Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Eliminating flaring by the valorisation of
gas co-products. These practices continue
whereas many countries have officially
banned it (e.g. in Nigeria)
possibilities to create value through demand-side
management, in particular in the transport sector
(accounting for 61.2% of world oil demand
16
)
where there is so far few oil substitutes. The oil
companies could play an active role by investing
resources to shape the sector transformation pro-
moting a non-conservative vision of the oil usages.
This can encompass inter-sector collaborations
and innovations with carmakers (e.g. on electric
vehicle), which synergises adequately with the
choice to diversify power production. To this
respect, oil companies may also find opportuni-
ties to collaborate with high-technology groups
such as Siemens which has an original vision on
more decentralised model of power production
and consumption related to the development of
electric car and smart grids. Eventually, they may
envisage collaborations with policy makers to
promote a new vision of
mobility
and urban plan-
ning: development of car-pooling or investments
in public transportations to foster inter-modality.
•
The exploitation of oil shale is energy-
intensive, impacts considerably water re-
sources and emits dangerous atmospheric
pollutants.
There are also some more strategic issues for
the mid-term:
Oil companies start to diversify by moving
downstream on the energy chain. Is a diversifi-
cation to broader energy activities relevant? Oil
companies have started to invest in power produc-
tion, and in particular in renewable energies; For
some companies, it seems that a main driver of
this diversification was public receptivity creating
the need to “green-wash” their image. For some
others, it seems to correspond to the willingness
to seize new market opportunities and be reac-
tive to the transformation of the energy market.
However, they rather remain incremental. These
are rather reversible strategies, which represent
an adequate option for companies to remain agile
and adaptable to new contexts; In this specific
case, however, it illustrates a strong resilience to
the core-nature of the business. Producing power
is another way to do business than producing
oil, meaning that it should require a profound
revision of the business orientation (resources,
competences, partner networks…). The fact that
these attempts remain quite restricted make them
more precarious and more easily revisable than
for pure power and gas companies that already
master the market, networks and the constraints
of power production.
Oil companies might have a key role to play
in the reconfiguration of oil usages. This would
imply the development of new skills within oil
companies and the implementation of new busi-
ness models around them: the development of
very high-value activities, restricted in the long-
CAR INDUSTRY CASE STUDY
Situation and Questions
Car industry generates CO
2
emissions and envi-
ronmental impacts in two ways:
•
Direct impacts related to the supply-chain
of car manufacturers from conception to
distribution: production in plants, trans-
portations of raw material, energy used in
industrial process, etc.
•
Indirect impacts due to the use of cars by
customers: car transport is responsible
for an important share of worldwide CO
2
emissions and generates, among others,
noise disturbance. The energy consumed
for car transport provides a good proxy to
assess the share of cars in the overall CO
2
road emissions. The energy consumed by
