“… why doesn’t a congressional subcommittee call these companies and a few more to tell us exactly what they are up to and what is going to happen to energy prices where parties have to buy credits for something that is not a pollutant? After the meeting the company that has done the most to sell Kyoto should be awarded naming rights.”
I had a front row seat to many things energy and climate during my 16 years at Enron (1985–2001). At Political Capitalism, I described my Enron experience debating climate science and renewable policy (here).
Enron, in the words of a Greenpeace ex, was “the company most responsible for sparking off the greenhouse civil war in the hydrocarbon business.” [Jeremy Leggett, The Carbon War (London: Penguin Books, 1999, p.…
“Specifically, I’m proposing that the SPE join the frontline in debunking anti-Oil & Gas bias and climate alarmism by providing educational materials, bringing in distinguished lecturers on the subject, holding related symposiums and discussion panels, and more; perhaps develop a Monograph on Energy, Progress, and Climate. As you should know, the facts support the Oil & Gas industry.
In a letter dated July 28, 2023, William “Rod” Guice, a petroleum engineer in California, called upon the Society of Petroleum Engineers to morally defend the industry and thus praise the livelihood of its members. His letter, which deserves to be read in its entirely, follows:
…A manager whom I admire for a California Oil & Gas Operator made this interesting statement not long ago: “The Oil & Gas business used to be an honorable profession.”
“‘People are willing to pay a premium for environmental goods,’ Mr. Dables said. “It’s one thing to buy a box of soap and pay 20 percent more; I don’t know anyone who wants to pay 20 percent more for a car.”
It has taken a basket of mandates and subsidies to get battery-driven vehicles (EVs) on the road in the last decade. Start with a $7,500 per vehicle tax credit. Continue with automobile dealers having to get credits from electrics to meet their corporate average fuel economy standards (CAFE) obligations. Add-in never-ending taxpayer-financed R&D from the US Department of Energy and a lot of jawboning by the Presidents from Clinton to Obama to Biden.
Think back to the 1990s, when natural gas vehicles and methanol-powered vehicles were in play. Electric vehicles had interest too.…