“Physical and economic realities must not only be considered but controlling. Wishing and hoping for change is not a successful business strategy, and the past few years have awakened BP management to that reality.”

“Leaning in” is a phrase BP plc CEO Bernard Looney likes to use to describe how his company is embracing the energy transition. BP is transitioning from an “international oil company” to an “international energy company,” according to Looney. This means more renewable energy and less oil and gas. Looney invoked “leaning in” in February 2020 when he introduced new strategic aims for BP to reach “net zero carbon emissions on an absolute basis by 2050 or sooner.” 

The Plan

In Looney’s presentation, “Reimagining energy, reinventing BP,” he said BP needed to reinvent itself as a clean-energy producer because climate change demanded it. …

Ed. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete Newsletter for this post can be found here.

Renewables (General):
*** The Final Nail in The Coffin Of “Renewable” Energy
*** Murphy’s Law of Alternative Energy
*** BP to cut back on green shift amid booming demand for fossil fuels
*** We Demand a Demonstration Project of a Mainly Renewables-Based Electrical Grid
Replacing Cheap, Reliable Power With Unreliable Energy Is Actually Hard
The Human Price of Cobalt

Wind Energy – Offshore:
*** Why Environmentalists May Make This Whale Species Extinct
*** Study: The Interaction Between Resource Species and Electromagnetic Fields Associated with Electricity Production by Offshore Wind Turbines
Feds push ignorance defense for whale killing by offshore wind development
Are NOAA Scientists Being Silenced?…

“Al Gore was right about one thing in his rant at the World Economic Forum in Davos: CO2 emissions have continued to climb and show no sign of being affected by ‘climate policy’.” (Jenkins, below)

In less than 800 words, Holman Jenkins, a Wall Street Journal opinion columnist (Feb. 4 – 5, 2023), cut the whole global warming mania down to size. Basically, it’s all over but the shouting. The science is “looking up,” (it never looked down, actually), for reasons that Jenkins only partially examines. And ExxonKnew as a PR stunt is exposed.

Below, I parse Jenkins’s op-ed with subtitles and let his words speak for themselves.

The Al Gore Problem

Al Gore was right about one thing in his rant at the World Economic Forum in Davos: CO2 emissions have continued to climb and show no sign of being affected by “climate policy.”…

“[CEO Bernard Looney] and other BP executives have suggested that the company could play down future investment in areas including solar energy and offshore wind, according to some of the people. Discussions about the company’s direction have caused rifts inside BP over the past year, people close to the company say.”

The Wall Street Journal published a very revealing piece yesterday. “Bernard Looney seeks to sharpen strategic focus, with less emphasis on environmental goals,” reported Jenny Stasburg (February 1, 2023).

She begins:

Chief Executive Bernard Looney plans to dial back elements of the oil giant’s high-profile push into renewable energy, according to people familiar with recent discussions.

Mr. Looney has said he is disappointed in the returns from some of the oil giant’s renewable investments and plans to pursue a narrower green-energy strategy, the people said.