Shell Ditches Wind, Solar, and Hydro 883
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?"
Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
so the big question becomes: Is Shell an oil company, or an energy company?
while oil is currently very cheep, it's supply is limited to hundreds of years. Renewable energy is expensive now, but it will not run out for a very long time. (billions of years)
to use a car analogy, Shell has gotten off the future express way and is driving down a dead end street. it may be a very long road, but it will come to an end.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
while oil is currently very cheep, it's supply is limited to hundreds of years.
I'm not too sure about that. Regardless however, the equation remains stable: when the supply diminishes then prices increase. It's the paradox of people hunting animals to extinction; the more rare the animal the more money hunters can demand for it until there is no more left.
Oil company's need an excuse to change into generic energy companies. By hook or by crook they'll take the path of least resistance to the highest profit margin (whether it be with oil or solar panels).
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, Shell simply decided that's it's marketing campaign of green energy investments was promoting threatening ideas and, generating insufficient advertising benefit. Bio-fuels (starving the third world) and burying pollution underground (at the tax payers expense) were far more profitable and in harsh economic times, knows that the public will be far to worried about keeping their home, feeding their family and panicking about possible medical emergencies, that they would largely ignore the end of the clean green PR=B$. Come on did anybody seriously believe shell was interested in alternative renewable energy beyond a cynical exercise in marketing.
The only source for funds for the development of cheap renewable energy has to be the government, there is no profit in it and the real benefits are the free benefits of a cleaner healthier environment, lower medical costs from a healthier population and of course cheap 'free' energy(beyond initial capital outlay and maintenance).
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
Every project goes through a cost benefit analysis. Shell apparently did the analysis, and the conclusions were that investment in wind and solar are unlikely to pay for themselves, even in the long run. Or, more precisely, investments in wind and solar are unlikely to pay better than investments in oil and gas, even in the long run.
Besides, there's nothing to prevent them from re-entering the market if the economics change.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, the economic viability of biofuels is questionable, and carbon sequestration definitely isn't viable from physics.
The problem isn't they chose to kill off technologies which are not promising, the problem is they chose to pursue those that are less energy efficient, if at all (and thus, unless they scam someone, less promising).
They expect they will market them to government or something, rather than solve ecological problems. That's why its wrong.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
less energy efficient != less profitable. When solar, wind, etc., become more profitable than oil, Shell will be clamouring to get back in, don't worry.
I've been saying for years that the only way to get the planet to switch to "green" technologies is to find a way to make the energy derived from them cheaper than the alternatives. Even now, the only reason we're still on coal and natural gas for generation of power is that they're cheaper politically (partially due to being the status quo) than nuclear power.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Informative)
*facepalm*
Biofuels do not "starve the third world." Nobody credible on the subject of biofuels has seriously advocated using food crops for fuel ("credible" includes those who are not obviously shills for the corn growers here). The crops that, so far, have shown the best potential for fuel sources are not only not food/feed crops, but they can be grown on land that is otherwise unsuitable for food crops.
And maybe if we spent just a portion of our food providing efforts reforming their lands and teaching them to grow and maintain their own food, not only would they be better off in the long run but you'd create jobs where they are desperately needed.
So enough with the "starving the third world" nonsense. There is zero credibility in that argument.
=Smidge=
Re:Corporate culture (Score:4, Informative)
Sometime you should look up the break down of where corn goes.
Here's a spoiler for you: the vast majority of corn produced goes into animal feed. Not 50%. Not 60% More like 80%+. Corn used for ethanol fuel is a sliver of the human use percentage.
But yeah, we're totally starving third world countries to make ethanol. Totally.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Demonizing their actions is stupid. Shell is a for profit corporation and it's clear they are predicting cheap oil for the foreseeable future. What they are doing is both reasonable and predictable. By their own admission the alt-energy projects weren't financially feasible. Their own stockholders can and will sue if they keep dumping money into non-starter projects.
Stop expecting them to behave like philanthropists. The government can dump all the money it wants into economically questionable ventures - like ethanol fuel - but that doesn't mean it will ever make money or even work. The simple fact of the matter is that oil is too cheap. When companies like Shell can bank on profits from a proven alt-energy source you'll see an explosion of investment.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Bio-fuels (starving the third world)
Yeah, it's our fault that the third world is a toilet. We're not the ones who are running the regimes of their oppressive dictators. We're not the ones diverting international aid away from starving people. Yes, production of biofuels makes the cost of some food items increase. But if they'd grow their own fucking food, it wouldn't be an issue.
LK
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what you're saying is that interference from the outside cause the problem in the first place, and interference from outside is continuing the problems. And the people of the poor countries (who have ALWAYS been that way) have nothing to do with the situation.
Yes, it is always evil white people's fault. Always!
I'm kind of sick of the people who blame everything on Western Eurpopean culture. It is a fallacy. Japan was nearly wiped out after WWII, practically nuked into the stoneage. And yet they figured out how to crawl out of it in less than one generation. AND they have almost no natural resources.
And yet, we leave places like Afgahnistan alone for twenty years, and the Taliban take over and take a relatively modern nation back to the Stone Age. Yes, that was all Colonialism's fault. Because the Taliban wouldn't have ever taken over if it wasn't for the Russian invasion ...
The problem is, that you can always blame the current problems on something else. Obama is taking the problems of the Bush (who sucked royal eggs IMHO) Admin and REALLY is making them worse. But nobody seems to care because he speaks so eloquently (teleprompter mishaps not withstanding) and has a pretty smile.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, I live in Finland, which was first Sweden's and then Russia's colony until 1917, underwent a devastating civil war right after gaining independence, and was attacked by the Soviet Union twice in World War II, and had to resettle 400,000 people and pay $300,000,000 in war preparations. And yet, after all this, we're somehow overproducing relative to our needs, despite the fact that the country sits on the Arctic Circle rather than at the equator.
At some point blaming some long-ago event for your problems becomes ridiculous. African countries have been independent for decades now, and even the Cold War ended over a decade ago; if they remain hellholes incapable of feeding their own population, the blame now rests on said population.
"Our forefathers were oppressed so we must keep on killing our farmers or at least stealing their land." Victim complex at its finest. Besides, Africa seems to be the only former colony to be having this problem...
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhhh....
everything is a pollutant when it is present in concentrations such that the current local environment can not deal with them.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Funny)
Like Humans!
Yes, but you can make Soylent Green out of them.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
As it happens, one of the biggest sources of pollution for waterways is fertilizer. It gets washed from the fields into the water, where it promotes the growth of algae, turning a lake into a stinking pit. And the same happens in coastal areas where ever the conditions don't disperse it fast enough.
Your argument seems to be that something can't be both a fertilizer and a pollutant, which is wrong.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate profits are unfortunately something that is shortsighted. What is the *cost* of putting all the extra CO2 into the air? at this exact moment, probably fairly minimal, but over time as we continue the cost may very well be extreme.
The gov't is the leveling factor, by pricing oil artificially higher to encourage a different direction for a better long term result.
Some will say we don't need it, and while there is general scientific consensus that we do, factual evidence is scarce since we're making predictions about the future. By the time actual evidence exists it will be far to late to 'fix' the problem.
Shell probably sees the writing on the wall, their industry is a monopoly on our transportation...switching to electric or other renewables means they will no longer be that monopoly. Its the govt's responsibility to look beyond short term profits and move us to something sustainable.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me say that firstly, CO2 is not a pollutant, it's a plant fertiliser.
By that definition, cow manure isn't a pollutant either. Just because plants enjoy it doesn't mean it won't cause us problems if there's too much of it.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Informative)
We really don't know how much oil there is down there, but it's not running out anytime soon.
We've a much better idea of how much oil is down there than in the 1920s. We've already found the easy/cheap-to-exploit stuff, any future finds will be more expensive than what we have now.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Informative)
We're already running toward the end of cheap easy to extract oil. From the dawn of the oil age to the 1960s, new large oil fields were discovered close to the surface that were very inexpensive to extract (culminating in the Saudi Ghawar Field in 1948 which has production costs of well under $10/barrel). Here's [wikipedia.org] the list from Wikipedia. I found discovery dates for the missing Mesopotamian field (1961). Since then discoveries have gotten smaller (only three top 10 fields discovered after 1961 and all were under water, two under deep water, which raises the costs of extraction considerably). There will likely be additional oil finds, probably even major field finds, but I believe it's safe to say that we will never find anything that will be large and cheap like the fields that are currently huge producers.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
but is it really that hard to grasp that new technologies allow us to reach deeper (and sideways) for oil that was previously out of reach?
Not at all. After all, there MUST be pirate treasure buried in my backyard. The problem is that nobody's invented good enough metal detection technology to enable me to find it.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
to use a car analogy, Shell has gotten off the future express way and is driving down a dead end street. it may be a very long road, but it will come to an end.
That's not a very good analogy really. Right now, oil is probably more representative of a highway that comes to an abrupt end in a very dry and barren desert; you know that it's going to end at some point, but you are not 100% sure quite where that it is. Alternative energy is a maze of meandering side roads and dead ends that lie to either side of the high way that represent higher short-term running costs, research that leads to economically or environmentally nonviable solutions, or equally bad dead ends as oil. Some of those roads, however, do lead to the future express way and those are the ones we have to find, but the problem is we don't really have a good map yet.
I'd say Shell has simply decided that, right now, they need to sit out The Recession with what to them at least is a safe and financially sound proposition in the form of biofuels, by getting back onto the dead-end highway for a while. This is really just the same basic strategy being taken by all those other business that have been focusing on their core operating markets recently. At least that way they're still moving and they know that the road remains good for a while yet, and it doesn't preclude them from doing a little more exploring of the side roads later on, and there might even be some better maps by then...
Energy Return On Energy Input (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI [wikipedia.org]
Oil was 100:1
As the quality of the oil declines (e.g. to tar sands), so does the energy return (e.g. 5:1 or 3:1) and we have to spend more of our time simply trying to generate energy.
And if 30% of our time and energy are going into producing more energy... There isn't much time and energy available to do other things, like run a civilization.
Wind seems to average approximately 20:1 over the lifetime of a turbine.
What is interesting is that in the short term because of our sunk investment in oil, it is more profitable for companies to produce bio-oil at 8:1 EROEI than it is to produce wind turbines or solar panels.
Re:Energy Return On Energy Input (Score:5, Informative)
And if 30% of our time and energy are going into producing more energy... There isn't much time and energy available to do other things, like run a civilization.
If only we had the technology to produce energy with a favorable EROEI. Maybe one day we'll be able to split the atom or something.
Re:Energy Return On Energy Input (Score:5, Informative)
As much as I like to bash megacorps for their misbehavior... that is completely unfair. I grew up less than 20 minutes from the Duane Arnold Energy Center (a nuclear powerplant outside Cedar Rapids, IA). They've never had an accident.
In fact the WORST accident in the History of nuclear power in the United States was Three Mile - and it was only a disaster because of the misinformation is spread about nuclear energy. The TOTAL dose of radiation that managed to escape Three Mile was less than the dose you'd get from the radioisotopes in the granite making up the halls of congress in a day.
Furthermore there are more modern reactor designs in which they're design to be IMPOSSIBLE to have criticality excursions (aka melt downs) - things such as PBRs where the nuclear moderator used in it is designed to become more efficient at capturing neutrons at higher temperatures. Literally if the coolant system fails the reactor, just by nuclear physics, ramps itself down. They've tried to make a PBR melt down, you cannot do it - their design was a success.
There are also other designs that cannot have criticality excursions.
Then there is also research into fusion reactors - again something that cannot have criticality excursions.
Re:Energy Return On Energy Input (Score:5, Informative)
And that still haven't figured out what to do with the waste?
Amazingly enough France doesn't have this problem because they recycle the waste.
Waste, safety, weapons proliferation, and fuel sarcity make uranium/plutonium fission a dead end
The French have solved the waste problem, the "safety" issue is FUD, weapons proliferation can be dealt with through the existing channels (and seems to be happening anyway without much help from the civilian power industry) and I have yet to see any proof that we are running out of fissionable material.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But when the oil is out they can benefit from others investments in renewable energy and expand in that area at a lower cost.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Interesting)
Shell is an oil company. Hands down.
Now, this is where I have a problem with the vast majority of the posts on this article, including yours. Everyone is quick to make Shell out as the big bad oil company and for being shortsighted. I certainly take your comment, "future express way" and "dead end street" to mean exactly that.
Why?
I don't believe in Hydro, Wind, or Solar either. Not on a large scale. I think those technologies are perfect supplements. Point source implementations on single houses and small communities. It will just never scale to the point it can provide power for industry or transportation.
Hydro, Wind, and Solar are also being researched and developed by a heck of a lot of people. New technologies and patents are being developed at a rapid pace. There is a LOT of competition here.
Once again, Shell is an Oil Company.
They are sticking to what they know best. That is drilling and fuel. Carbon sequestration technologies are sorely needed. We have to put it somewhere. Why not a company that has a lot of experience drilling and fraccing? Sounds like a perfect match to me.
Biofuels are the other area that Shell has decided to concentrate on. Every time I pass one of their gas stations (note I said pass) they are always more than the competition. They have patented technology for fuel. These are people that have expertise in creating fuel. Why not have them work on new biofuels? Seems reasonable to me.
I am practical person and just as much a pro environment as anybody else. Let's just take a deep breath and be reasonable about it. I see no reason to make Shell out as the enemy here simply because they want to concentrate solely on two areas of environmental technology.
What they are doing is helping. So why all the hate from all the posters?
New large scale solar plant in Arizona (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/02/25/world%E2%80%99s-largest-solar-power-plant-coming-to-arizona-in-2011/ [inhabitat.com]
The entire midwest is ideal for Solar. Death Valley? Thousands of acres sitting empty. Who'd want to live there? Solar...
Just because something hasn't been done doesn't mean that it can't be or shouldn't be.
Re:New large scale solar plant in Arizona (Score:5, Interesting)
Thousands of acres sitting empty. Who'd want to live there? Solar...
Or we could build a single nuclear power plant that doesn't need thousands of acres as a footprint and would generate more power to boot. Just saying.....
Re:New large scale solar plant in Arizona (Score:5, Informative)
We already have cleaner nuclear fuel through the ability to reprocess the waste. The problem is that we have antiquated laws from the 1970s prevents us from being able to do so. Hell, we have to import our medicinal isotopes from Canada because we are not allowed to refine them here. Good read here [wsj.com].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Corporate culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Once oil will not be profitable enough....
Oil will *always* be profitable. Especially when you're sucking the last few barrels out of 100 year old wells and selling it to a captive market who either couldn't afford to switch to something renewable or have no real alternative.
You damn well charge what you want.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people aren't, in general, all that bright. Do you see much evidence that people are moving away from cars & fossil fuel dependency?
To what? You give me an reasonably priced, safe car that can get me to work and back with the AC or heater on full every day that doesn't use fossil fuels, and I'll gladly drive it.
As for now, don't call me stupid because I don't drive a car that does not exist.
Re:Corporate culture (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Corporate culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Back when XEROX had the personal computer technology when nobody else did, their top brass decided not to go for it because it was outside their corporate culture. "We are a xerographic company"... The rest is history :(
And what history is that? An incredibly rich and vibrant personal computing field? Companies stick to core competencies precisely because it is what they are good at. Leave getting good at personal computers to someone else, which someone else did.
When large corporations reach outside their core competency, danger looms. Microsoft is a software company. They attempted to build complicated hardware and got a two-thirds RROD rate. Examples like this abound.
Thats ok (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean can you say 'conflict of interests'?
Leave it to the little guys that are better (specialized/core business) at it anyway.
And at least now we truly know where they stand.
No Conflict. (Score:3, Insightful)
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 t
It's fusion or bust (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
No, no, no (Score:5, Insightful)
"[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.
Re:No, no, no (Score:5, Insightful)
But your comments on Fission are out by quite a bit. First it is *not* cheap. The new reactors are costing upwards of 5billion and can be higher than 10B. That totally ignores waste management costs that are heavily controlled and fixed by government regulation. There is plenty of nuclear fuel if we reprocess and use Thorium fuel cycles. The US does not reprocess and hence on a pure U based cycle you are looking at a few 100s of years IIRC (so a few 1000s with reprocessing). Even with reprocessing 5 billion years of U fuel is not here- but thats long term planing in the extreme.
Now the "its available now" comes with a caveat. What to do with the waste? Lets at least plan a head a little. We could develop fast reactors and/or accelerators driven reactors to reduce the waste to something quite manageable. But this kind of R&D reactor will come in the 20B+ price bracket with a 10+ year program. Quite similar to Fusion. After than you only know it can work, we still need to build the reactors.
Personally I think we should invest R&D into both. We don't know if they will be economical. But it would be nice to have the option.
Re:No, no, no (Score:4, Insightful)
Now the "its available now" comes with a caveat. What to do with the waste?
Bury it. It's a relatively small problem which we can solve when we have better tech (assuming the waste won't become a commodity), we have bigger things to worry about now.
First it is *not* cheap.
"Cheap" is relative, and hard to work out. Should we include a portion of the potential cost of dealing with global warming into the price of a coal plant? Nuclear power, as you said, includes the cost of decommissioning and clean-up.
Also we don't know how long these plants last. Our current generations of reactors have been able to run long past their original estimated expiry dates; when the cost of the fuel is so cheap and plants last a very long time the cost of the plant has to be taken in context.
You forgot one major thing though. (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Nuclear NEEDS to be done right (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:No, no, no (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that 'regulations could decrease this probability (of another accident) by orders of magnitude(...)'. Regulations?! Like SEC regulators that caught Madoff before he could do any real damage with his fraudulent operation? Oh, wait...
People don't create the fail-safe reactor by following guidelines and rules written by politicians who know shit about nuclear physics. They do it because the incentive of being the safest and most marketable reactor will make them a truckload of money!
The only thing regulation does is remove a characteristic of a product from the sphere of market competition and turn it into a standard throughout the industry.
I guess the corporations must like it, its one less thing to be concerned about, but for the rest of us? I don't know. If that's well thought of, great, no harm done, if not, tough luck people, we all blow up at the same time. Did we forget the old adage of 'having all eggs in one basket'?
I don't know where comes this blind faith in 'regulation'. Does _God_ write them?
Re:No, no, no (Score:4, Informative)
chernobyl was a second generation reactor
It was in fact a -1 generation reactor. Really. It didn't have even no brainier safety built in and no containment vessel. It had a negative void coefficient no documentation almost no training for the staff. Finally they did the evils of evils, they tried to restart a pile from a shutdown in under 24 hours. Due to Xe poisoning this is a really really bad idea.
Chernobyl is not an example of how unsafe nuclear is. Its a example of how unsafe we can build stuff to save a buck.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wind is abundant all over the place. Areas where solar may be restricted due to space (such as densely packed cities with tons of skyscrapers) are the perfect locations for wind power.
It's a well known fact that city streets act like wind tunnels. It may take a shift in construction architecture, to position wind turbines in the right spots(between buildings, up high, where the wind likes to go), but it is doable, and it'd reduce the burden on the power grid a bit.
I'm sure someone will come and say it isn't
Re:It's fusion or bust (Score:4, Interesting)
That's just plain idiotic nonsense.
Solar power can EASILY... TRIVIALLY, provide all the power we could ever want, very inexpensively, covering a tiny amount of land area, and could be in-place very soon. There just hasn't been nearly ANY investment in it, because coal and natural gas continues to provide a quicker return on the investment.
In fact, I suggest everyone look to west. In California, electric utilities are required to produce a large minority of their power from renewable energy, without loopholes. The ramping up to this rule has been over a decade in coming, and all attempts to overturn it have failed. Neither the people nor the politicians are blinking, this time around, unlike CARB with the electric vehicle mandate in the '90s.
California is either going to be getting ~ 10% of their electricity from solar in the next ten years, at grid prices, or the lights across the state will go out, and stay out. The grand experiment is in place, and the stage is set. It's simply time to sink or swim. This will either prove that power companies can make solar power increasingly profitable, at grid rates (once they have no way to get out of it) or else the 7th largest economy in the world is going to stop, for lack of energy.
Re:It's fusion or bust (Score:5, Funny)
I used to wonder if environmentalists were crazy conspiracy theorist whackjobs, but you've gone ahead and removed all of the uncertainty from that question.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You cant, and thats the problem with generation systems where you don't control the minute to minute generating capacity yourself. Wind and solar also cannot handle the increase in peak production required during certain events.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're forgetting that the oil industries receive MASSIVE subsidies from the government. Not necessarily in outright funds, but in other ways. For example, look at how much we spend on the military to protect the oil company's interests in the Middle East.
When we invade Iraq to "stabilize the region" (code for "keep surrounding countries producing oil"), look at how much it costs. Even without including the Iraq war, look at the cost of keeping the "regular" military bases in the region.
If you add up al
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic#Energy_payback_time_and_energy_returned_on_energy_invested [wikipedia.org]
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/wind_turbine_lca.php [treehugger.com]
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/env/enpaybk.htm [windpower.org]
What the? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
While it may be true that biofuels can [potentially] result in 75% less emissions at the exhaust pipe, it's important to factor in the emissions from the process of producing, harvesting, refining, etc when making a comparison to fossil fuels. Excluding emissions from the product lifecycle when making an argument for biofuels is very misleading.
Devil's advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
flamebait (Score:5, Informative)
Biofuel is pretty unethical (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't have enough arable land on planet earth to fully convert from oil to biofuel.
Who said anything about fully converting from oil to bio? Shell just wants to concentrate their investments on biofuel.
We all know it's going to take a portfolio of energy sources to get away from oil and coal and we're going to eventually need some sort of replacement fuels for all of those legacy motor vehicles that will be on the road. And you just know that folks will bitch about oil based fuel disappearing off of the market over night.
Some of you need to get over it (Score:5, Interesting)
Likewise, there are MANY other companies doing hydro and wind. Their pulling out will do nothing to harm them. IOW, they will continue.
That brings up the issue of bio-fuels. Far too many of you are thinking in terms of ethanol via corn, sugar cane, etc. That is a red herring (just like hydrogen production is). Skip that garbage and instead focus on converting crap (literally) to gas; ALGAE. There are several companies that are scaling up right now; Solix and Sapphire. Sapphire is doing gas production directly and they currently have it at less than 100/bl oil equivelence. BOTH of these companies need the price of oil to go up to around 80-85/bl and we are approaching that. These companies will likely get money from US and scale quickly. US MAY be a gas exporter within 4 years because of bio-fuels, combined with American cars moving towards electrical powering.
Even now, I look at the dependency that EU has on Russia for Natural Gas, and how Russia has used it. Shell can help break that. Ppl just need to think big and long term.
With that said, I am amazed that Shell, is walking away from things like hydro, and even wind. Foolish on their part. BUT, it still works out.
CSR (Score:5, 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.
Terrible PR investment (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Bah (Score:3, Insightful)
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...
This leaves them alone (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
I understand this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wind and solar are a load of shit. They require huge upfront costs, have low reliability, and are hard to transport. Bio fuels, esp. cellulose, TDP, and algaculture are efficient, require low or lower upfront cost and can use existing infrastructure owned by the company.
PGE, Marlborough New Zeland, and some companies in Texas are working with algae. What is algae but the product of billions of years of technical development to be the most efficient solar power device on the planet. It is self replicating and can turn our shit into oil. It can also be used for carbon sequestration (if you burn the oil on site you can vent the exhust through the growing algea to speed up production and capture CO2.) Algae in a best case scenario can create 20,000 gallons of bio fuel per acre of land vs. 18 gallon per acre by corn. It doesn't use up the soil resources, it doesn't need chemical fertilizers created with fossil fuels, and it can per pumped around in pipelines that we already own. When combined with TDP you don't even need to worry about having the most efficient producer of oil or getting contaminated with other strains or bacteria. You can just run the system on whatever green goo grows and then render it down into shorter carbon chains. If another better strain that is more efficient comes along later just inoculate with that one. Don't fucking wait for perfection, just get going.
Thinking you can produce a cost efficient solar system that completes with a primary biological producer shows a painful level of hubris. Want nano-tech power? Wow mother nature already does that.
Clean Coal is rubbish (Score:3, Informative)
They can no longer afford faking not to be evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Geothermal is where we are headed (Score:5, Interesting)
There is more free, clean energy in hot rocks 3-5km below the surface than all coal, oil and nuclear fuel combined. It cost nothing to extract other than the initial capital investment, and produces no harmful by-products other than the electricity that you an I take for granted in this modern age.
A bit more research money toward the economic construction of geothermal plants would see us free of fossil and nuclear fuel for the foreseeable future, and that is many, many generations of our species.
Buy the start-ups (Score:3, Insightful)
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).
religion (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Oil versus Electricity Infrastructure (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, they are an oil company in the business of producing and refining crude oil, for a profit. That's what their entire infrastructure is built around. Thousands of miles of pipe, thousands of service stations, thousands of by-products and oil-derivatives, sea and land tanker fleets, claims to reserves, geological surveys, exploration, oil derricks, off-shore platforms, thousands of scientists, geeks, tradesmen, and explorers, and so on. None of which correlate well to Wind, Solar, or Hydro. Yes, you can use oil products to generate electricity, but Shell wants to deliver the fuel, not run the power plant.
Now that the price of crude oil has settled back to where the market dictates, instead of speculators, Shell is making far less money (along with every company/country in that sector). This isn't much more than a belt tightening and cutting projects that are not contributing to the core business.
Again, they're an oil company trying to profit. The world doesn't run on good intentions, well wishes, and fairy dust. It does run on money and oil though.
I think the other technologies show lots of promise, especially solar, but let someone who specializes in it do it. I am a realist and understand that its going to take a combination of everything to get us to whatever is next.
Patent troll? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
How to shove 1000 train cars of carbon under a rug (Score:5, Informative)
At Least Shell Is Honest About It (Score:5, Informative)
I worked for BP's orphan photo-voltaics lab in Toano, Virginia long enough for us to be featured in their big "Beyond Petroleum" advertising blitz...and then poof! they pulled the plug. Although we were doing first-rate science and pilot production of amorphous silicon PV cells, we were left with the impression that we were merely a "green" marketing asset left over from the Amoco merger.
We supplied the green paint, then they threw away the brush. So goes the oil business.
Re:Company motto is "Make sure to be evil" (Score:5, Funny)
Just because they're being shellfish doesn't mean you have to be crabby. :-)
Re:Company motto is "Make sure to be evil" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Company motto is "Make sure to be evil" (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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~
Re:Neither. They're responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm down with the hippie hate, but I guess moderators really do like sucking corporate cock.
Re:Neither. They're responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Neither. They're responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Neither. They're responsible (Score:4, Interesting)
The other consideration here is that it's not the oil executives job to weigh energy cost and the damage to the environment; that's a moral choice that has to be made by society as a whole, via government. Do you really want oil companies to start taking moral stands? What if an oil company executive decides that homosexuality is a sin, and stops selling petrol to gays? Is that really the kind of world you want to live in?
Re:Neither. They're responsible (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong I'm not a crackpot who thinks you can power the world with solar/wind, but I do think oil companies need a bit of government coercion to invest in research.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
if they invest in solar/wind and managed to improve efficiency enough to reduce demand for oil then they lose money
Before someone comments that they'd be selling panels/turbines instead of oil; remember oil is a commodity, panels/turbines are a technology. They would much rather deal with selling energy rather than selling energy generators.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
According to TFA, Shell have been investing in production facilities (wind farms), in that case they'd be selling energy, not technology.
I seem to remember they used to be one of the biggest investors in PV plants, for which your comment would be true.
Only if you ignore the rest of the world (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem here is that there is no profit in the alternative energy business, at least not on the scale Shell operates on. One day that will change, but there is still too much oil in the world for that to happen yet.
Another issue at play is the tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org]. The free market model relies on every transaction reflecting the true value of the good changing hands. Thats the idea behind a subsidy; one party is selling a good or service to another party, but the public as a whole also benefits from the service, so the public helps pay for it.
Thats also the idea behind the failed-as-implemented idea of carbon credits. When I buy a gallon of gasoline and burn it, I just paid a company to pump the oil out of the ground, refine it, ship it to me, etc. I even paid taxes for the roads I drive on. But I went and blew all those toxic fumes into the atmosphere, a public resource, without paying for that resource.
The only viable solution to this is to impose a tax on every gallon of gasoline equivalent to the cost of removing a gasoline-gallon's worth of exhaust from the atmosphere. By forcing consumers to pay the true cost of gasoline we will allow the free market system to eventually correct the situation and make renewable energy a viable business model that much sooner. Of course some subsidies won't hurt either, but you can't just subsidize "good" without penalizing "bad".
Re:Neither. They're responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If those alternative energy sources were even remotely feasible you can be sure they would be all over them.
Why? Because they are in a rush to make their existing oil lines, distribution networks, and stations obsolete, and want to shake up the system that is making them money? Not to say they have no interest, but they'd be all over them ONLY if they thought they could make even more money doing so, which they might not.
Re:Neither. They're responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Neither. They're responsible (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a bit like saying bottled drinking-water companies would be all-over home water delivery and filtration, if it were remotely feasible...
Even if there are signs that the oil industry is slowly dying, an entrenched field, where you've got no competition is MUCH more profitable than jumping into new markets which ANYONE can compete in on an equal footing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"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 [shell.com], these have been published for
Re:Two contradictory theories... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Consider their Energy Scenarios [shell.com] 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.
Re: Firehose:Shell ditches wind, solar and hydro (Score:5, Informative)
Theoretically, television may be feasible, but I consider it an impossibility--a development which we should waste little time dreaming about.
- Lee de Forest, 1926, inventor of the cathode ray tube
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
- Thomas J. Watson, 1943, Chairman of the Board of IBM
It doesn't matter what he does, he will never amount to anything.
- Albert Einstein's teacher to his father, 1895
It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister.
- Margaret Thatcher, 1974
This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1876
We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.
- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
- Bill Gates, 1981
Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.
- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.
- Hewlett-Packard's rejection of Steve Jobs, who went on to found Apple Computers
King George II said in 1773 that the American colonies had little stomach for revolution.
An official of the White Star Line, speaking of the firm's newly built flagship, the Titanic, launched in 1912, declared that the ship was unsinkable.
In 1939 The New York Times said the problem of TV was that people had to glue their eyes to a screen, and that the average American wouldn't have time for it.
An English astronomy professor said in the early 19th century that air travel at high speed would be impossible because passengers would suffocate.
Airplanes are interesting toys, but they have no military value.
- Marshal Ferdinand Foch in 1911
With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.
- Business Week, 1958
Whatever happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping.
- Frank Knox, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, on December 4, 1941
Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, October 16, 1929.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
While I agree that subsidies are bad, I don't understand how you then proceed to say that the 80 billion subsidies for alternative energies are 'good'.
How can stealing MORE resources from the US economy be better than simply ending all subsidies to whatever technology, ceasing government intervention in the energy market, actually using property rights laws to allow for the pollution externals to be correctly priced and internalized, and let the market, i.e. we the people, sort out which work better.
I s
Re:quick to savage the company... (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed. Sun Micro is a perfect example. IMO, Sun is the best workstation provider in history, a truly outstanding company. It's not Sun's fault that workstations are no longer in demand. Most people say Sun should have had the foresight to switch to a new business. I say bunk. A company that owns the #1 spot in their market should simply fade with it, and let a new generation of companies exploit new markets. As we approach peak oil, Shell, Exxon, and their competitors should continue to compete in oil even as their revenues fade. Making the jump to alternative energies makes little sense for them.
Re:quick to savage the company... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're modded as funny, but I'm not sure if that was your intent or not.
Companies evolve and survive. Nokia has been around since the 1800's [nokia.com], long before anyone ever heard of a cell phone.
Re:quick to savage the company... (Score:5, Funny)
Their early reception sucked.
functioning markets (Score:4, Insightful)
"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.