This continues around the same theme as the previous topic: It’s becoming painfully obvious that the world lacks political will to do something about the coming energy crisis. While the initial steps to take would be known, effective and simple and the jurisdiction and capabilities there, the will is lacking. A lot of it has to do with industry lobbying, which is rather worrying considering that oil industry is about to face the ultimate test of corporate responsibility and along with that, be the last hope of coming out of the energy crisis without inflicting huge damage to economies and the environment.
The thing is, oil companies are raking in absolutely staggering amounts of money with the current oil prices. Shell alone made a profit of $23 billion last year. Exxon raked in almost $10 billion and BP had a record net income of over $22 billion. And as demand soon exceeds supply, their income will further skyrocket. The production / extraction costs of oil will not significantly increase immediately after peak oil, but the prices will – so for the next couple of decades at least, there’s some serious money to be made in the oil business.
The key question is how are they going to use that money. They have billions and billions of dollars of disposable income and much more on the way. All of this money could be used in a responsible way, researching and developing alternative, renewable energy production means. With the money and resources Big Oil has, development of solar, wind or other “clean” powers could easily be ramped up in a significant way. Or, it could all be given away in dividends ála Shell, who paid over $10B in dividends in 2005. They can also pour it into extracting oil from oil shale and other environmentally disastrous means of oil production. Good for the stockholders, not so great for the world.
Looking at this WorldWatch status report on renewable energy, you can see that the global investment in renewable energy in 2004 was around 30 billion dollars. Compare that to the pure income of the oil companies – Big Oil alone could easily, if they wanted to, double the global investment in renewable energy without any government help.
So where is that corporate responsibility when you need it? There is no lack of good intentions when it comes to words, but it’s high time for energy companies to put their money where their mouth is.
