Shell CEO: Renewable Energy Good Blahblah Expand And Support Blahblah Climate Blah

[hatrack]

The oil and gas industry risks losing public support if progress is not made in the transition to cleaner energy, Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said on Thursday.

The world's second largest publicly-traded oil company plans to increase its investment in renewable energy to $1 billion a year by the end of the decade, van Beurden said, although it is still a small part of its total annual spending of $25 billion.

The CEO said that the transition to a low carbon energy system will take decades and government policies including putting a price on carbon emissions will be essential to phase out the most polluting sources of energy such as coal and oil. "If we're not very careful, with all the good intentions and advocacy that we have, we may, as a sector and society, not make the progress that is needed," van Beurden said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

He said the "biggest challenge" the company faces is maintaining public acceptance of the energy industry. "I do think trust has been eroded to the point that it is becoming a serious issue for our long term future," he continued. "If we are not careful, broader public support for the sector will wane."

Ed. - Yeah, no shit.

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ceraweek-shell-shell-idUSKBN16G2DT

[NNadir]

1. So called "renewable energy" is good for Shell, good for Exxon, good for "beyond petroleum, BP...

...since as long as people believe it's viable and real, we'll happily motor along with oil and gas with CO₂ concentrations measuring the worth of this belief

So called "renewable energy" has never been viable and real; it's not viable and real now, and it won't be viable and real.

It's a lie we tell ourselves, and a lie we're continuously happy to embrace, and the marketing groups at the big fossil fuel companies know this very well.

Watch for all the oil and gas companies engage in this rhetoric, much like Denmark successfully marketed this scheme while drilling, baby drilling, without stop and with no sign of slowing down in the North Sea.

[hatrack]

2. Nature, Physics, Chemistry - none respond to PR campaigns

It's interesting watching what is "politically possible" and what is "economically sustainable" collide with what is thermodynamically inevitable.

[NNadir]

3. Interesting, but terrifying in the deepest sense.

PR campaigns are very effect in choosing what applied science will be, but it cannot affect the basic laws of physics including the laws involving limits.

Some years back in another place I mused on exactly that point in an internet post of which I am most proud:

The human race is nothing more and nothing less than a biological species, our fantasies to the contrary notwithstanding, and just as bacterial populations collapse – sometimes as a function of their own waste – so can human populations collapse, not as a function of perceptions of either needs or wants, but from purely physical conditions. The atmosphere will not ask me – or anyone else – about my opinions of what I think humanity needs or wants if, for instance, saline soils, droughts, floods, glacial depletion or similar functions suddenly drop the carrying capacity of the planet for human beings from 7 billion to 3 billion or maybe even much less, including the number zero, if you must know. It will simply happen without debate.

No Congress, no Parliament, no government of any kind will be able to pass laws requiring it to rain, or for the nurturing run off of disappeared glaciers to return. We know that this is true from history. The bubonic plague did not ask the permission of any powerful king, queen, warlord or emperor to strike, nor did the collapse of the population of Easter Island, require the Chieftain of the Island’s original population to approve it.

Should Nuclear Energy Be a Panacea?

We are very clearly rapidly approaching the physical limits of this planet, not just in terms of the atmosphere, but even with respect to the materials it contains.

The only ray of hope I see in this country, is the strong base of knowledge and understanding in some of the young people I've had the pleasure of meeting recently. But they're human beings, with human limits, and, almost certainly, the same psychological limits that have prevented us from doing wise things rather than foolish things.

[hatrack]

4. I've adopted the "Distant Observer" attitude in the last few years

For starters, it does let you appreciate that fact that these are truly fascinating times.

What is unfolding now is truly unprecedented in our species' history, and we'll be able to watch much of it in real time, or something close to it, with amazing tools - satellites, computers, remote cameras, mathematical models and more.

There's also the bonus that it keeps me from spending too much time thinking of stepping in front of a bus, or walking off a building.

[NNadir]

5. I've always considered my mortality to be reassuring.

I always figured that no matter how bad things got, I'd personally get out of it in the end.

But now as I approach the end of my own life, I find myself caring much more about the future than ever before.

I suppose it's a function of seeing my sons become men.

I consider, in somewhat metaphysical terms, that the purpose of humanity is to see the universe, in all its spectacular and endlessly ineffable beauty. We have the tools now to do that, but I question whether these tools contain the seeds of their own destruction, and I am broken by the thought that all the remarkable things it has been my pleasure to observe will no longer be observed, at least not by human beings.

I am fortunate and perhaps rare to have lived a life that has been indescribably wonderful.

As I prepare myself to leave it, I have, for all its flaws, come to love humanity, and even if I cannot live forever, I should like the human race to last a little longer than it is likely to do.