The retiring year has been not great for oil company . Between fiscal losses from the pandemic and increase pressure from investor and the public at large to do something about how their product is messing up the planet , fossil fuel producer are feeling the heat .
Big Oil ’s new human activity seem to be convincing the populace that not only is it thriving , but that it ’s a drive military force for good in the carbon - barren revolution . Among the Modern language are commitments to carbon disinterest , “ nett zero , ” and more terms that obscure the reliable risks of continue to draw out fossil fuels .
Tuesday ’s panel of CERAWeek , one of the industry ’s handsome group discussion that is taking place virtually this workweek , shone a light source on some of the language the industry is using to sell its Modern , wholesome figure in an attempt to greenwash a way of life out of the dirty cakehole it ’s labor .
Pumpjacks work in a field near Lovington, N.M.Photo: Charlie Riedel (AP)
https://gizmodo.com/leaked-big-oil-docs-hint-at-support-for-a-carbon-tax-b-1846388742
“ When you think about our stakeholder being the world , you do thing differently than you did before , ” Vicki Hollub , the chief operating officer of Occidental Petroleum , allege atoneoftwodiscussions on Tuesday on how the manufacture can get to net zero . And company like Occidental seem to be introducing a whole fresh set of lingo to lull the world into a mistaken sentience of surety that the industry wo n’t continue to sour the satellite into a tyre fire .
First off , the industriousness ’s gravid names want you to know that they ’re not just Big Bad Oil Companies . ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods , speaking on a control board on the time to come of the industry , stressed that the company was “ function on the evolution ” towards lower - emanation energies . Woods drew back to the fellowship ’s historic roots as a fashion to adumbrate that it was n’t just a dodo fuel producer , but rather a technology society that innovates different ways to supply vigour throughout the decade .
“ mass think of us as being just an oil and flatulency company , ” hesaid . “ But if you go all the mode back to our very origin , we started off by making kerosene to replace whale crude in lamp , and then Edison devise the lightsome bulb and electrical energy derive . ” Exxon’swebsiteechoes Woods ’s language , with a red-faced banner on the home page bragging that the company ’s “ scientist and technologist are pioneering newfangled research and pursue raw engineering to keep down emanation while creating more efficient fuels . ”
Meanwhile , Hollub announced at her jury that Occidental does n’t “ expect to be an oil color troupe in the next 15 - 20 years . We ’ll be a atomic number 6 management company . ”
What , exactly , does a “ carbon paper direction caller ” do ? Based on Hollub ’s reply , it seems the task involves mostly wrapping fossil fuel in a nicer - look software . In January , Occidental complete its first freight of what the company is calling “ carbon copy - neutral oil , ” which seems to be just normal oil that make out bundled with a bunch of carbon offsets for both the production and exercise sides . Next , Occidental is plain face to begin make “ net - zero oil , ” which will be oil made with carbon copy capture and sequestration technology attached to its output . ( No fancy labels can do aside with the fact that that oil , eventually , gets burned , and that downstream burning is thebiggest source of discharge . )
The mind of simply stopping discharge at the germ or even more wildly , sucking C out of the air , is the great white giant for vegetable oil companies who want , above all else , to keep producing their intersection while distinguish us they ’re doing good and cut emission . Since emissions come from the production , ecstasy , and burning of fossil fuels , there are two avenues the industriousness wants to deploy . The first is captivate carbon at the source of fogy fuel production , to either be stored for good or used in a different way afterwards . The other is a larger thought of but removing carbon from the air more generally . Unfortunately , the former technology is dodgy , expensive , and tough to implement ; the latter has never been proven at scale .
You ’d never know that from how industry representatives let the cat out of the bag at CERAWeek , though . There are several panels on various shape of C capture this week , point that the fossil fuel industry is befuddle everything it has at all the different forms of technologies that could peradventure help them , even if they do n’t presently survive or cultivate at anywhere near the stratum needed . ( It does n’t seem like an chance event that Bill Gates , one of the high-pitched - profile billionaires who has been juicing uphype for carbon seizure engineering science , was Monday ’s keynote speaker . ) The manufacture ’s concept of “ nett zero”—a term open to various definition regarding get under one’s skin overall C emission to zero via really reducing them and a variety of offset cadence — leans heavy on moving these technologies along as chop-chop as possible . It ’s clear that when crude and gas companies mouth about net zero , they ’re leaving out the part where we ultimately apply less of their intersection .
“ There is no credible way of make ball-shaped mood goal without come on the widespread espousal of CCS , ” Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber , chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi ’s internal fossil oil fellowship , said on his net zero board Tuesday . Hollub , meanwhile , proudly announced that Occidental wasbuilding a carbon capture projectin the Permian Basin in partnership with United Airlines , another big name in an industry that ’s facing alike pressure to quickly decarburize .
Renewable energy — a solution pronto useable to deploy at musical scale right now — was observe in both of Tuesday ’s net zero panels , but play second violin to exciting pie - in - the - sky ideas about houseclean up dirty fuel . Most of the executive on each panel speak seriously about the need to bring renewables into the mix so as to trim back the carbon step of the production of fossil fuel rather than ending their output completely — a way of getting other versions of “ carbon - indifferent rock oil , ” if you will . At least one member of each panel brought up the possibility of gamy H , avery expensive and other - microscope stage technologythat creates a cleaner version of natural gaseous state , but the potential of renewable batteries and Department of Energy reposition were n’t bring up at all .
“ We should not be talking about extinguish fossil fuel , ” Hollub said during her panel . “ What we should be spill about is eliminating emissions . ”
The problem , of course , with that presumptuousness is that it create a hypothetical humankind where burning dodo fuel will somehow be harmless or achromatic , which , of course , they can never be . The mathematics is jolly clear : We currently do n’t have the technological capacity to set off the amount of fossil fuel that we currently waste .
And even if we were able to as if by magic scale up C gaining control technology for far-flung use tomorrow , it would be an terrible waste to then apply that engineering only as a get - out - of - pokey free card to keep combust fossil fuels with zero gaze for the consequence outside of the mood crisis , including air and water system pollution . focalize so much money , attention , and time on applied science that are not yet ready for the limelight , let alone sufficient enough to dig us out of the massive carbon hole we ’re in , only serves to grease one’s palms the diligence time to keep foul while they convert us they ’re the good guys .
Abu DhabiBill GatesCarbon neutralityEnergyExxonMobilFossil fuelLow - carbon saving
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