Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
started an internal system of carbon trading, began to invest in solar and
wind, and re-branded itself as Beyond Petroleum to symbolize its focus
on cleaner energy.
Some other oil companies followed BP some of the way in this direc-
tion. But by 2009, Browne's successor Tony Hayward had reorientated BP's
focus back on fossil fuels. He reacted to a temporary global glut in solar
components by cutting back BP's solar business, and responded to wind
farm planning delays in the UK by focusing BP's wind investments in the
US. More ominously, his stewardship has seen BP beginning to explore
Canadian tar sands - a high-carbon energy source Browne had avoided.
BP has retained the slogan Beyond Petroleum, but this only tends to invite
criticism of hypocritical “greenwash”.
Perhaps it was always too much to expect any oil company to resist the
lure of the upstream - and the high profits from extracting oil and gas
there - that will always interest their shareholders most. But it is a pity
that the oil companies are generally beating a profitable retreat back to
their “core” hydrocarbons business, and failing to put their project man-
agement skills and offshore experience to good use in setting up big wind
farms at sea, for instance.
Of course, the oil companies are far from the entirety of the energy
industry, which has thousands of general utility companies providing
electricity and gas by many different means. They are beginning to consti-
tute an enormous vested interest in low-carbon energy. HSBC Bank runs
a Climate Change Index on which it lists businesses selling low-carbon
goods and services. In 2009 HSBC reported that the “clean technology”
sales of these listed companies had risen to $534bn in 2008, more than
the $530bn global turnover of the combined aerospace and defence sec-
tors in that year.
But the low-carbon parts of the energy industry are frequently at odds
with each other. In many countries the renewable and nuclear lobbies are
each warning governments about the other. Renewable energy producers
say nuclear will suck up all the public money, and leave none for them.
Nuclear energy companies point out that renewable energy development
will lower the carbon penalty that is their only advantage over fossil fuels.
Individuals
No previous energy revolution has ever put more financial, and moral,
burden on consumers' shoulders as the low-carbon transformation
would - for the simple reason that no energy revolution has ever put so
