Shell dumps wind, solar and hydro power in favour of biofuels

gizmo555

From today's Guardian (18/03/09):

Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today. It plans to invest more in biofuels which environmental groups blame for driving up food prices and deforestation.

Executives at its annual strategy presentation said Shell, already the world's largest buyer and blender of crop-based biofuels, would also invest an unspecified amount in developing a new generation of biofuels which do not use food-based crops and are less harmful to the environment.

See here for more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/17/royaldutchshell-energy

derry

gizmo555 wrote: »

From today's Guardian (18/03/09):

Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today. It plans to invest more in biofuels which environmental groups blame for driving up food prices and deforestation.

Executives at its annual strategy presentation said Shell, already the world's largest buyer and blender of crop-based biofuels, would also invest an unspecified amount in developing a new generation of biofuels which do not use food-based crops and are less harmful to the environment.

See here for more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/17/royaldutchshell-energy

Thats rich coming from a crowd who happily stamp all over and polute large parts of the planet.
Try being a dirt poor hapless Nigerian living on the oil rich very oil polluted delta or a potensial victim of the mega police force down the west of Ireland who are there to gaurd a contervertal pipeline that could kill locals there if it goes bang.

Facts are that some bio fuels in some parts of the world are very interesting power to weight ratios and interesting in terms of the energy ratios.

Other parts of the world are still interesting for renewables like wind wave tidal and solar power.

Oil companies in the past diversifed into chemicals or other industries and often made huge losses dabbling in something they were not good at.

They sold off these Industries and often those Industries went on to become succeful profitable industries.

So Shells opinion on non oil subjects for me is up there with the birds.

What I do know is Shell and many oil companies really only want to be able to control any future potensial power source so as to be able to knobble it if they need to.

The ways to nobble Bio fuels is to do things like buy up huge chunks of the arable land in third world poor countries like Ethopia.Then eject the locals to the scrub land so they dont prosper and grow cash crop bio fuels.Then at times when it suit them create crop failures so as to create a instabilty in the bio fuels supply line so governments get scared to depend on bio fuels .Then with intensive soil leeching bad farming and other methods turn the good land into bad land so as to reduce the bio fuels crop ratios yet again leading to instabilty in supply.Coupled with suedo science reports to suggest Bio fuels are not all they are cracked up to be they can stunt the growth of bio fuels.

Reality is about 30% of the oil extracted in the oil industry is used to get the rest of the oil to the tank in your car or your house heating whatever.This translates that if you fill your car with 7 liters of petrol you actually required 10 liters of fuel in total to get that fuel into your tank.The other 3 liters which are not in your tank are used in the extracting of the crude oil .The transporting the crude oil.Then the refining of the crude oil and the finaly the transporting the fuel to the petrol /diesel forecourts or household fuel tanks whatever.
As Oil feilds generaly get older this ratio could rise to 40% or even 50% but one thing is fairly certian the 30% ratio is unlikely to drop.

The bio fuels also have a similar energy input of 25% to 40% depending the type of bio fuel and the locations it is in .

Examples are ROI with excelent crop growing land doing bio fuels on our door step with the correct solutions would be closer to 25% energy ratios to get the fuel into the cars fuel tanks .

South Spain as a arid region requiring a huge energy input to supply water to bio fuels crops and would proably be an economic mistake and require maybe a lot more than 40% energy input

However South Spain might be very profitable for solar production and equally ROI might be a disaster for solar production.

Ethopia might with the longer distance to EU markets make a bad case for Bio fuels even though they have a ideal climate and vast water resources from Nile river etc.This is due to the higher energy input required to transport the bio fuels to the markets like the EU.
However Ethopia might make a excellent solar power solution where they use the power to make Hydrogen or other fuels from solar power and do that in the scrubby land regions leaving the more fertile arable land for the locals to grow food for themselfs.

Basically if the Bio fuels are going to cause bad things like forests in Borenio to be destroyed then that type of bio fuel is a bad deal.If Bio fuels take the 30% of the fertile land in ROI thats sits there doing nothing because the Eu pays the farmers to grow nothing then that probably good bio fuels.

So for me Shell and thier high profile off the cuff quotes to the media which are mostly owned by pro oil company media magnets are very suspect as to what is thier game .Like to try to rubbish other forms of renewable energy is for me a agenda driven policy to say we did the solar and other renewable powers and they didnt work .Then a few years later we did the bio fuels and they didnt work so it back to oil guys

Life is a bitch but suckers especialy addicted oil suckers are born every day :pac:


Derry

robtri

derry wrote: »

Thats rich coming from a crowd who happily stamp all over and polute large parts of the planet.
Try being a dirt poor hapless Nigerian living on the oil rich very oil polluted delta or a potensial victim of the mega police force down the west of Ireland who are there to gaurd a contervertal pipeline that could kill locals there if it goes bang.

<snip>

Life is a bitch but suckers especialy addicted oil suckers are born every day :pac:


Derry

have you got anything to back up what you have said here in relation to the very close to slanderous remarks about shell....
or is it just your opinion??

lostexpectation

proper planning in first world countries is such a pain

Pollythene Pam

Shell is one of the biggest globel employers in the world.
peoples livelyhood inded in a lot of cases their lives on shell.
Cut them a break.
Are you going to give these people a job?

robtri

robtri wrote: »

have you got anything to back up what you have said here in relation to the very close to slanderous remarks about shell....
or is it just your opinion??

still waiting to see proof of this Derry.... anything.... go one give us a little bit of this evidence you have, you must have loads to be able to come up with that amazing post......