By Robert Bradley Jr.
From GraspUseful resource
“After promoting its efforts to provide environmentally pleasant fuels from algae for over a decade, Exxon Mobil Corp. is now quietly strolling away from its most closely publicized local weather answer.” (beneath)
Biofuel is out, leaving carbon seize and storage (CCS) because the leave-us-alone, we-are-doing-our-part “greenwashing” technique at ExxonMobil (see tomorrow’s put up). The tip of algae as an alternative to crude oil comes after $350 million and 14 years of dedication. This expenditure was joined by a “inexperienced” promoting marketing campaign across the challenge of at the very least $60 million, principally spent between 2017 and 2019.
It was predictable. Shell, BP, and Chevron had beforehand thrown within the biofuels towel. And it’s harking back to Exxon’s failed ventures within the Seventies: Workplace gear. Actual property. Artificial fuels. Shale oil. Electrical motors. Photo voltaic panels. Uranium. Copper.
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Right here is the most recent as reported by Ben Eligin and Kevin Crowley. “Exxon Retreats From Main Local weather Effort to Make Biofuels From Algae” (Reuters: February 10, 2023) is subtitled “Renewable fuels constructed from algae was the corporate’s most closely publicized local weather answer.” The three shutdowns are reported within the article:
Exxon has slashed its assist for Viridos Inc., a biotech firm based mostly in La Jolla, California, that operated because the oil big’s key technical associate because it started its algae push in 2009. With Exxon funding drying up and issue discovering different backers, the biotech agency laid off 60% of its workers on Dec. 27, in line with Viridos executives. The biotech firm stated it’s nonetheless shifting ahead with algae analysis.
Exxon, in the meantime, has additionally halted funding for a multi-million-dollar algae challenge on the Colorado Faculty of Mines on the finish of final yr, after supporting the work for eight years. One other Exxon-backed enterprise with the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory is about to finish inside weeks.
However the firm’s new division, Low Carbon Options (assume Exxon Enterprises of the Seventies), troopers on with authorities subsidies in tow:
Exxon confirmed that it’s pulling again on funding for algae in favor of different applied sciences now being labored on by its Low Carbon Options division. “At this level we now have different applications which might be prepared for deployment,” stated Vijay Swarup, Exxon’s senior director of expertise who ran algae analysis. “We have to get on the deployment curve for carbon seize, for hydrogen, for biofuels. Algae nonetheless wants some extra work.”
“It’s a exceptional shift for Exxon,” Eligin and Crowley proceed:
The attract of biofuels constructed from algae is that they’d probably generate lower than half the emissions of petroleum. The manufacturing and use of Exxon’s oil and gasoline finally generates about 630 million tons of heat-trapping gases every year, practically equal to the carbon footprint of Canada. The inexperienced goop has for years been prominently featured as a climate-friendly risk in tv adverts and investor displays.
Exxon is retreating from algae regardless of a smashing monetary efficiency final yr, during which it posted a record-breaking $59 billion in income. And it comes simply because the algae analysis has proven important progress: Viridos and Exxon achieved important enhancements lately, together with a seven-fold improve within the productiveness of algae grown in out of doors ponds, in line with Viridos Chief Government Officer Oliver Fetzer.
Some questionable editorializing right here. Robust income should not a purpose to interact in loss economics, notably with a expertise that has by no means been worthwhile and has open-ended grim economics. And “getting higher” … isn’t that the perennial cry for extra subsidies, extra time?
Again to Eligin and Crowley:
Algae has lengthy performed an intriguing position at Exxon. The corporate, greater than some other, has acquired criticism for being essentially the most recalcitrant on local weather change, turning into the topic of lawsuits, protests and years of political scrutiny over its long-term dedication to fossil fuels whilst international warming gathers tempo. As criticism poured in, Exxon ceaselessly held up its algae efforts as one important piece of proof that it was severe about local weather change and discovering cleaner types of power. “They’ve been making an attempt to create the impression that they’re a part of the answer, after they’re definitely not,” stated Robert Brulle, a visiting professor at Brown College who has studied the promotional actions of the fossil fuels business.
ExxonMobil executives tried to appease their enemies, and that is what they get? It was all laid out by one Steve Milloy, who has actively urged the corporate’s executives to not attempt to appease their enemies however to face proud for what they imagine in: oil and gasoline for the plenty. [1]
Eligin and Crowley finish:
In an interview, Exxon officers rejected the suggestion that algae was some type of greenwashing try. “The progress we’ve made thus far is exceptional,” Swarup stated, including that algae nonetheless has huge future potential. “The place we’re with the algae right this moment is additional alongside than, fairly frankly, anybody has ever been with algae, when it comes to productiveness, when it comes to the flexibility to duplicate the outcomes outdoor.”
Exceptional? Does the analysis and findings so far have any market worth? Or was it only a wealth switch to some educational researchers and costly greenwashing? Lee Raymond would have by no means finished it again when ExxonMobil was top-of-the-line managed firms on the earth.
Conclusion
The biofuels drawback is one in all power density from which a number of different issues emerge. [2] Crude oil stays king.
It might solely be hoped that the errors of the current (algae yesterday, carbon seize tomorrow) may be lesson discovered. Referring to the Seventies, Joseph Pratt and William Hale remarked:
Pondering that the oil business would possibly effectively be dying a sluggish demise, Exxon and most main oil firms moved out of oil in quest of alternatives for long-term development. Exxon spent appreciable capital, administration effort, and analysis {dollars} on diversification into industries fully outdoors of power, in addition to into power industries aside from oil and gasoline.
Errors all, the corporate exited the companies and “refocused its attentions on its core enterprise: oil, pure gasoline, and chemical substances [and] … emerged on the finish with a sharper concentrate on its core companies and a renewed sense that oil and gasoline would stay its precedence effectively into the longer term.” [3]
There may be extra hope right this moment than yesterday. However carbon seize and storage stays as a Nice Distraction at ExxonMobil. Dangerous PR from proper and left, too.
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[1] Milloy testified on the 2021 assembly:
On the 2008 annual assembly, I advised then-CEO Rex Tillerson that appeasing local weather activists would result in catastrophe. I advised a method out: Ban these silly shareholder proposals. I delivered the identical message to present CEO Darren Woods in 2017. He didn’t pay attention both…. This yr I proposed that Exxon push again on local weather idiocy by disclosing the precise prices and advantages of chopping emissions. The prices of emissions cuts, you see, are very excessive and the advantages are zero. However the ever-obtuse Mr. Woods refuses to acknowledge these realities.
[2] “The method requires huge quantities of power a lot in order that algal biofuel manufacturing would possibly eat extra power than it produces, some researchers concluded.” – Christopher Matthews, “Exxon Sees Inexperienced Gold In Algae-Based mostly Fuels. Skeptics See Greenwashing” (Wall Road Journal, October 4, 2021)
[3] Pratt and Hale, Exxon: Remodeling Power, 1973–2005 (Austin: Briscoe Heart for American Historical past, 2013), p. 167.