpaybk.htm
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
See, troll. Ad hominem and emotive attacks with little or no factual content.
If the evil oil companies are the ones raping the American people, I'm sure glad no American ever bought any oil related products, or voted for some kind of anti-environment President, otherwise they might be considered partly responsible themselves...oh, wait.
The chemical/energy industries are full of scientists, chemists and engineers. There is more of a green attitude in Shell than there is in Parliament/Congress/any government I can think of.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Clean energy is just PR bullbyproduct for oil companies. As long as going clean isn't enforced, they are willing to spend a tiny % of their budget to look nicer to the public. But the USA will change their attitude towards the Kyoto protocol, this is going to cost money, so the PR party is over.
I'm not defending that philosophy at all. I don't know where you got that from.
You're defending the head-in-the-sand philosophy, where people blame 'big oil' because it's easier than taking personal responsibility for the impact one's actions have on the environment.
Oil companies don't destroy the environment and pump oil for shits and giggles, they do it because people are paying them hand-over-fist to do it. People are also willing to forgo legislation to protect the environment to save themselves a few bucks, and then bitch about how the environment is being wrecked.
Yeah, it sucks that Big Oil is ruining the planet man, I wish I could do something about it. What car? This car? No, I need that to drive to my air-conditioned gym.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Why ask large corporates to be responsible? I say take personal responsibility and don't buy their products. Ride a bike!
I wouldn't be suprised if Shell (or other oil companies) would opt to do this. They gather the money now so they can buy those renewable-energy start-up companies AFTER they've proven SUCCESSFUL (i.e. let the weaklings die, then invite the survival-tried to join the gang).
My sig is better than your sig.
Well. Two.
NIMBY
BANANA
And the fact that if you say "nuclear" to some people, they do a GREAT imitation of a cat, arching their spines, hissing and spitting.
Whoops! Sorry! That was three wasn't it?
They'll KEEP pointing to archaic monstrosities like TMI and Chernobyl and go "BUT WHAT IF IT HAPPENS AGAIN!" until the end of time.
Yeah, and what if it started suddenly raining knives from the sky! Think of the children!
You simply CANNOT convince these people that it's safe and you cannot decouple "nuclear" from "weapon of destruction".
And while I'm disappointed in Shell for taking this step backwards, a part of me would MUCH rather a new, vigorous economic juggernaut create itself than having to deal with the back-monkey of a previous, someday-obsoleted industry.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You forget. Such people would have the majority of us (as long as it didn't include THEM) die off "for the greater good", and have the remainder living in caves, starving to death because anything you do has an environmental impact.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
We NEED to build the latest designs of reactors out of Europe and Asia and not the 1950s style Pressurized Water Reactors.
We NEED to get past the fear of nuclear proliferation and allow spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed
If both of these things are done, it solves a lot of the current problems with nuclear power.
Newer reactor designs (pebble bed etc) are a lot safer.
Breeder Reactors and Reprocessing help solve the nuclear waste problem by taking all the waste currently sitting in cooling ponds and storage sites around the US and extract more energy from it. The result after waste has been reprocessed and run again and again and there is no more reprocessing that can be done to it is (IIRC) easier to store and takes less time to become totally inert than the current waste comming from existing reactors.
New reactor designs and other modern technology can use nuclear fuel (not just Uranium) that PWRs cannot.
Its simple: eco-friendly is the new god to many. They see it as heresy to even suggest 'green' fuels aren't green, or aren't a better-than-break-even venture. Like most religious zealots, facts or reality mean nothing if those facts interfere with their faith or first beliefs. Simply put, logic be damned. (This is why we've got 'green terrorists' burning down SUV dealerships.)
Oh, also, it's plainly obvious why Shell is doing what they're doing. Large companies are not well suited for persuing emerging trends, or for that matter, quick-and-dirty R&D. This is particularly true during a recession/depression, when they've got to be careful to not be capsized utterly. On the flip side of things, this is why small R&D, and 'start ups' in general, tend to flourish during hard economic times (as Apple, MS, etc. did during the late-70s/early-80s): the big dogs are slow to maneuver due to a tightening belt, and are more risk/challenge averse.
If history can be any indication, some small start-ups will invent/discover the "next big thing" in terms of 'renewable' energy.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
What would Ken Saro-Wiwa do?
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
I'm always surprised to see comments like this...
You've clearly never used Biodiesel in your life and have no idea what you're talking about.
1. ALL Biodiesel I've heard of has significantly lower emissions and also less harmful emissions that diesel. It doesn't take much of a search to confirm that, so please tell me which biodiesel you think produces more greenhouse gases than regular diesel.
2. There doesn't have to be a negative impact of biodiesel on the environment. In fact, a lot of commercial biodiesel is made from used vegetable oil that's recycled. ... That's actually a useful thing.
If everyone started using it, then you need to make lots which means using some agricultural land to make it... but it's still better than using crude oil to make the stuff.
3. What? What a lot of rubbish. Most biodiesel (commercial) is 98% as much energy as Diesel... I used it for three months and had almost no change of fuel economy.. 27mpg in a 1980's JEEP. That's better than twice the economy you get from a Petrol Jeep.
2% is NOT 50%... I've never heard of Biodiesel being 50% worse... Are you thinking of a petrol substitute? Even Ethanol isn't nearly that bad.
Also, some biodiesel, notably Palm/Coconut based not only has 1/100th the emissions of normal diesel, it also has 20% more energy...
That means for the same tankful, you get 20% more range, 20% more power or 20% more torque...
Do some research before you go talking about facts...
I've used the stuff, bought commercially, in an unmodified Jeep. (Same diesel engine it came out of the US factory with in 1982)... The only drawback is that it's a little harder to start in the cold.
On the positive side, it provided better lubrication and smelt better too.
But I got sligtly improved fuel economy so the stuff I was buying was probably slightly better than normal diesel.
GrpA.
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
When you are making the future, it's hard not to predict something that is in you own plans.
Oh yeah, the good old big oil conspiracy. I'm sure Shell et al. are sitting on patens for super efficient fuel injection and combustion technology, 90% efficient solar panels which have no toxic byproducts during manufacturing, and wind generators that break even within a year.
That, or most of the magical technologies you keep hearing about are vaporware, and in fact the startups have no product. Instead, they are just looking for some easy VC money in a popular industry. The rest end up either infeasible, or require more research, while a small portion actually has some impact.
They might be exiting the business for now, but I seriously doubt they'll just burn the solar panel plant down to the ground together with all related assets and IP. It's probably going to be sold off, and continue to operate independently from the evil Big Oil company.
Folks, we're *in an economic depression* and don't know when we're going to get out - and neither does Shell. It is not surprising that Shell (and other companies) are re-trenching and focusing on "profitable RIGHT NOW" business segments as they bunker down to weather the economic storm. Right now, Wind/Solar are at best marginal investments dependent more on customers need to "feel good" than on any net benefit. The average joe is hunkering down (as is Shell) and more interested in a $500 cast iron wood stove that lets him heat his house with darned near anything flammable than in a 30k investment in solar panels with a minimum 5 years to break-even. Catch a clue. The moment the economy went into the deep end, most anything speculative (so-called renewable energy certainly qualifies) went into the tank right alongside for the duration...
"It is morally wrong to initiate the aggressive use of force.." Of course, defensive force is fair game...
...Producing bio-oil is likely to be very profitable in the short to medium term.
Yeah, that's the problem. Not only is it shortsighted and greedy, but bio-oil is still oil. Dressing on a pig.
Of course businesses can't really function at 150 per barrel so you get this massive demand destruction and a following recession. Think of it like a hammer knocking oil dependent economies back down just as soon as it gets going.
I saw nothing but innovation take off like a rocket with people coming up with all sorts of alternatives to get from point A to point B when oil was well over $100/barrel. In fact, it's likely the reason that oil is well below the $150 line right now because Big Oil actually saw it as a risk. A sedated price makes a compliant (and lazy) customer.
The only thing that concerns me is if they will use patents collected through their body of research into solar, wind and hydro to block technology developments and deployments creating the same sort of patent mess that is interfering with innovation in the information technology industry.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Between Shell's decisions to stop its clean energy investments and to increase its debt load to pay for dividends, the company is solidifying an image of corporate greed over corporate responsibility."
Now, some companies are run by people with a streak of "corporate responsibility". Sometimes, the staff want some "corporate responsibility". But mostly "corporate responsibility" is about profit. It's about looking nice to your more naive customers. In the end, companies will work this stuff out as a trade-off. Amount of income lost to treehuggers who boycott you vs amount of income lost on green projects.
If green projects > treehugger income, you'll get rid of the projects.
Yeah, that's it. We MADE China manufacture all that stuff to sell to the U.S. And before that, we absolutely threatened Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines into producing all the stuff the U.S. no longer could produce cheaply enough. Come to think of it, we threatened to invade India if they didn't help the U.S. offshore those American jobs.
And look what the U.S. did for Kuwait, the U.S. invaded the damn country just so it could give it back to the Kuwaitis; maybe the Kuwaitis were threatening to go into textiles instead of pumping oil, it being such a lucrative market.
And what's with the Free Trade Act, imagine opening up American markets just so those evil, money grubbing S. and L. American countries could sell their stuff here. Why, even Mexico is threatening tariffs if the U.S. Congress doesn't take back the restriction they recently put on Mexican trucks. I'll be the U.S. threatened Mexico to threaten the U.S. with tariffs just to keep trade free and open.
Those naughty Americans, the nerve of such people thinking other people in the world might want a better standard of living. Maybe socialism would work, its been so successful in the past.
Gerry
Captalism IS Evolution. Some jumps cannot be made. Large jumps have lower probability of success. Species go extinct... deal with it.
It may be a mistake to lump the entire oil industry together, but let's look at the big picture. Putting on a green face is a PR benefit. Actually hastening the obsolescence of HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars of infrastructure (tankers, offshore platforms, refineries, pipelines, etc., etc.) is simply stupid from a business perspective. They never cared about being green. They cared about appearing green. In these trying economic times they are cutting back where they can. Lose the apperances? OK. Don't lose the core. The people running these companies are doing what they are legally required to do - maximize profit for the shareholders. Actually going green is a threat to profits. Won't happen.
Maybe one day there will be an entity that I trust to run a nuclear power plant safely and efficiently. Private industry is too focused on profit over safety, the government is too incompetent to do so. That, and the problem of waste that's hazardous for 10,000 years....
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Spot on. The full costs of polluting technologies like coal or oil are not reflected in their price. If it were, the economic proposition for solar would look substantially better. For nuke supporters: If nuclear is so safe and cheap, why is it that every country that produces a substantial amount of power from nuclear has massive government subsidies? Answer: because it really isn't cheap. Kw/hr prices rarely reflect the myriad government subsidies involved.
No, capitalism prevents evolution by concentrating control of economic resources into the hands of a few. Perhaps you're thinking of markets -- they're not the same thing at all.
If we had functioning markets that took all costs into account and didn't allow externalization, we'd never have developed a petroleum based economy.
We started our "jump" about 200 years ago at the start of the industrial revolution. If we continue on our current course, we'll go *splat* when we land. The question is whether or not we can change course in time.
"Yes, I brutally murdered twenty people, but people die...deal with it." See the flaw here?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Good for Shell! They made a BUSINESS decision! It is NOT GOOD BUSINESS practice to "invest" in something that DOES NOT WORK. Wind & solar are (at this time) cost prohibitive! If/when the day comes where it is more efficient to produce wind/solar power, you will see the energy companies jump on it. Same thing with these stupid "hybrid" cars. They are more expensive, use "more energy" to produce than a regular car.
The better point is *some* companies can evolve and survive, and some can't. The market is the best judge of this, not the government cherry picking who yells the loudest. Time will tell if Shell made the correct decision. Meanwhile their customers are perfectly within their rights to boycott etc.
"If we had functioning markets that took all costs into account and didn't allow externalization, we'd never have developed a petroleum based economy."
Please. You make it sound like the first guy to develop an gasoline-powered automobile back in the turn of the 19th century actually knew all of those costs and externalizations and their cumulative effects. He didn't. He just wanted to get from point A to point B without stepping in horse manure.
They made their decisions based on the knowledge and technology and resources available to them at the time. We, on the other hand, have more knowledge and technology and resources available to us than they did.
As such, we can now do better.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.