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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?
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."
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.
"[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);
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.
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.