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=Big Oil=
On 28 October, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives (Committee on Oversight and Reform) called a number of Big Oil figureheads to discuss fossil fuels and climate change:


* Darren Woods - CEO of [[ExxonMobil]]                 
=Strategy=
* David Lawler - CEO of [[BP]] America Inc.
==Mission==
* Michael K. Wirth - CEO of [[Chevron]] Corporation
* [[Lithium Mining]]
* Gretchen Watkins - President of [[Shell Oil]] Company
==Agents==
* Mike Sommers - President of [[American Petroleum Institute]]
* [[Fossil Fuel Industry Disinformation]]
* Suzanne Clark - President and CEO of [[U.S. Chamber of Commerce]]
[https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/fueling-the-climate-crisis-exposing-big-oil-s-disinformation-campaign-to]


At the Committee’s hearing in October 2021, fossil fuel executives finally admitted under oath that climate change is real, that burning fossil fuels contributes to it, and that this is an existential threat to the planet. Yet none of them would pledge to end their financial support for efforts to block meaningful action on climate change. The Committee’s investigation has shown that, rather than outright deny global warming, the fossil fuel industry has “greenwashed” its record through deceptive advertising and climate pledges—without meaningfully reducing emissions. Documents obtained by the Committee show:
=Tactics=
==Offsets==
The concept of "offsets" allows many industries that involve great deals of extraction and pollution to present themselves as environmentally friendly. For example, many oil + gas companies now offer "carbon neutral" fossil fuels.<ref>"Big Energy Companies’ New Pitch: ‘Carbon-Neutral’ Oil and Gas" by Dieter Holger, Wall Street Journal 12-OCT-21 https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-energy-companies-new-pitch-carbon-neutral-oil-and-gas-11634032800</ref>


Contrary to what their pledges imply, fossil fuel companies have not organized their businesses around becoming low-emissions, renewable energy companies. They are devoted to a long-term fossil fuel future.
===Credits===
*Despite BP previously rebranding itself as “Beyond Petroleum,” internal documents highlighted how carbon capture and storage (CCS), one of the energy technologies touted by the company, could “enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond.”
IETA => [[Verra]] =>
*An internal Shell email discussing carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) warned an executive, “We want to be careful to not talk about CCUS as prolonging the life of oil, gas or fossil fuels writ large.”
===CCUS===
*Chevron pays lip service to a “just transition” to cleaner fuels but provided talking points to an executive asserting that “[o]il and gas” are the “lower carbon solutions that ensures a just transition.”
Carbon Capture, Utilization + Storage:


Big Oil’s climate pledges and green advertising focus on unproven technologies the companies have privately admitted are decades away from implementation.
Fossil fuel companies have similarly relied on the potential of carbon capture technology
*Although Exxon spent at least $68 million advertising its research into algae-based biofuels, notes from an investor presentation obtained by the Committee show this technology is “[s]till decades away from the scale we need.”
to reach net-zero goals. “Carbon capture” describes a set of technologies that remove carbon
*One Exxon public affairs manager warned that implying in an advertisement that algae can be deployed on a mass scale would be misleading, and “might create some angst with the research folks who know that.”
dioxide from either an industrial waste stream or directly from the atmosphere. The carbon
dioxide can then either be utilized for industrial processes or stored in underground deposits.37
The four fossil fuel companies in the Committee’s investigation have made investments in
developing and deploying carbon capture and have lobbied in support of government aid to
support the technology. 38 Fossil fuel companies publicly tout carbon capture technology as key
to transitioning away from fossil fuels.39 However, internal documents obtained by the
Committee suggest the companies view this technology as a social license to continue producing
fossil fuels for decades to come.
BP’s website highlights that “CCUS plays a vital role in the transition to a low-carbon
energy system.” 40 However, an internal document prepared to brief BP leadership on
Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative focuses on carbon capture as a way to “enable the full
use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond.”41
Similarly, in January 2018, BP’s Head of Carbon Capture, Use and Storage and BP’s
Director of Climate Change and Sustainability Technology prepared an internal paper on CCUS
for BP employees. The paper provided public messaging points on carbon capture, but the paper
itself was “not for external distribution.”
Under “Key Messages” the paper emphasizes, “Carbon capture use and storage (CCUS)
is a critical tool for meeting the Paris Climate Agreement goals at lowest cost” and asserts,


Oil and gas companies have tried to create the impression that they are taking ambitious steps to reduce emissions—without actually doing so.
“CCUS technologies are proven, reliable, and ready – but scale-up needs to be accelerated.” 42
*Internal documents show that Exxon and Chevron sought to water down statements by the industry-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) to “remove language that potentially commits members to enhanced climaterelated governance, strategy, risk management, and performance metrics and targets” and to avoid any “explicit commitment for OGCI companies to align their advocacy with their climate related positions”—including advocacy for the Paris Agreement.  
However, the paper also points out how CCUS enables the continued use of fossil fuels. For
*Shell has touted its “Sky scenario” as an ambitious path to achieve netzero emissions, but internal emails emphasize this is “not a Shell business plan” and has “nothing to do with our business plans.”
example, it highlights the use of CCUS in “energy-intensive industries that rely on the use of
*Internal Shell messaging guidance—which was developed to “insulate Shell” from lawsuits about “greenwashing” and “misleading investors” on climate change—calls on employees to emphasize that net-zero emissions is “a collective ambition for the world” rather than a “Shell goal or target.” The guidance urges Shell employees, “Please do not give the impression that Shell is willing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to levels that do not make business sense.”
fossil fuels” and notes, “Long-term growth of gas is partially enabled by CCUS on gas power
and heat.” The paper lists among the “Challenges” for CCUS the “[s]ocietal concerns with
CCUS extending the use of fossil fuels.” The paper also notes that captured carbon can be used
“to enhance oil recovery”—meaning to make oil fields more productive—which undermines the
emission reductions from sequestration. 43
Shell has also pointed to its CCS and CCUS technologies in discussing its net-zero
aspirations, but documents obtained by the Committee show that in private discussions, Shell
executives raised concerns about publicly sharing specifics of Shell’s use of CCS technology to
reach net zero. In an October 2019 email exchange, Jan Sherman, Shell’s then-General Manager
for U.S. Carbon Capture and Storage, asked colleagues for advice on what “not to say” to
environmental groups at an upcoming event in Washington, D.C. Helen O’Connor, Shell’s
Manager for U.S. Stakeholder Relations, suggested that Ms. Sherman should “be cagey about
project specifics” and avoid “traversing far from the CCUS topic regarding Shell and climate
change.” She further noted that one environmental group in attendance, the Natural Resource
Defense Council, “are not friends” of Shell and is “likely closely aligned with those working
hard to litigate against us.” Ms. O’Connor also reminded Ms. Sherman that Shell’s “Sky
scenario” for reaching net-zero emissions—which relies in part on widespread implementation of
CCS—is “not a Shell business plan, but a technically possible, although challenging scenario for
how global society might meet the goals of the Paris agreement.” 44
Currently, Exxon only operates one carbon capture facility, in Schute Creek, Wyoming,
and serves as a partner in a facility in Australia and one in Qatar.45 Over its lifetime, Schute
Creek has only captured and stored 3% of its carbon dioxide underground, either venting or
selling the rest to be injected underground into depleted oil reservoirs, thereby enhancing oil
recovery and generating more emissions.46 The Australia project has repeatedly failed to meet
its storage target by about 50%. 47 A recent report surveying 13 flagship carbon capture projects
around the world, including the Wyoming and Australian facilities, found that ten either
underperformed or failed.48 Exxon recently announced ten potential new facilities around the
world. 49
Exxon spent $86 million in 2010 to expand its carbon capture facility in Wyoming and
plans to spend another $400 million on a further expansion of the facility. 50 Exxon claimed $240
million in carbon capture tax credits over the last decade of the facility’s use. However, experts
estimate that Exxon may only be capturing less than 1% of its total emissions through carbon
capture technology.51
In a May 2018 email exchange, Exxon CEO Darren Woods and Exxon’s Vice President
of Corporate Strategic Planning, Mr. Wojnar, discussed “emissions avoided” through carbon
capture technology. Mr. Wojnar wrote to Mr. Woods that he was “[c]oming back on your
question on GHG emissions avoided,” including through carbon capture technology, and
provided “options for how to respond to a query” on this topic. Mr. Wojnar suggested that Mr.
Woods say that “over the last decade, ExxonMobil has taken action to reduce GHG emissions by
approximately 75 million tons.”52 In reality, nearly all the carbon dioxide Exxon has captured
through CCS has been sold to other fossil fuel companies to inject into their depleted oil fields to
help extract even more oil. As a result, the carbon captured by Exxon through CCS technology
likely has not meaningfully reduced total carbon emissions.53
Exxon has heavily advertised its efforts to develop carbon capture technology. Three
carbon capture television ads from 2016 through 2019 aired 9,058 times nationally, generated 4.1
billion impressions, and are estimated to have cost Exxon over $68 million to run. 54 Draft
advertisements prepared by BBDO in 2018 targeted at a New Jersey audience described “carbon
capture at mass scale” as one of “the technologies being developed right here in Jersey at
ExxonMobil’s Research and Engineering facilities.”55
Private discussions between Exxon and BBDO acknowledge the limitations of Exxon’s
CCS projects. In 2018, BBDO noted that after conversations with Exxon about draft CCSrelated advertisements, they would “replace any lines that imply the technology is live today, and
more the solution more future focused (e.g. we’re building a plant to test this…).” 56
==Biofuel==
===Algae===
Exxon’s Algae Biofuel Technology
Exxon’s climate advertisements have focused heavily on algae biofuel and CCS. 21
Exxon touts algae biofuel as a breakthrough technology and has a stated goal to produce algae
biofuels equivalent to 10,000 barrels of oil per day by 2025—amounting to approximately 0.3%
of the company’s current daily fossil fuel production.22


Big Oil relies on accounting gimmicks, tricky language, and delay tactics to claim the mantle of climate leadership while continuing to be a primary cause of an ongoing climate catastrophe.
However, internal Exxon documents reveal tension between the company’s public
*Internal documents show that in 2019, Exxon scrubbed a public statement about an executive’s speech at a private conference to remove a reference to a plan to increase production in the Permian basin by “1000% within 5 years.”
aspirations and actual technological capabilities. In one email exchange in April 2016, Exxon
*After Shell posted on Twitter asking others what they would do to reduce emissions, a communications executive wrote privately that he agreed this could be seen as “gaslighting” the public, explaining: “We are, after all, in a tweet like this implying others need to sacrifice without focusing on ourselves.”
public affairs employees discussed a planned television advertising campaign touting Exxon’s
algae research. Exxon employees debated referring to “abundant algae” versus “finding the
algae that will make abundant and cheap biofuels.” One Exxon public affairs manager expressed
concern with using the phrase “abundant algae,” noting that “even though they are abundant, it
will take a ton of them to make biofuels so that might create some angst with the research folks
who know that.” 23
Between April 17, 2017, and July 12, 2017, Exxon ran a television advertising campaign
called “Energy Farmer,” centered around Exxon’s research into algae biofuels. The
advertisement garnered nearly 675 million impressions. 24 The ad featured an electric guitar
rendition of the children’s song, “The Farmer in the Dell,” with shots of sprawling vats of green
liquid, and scientists examining algae in tubes and under microscopes. A December 2016
mockup for the advertisement obtained by the Committee states:
We move through an ExxonMobil algae facility, but everything we see feels more akin to
farming than science. We see algae ponds that resemble fields, geometric patches of
different kinds of algae that resemble Midwestern farmland from above, and a grow room
that looks more like a greenhouse than a lab.25
Meanwhile, onscreen text reads, “Algae. A renewable source of energy. ExxonMobil is
researching it. To revolutionize biofuels. For more energy. And fewer emissions. In the
future.” 26 An Exxon scientist appears on screen wearing a t-shirt that reads, “I [heart symbol]
Single-Celled Organisms,” standing against a background of bubbling, floating bags of green
algae. She says to the camera, “I’m Dr. Kelsey McNeely, and someday, you may be calling me
an energy farmer. Energy lives here.” 27 An earlier mockup of the ad from December 2016 had a
slightly different a script, with Dr. McNeely saying, “I like to consider myself an energy
farmer.” 28
The Committee has obtained internal discussions between Exxon representatives and
employees of the advertising agency BBDO Worldwide before the “Energy Farmer”
advertisement went live, suggesting Exxon was concerned that the advertisements as prepared
may have implied the technology being promoted was currently viable. One November 2016
email exchange on several algae advertisements under consideration noted that Exxon
representatives had asked BBDO to “replace any lines that imply the technology is live today,”
and instead emphasize “the solution is more future focused (e.g. this could be a biofuel in the
future.).” BBDO further noted, “[N]eed to add more science to underscore point that this is in
the research phase.”29
In another exchange in November 2016, BBDO notes Exxon asked to revise the text of
the Energy Farmer advertisement, emphasizing that Exxon “is researching” algae rather than
“cultivating it,” and that algae biofuel is “for a potential future,” rather than “for a future.”30 The
final advertisement that ran on television used, “in the future.”31 Although Exxon employees
appear to have carefully crafted the language in this advertisement, the images in the
advertisement showing test tubes and vast pools of algae clearly evoke scaled production of
biofuels and give the impression of clean, abundant algae biofuel.32 This focus on advertising
unproven technologies that may not scale for decades, if at all, suggests that these advertisements
served to distract the public from Exxon’s continued fossil fuel business.
Three Exxon advertisements focused on algae in 2017 through 2019, aired more than
10,000 times, garnered over 3.7 billion impressions and are estimated to have cost Exxon $68
million to air.33 In contrast, Exxon has spent a little over $300 million on algae research since
2009—a little more than four times its advertising budget, less than 3% of its annual research
budget, and an even smaller fraction of its overall capital expenditures, which reached over $391
billion in that period, mostly on oil and gas development.34
Scientists have raised doubts about the practicality of algae biofuel, in particular the cost
and the amount of land required for harvesting. At best, experts predict it will take decades to
gather enough investment in algae to be economically viable, long past the time when electric
vehicles are currently expected to dominate the transportation market.35 The Committee obtained a September 2018 draft Exxon presentation for investors by T.J Wojnar, Exxon’s Vice President of Corporate Strategic Planning, entitled “2018 Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040.” The presentation lists different biofuels research and development projects that Exxon was pursuing in the transportation fuels sector, including algae. Although optimistic in tone, notes accompanying the presentation acknowledged that research into biofuels was “still decades away from the scale we need,” which is consistent with other Exxon statements on the topic.36
===Manure===
 
For New York’s dairy operations, the calculations may be particularly flawed. Of the ten farms that have contracts to produce FGA or are seeking permits, every one had built a digester years ago, and had been generating electricity for use on-site. As these farms switch to producing pipeline gas, no additional methane is getting captured; it’s simply being repurposed.  
 
“That’s a spurious greenhouse gas capture,” said Tyler Lobdell, a lawyer for Food and Water Watch who focuses on factory farming. “They are not causing any emission reduction on the ground.”
 
Indeed some experts have noted that when farms shift from using biogas on their farms to sending it to pipelines, it’s a net loss for the planet. In public comments opposing a permit for Bluebird Renewable Energy’s proposed dairy pipeline projects in Cayuga County, Josh Berman, a lawyer with the Sierra Club’s environmental law program, argued that the projects “would significantly increase pollution and greenhouse gas emissions associated with the two farms.”
 
Both farms had digesters to capture methane for electricity, and Berman said the pipeline project would be a less efficient, more polluting use of the farms’ manure biogas. “There are so many additional steps to go through to make it a saleable product to get it into the pipeline,” Berman told New York Focus. The gas must be refined to remove impurities and compressed before it can be injected into a pipeline, both energy-intensive processes. And in most scenarios –including the Cayuga County projects–the gas must be trucked to the pipeline, which creates a risk of leakage and even explosions in case of road accidents.
 
The transition to pipeline gas also means the digesters no longer provide their relatively low-carbon electric power to the farms themselves. Don Jensen’s contract with Brightmark requires him to sell all the methane his digester produces, so now when he flips on the lights, he is buying electricity from the local utility company, like most other consumers. “We can’t even run a generator. That was a condition.” Jensen said. The money he makes from selling the biomethane more than makes up for his new electric and heating costs, but that new energy consumption may not square with New York’s climate goals.<ref>https://www.nysfocus.com/2022/05/25/big-oil-wants-new-yorks-cow-manure/</ref>
==Plastic Recycling==
 
<ref>https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data</ref>
<ref>https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled</ref>
=Sources=

Latest revision as of 17:43, 21 February 2023

Strategy

Mission

Agents

Tactics

Offsets

The concept of "offsets" allows many industries that involve great deals of extraction and pollution to present themselves as environmentally friendly. For example, many oil + gas companies now offer "carbon neutral" fossil fuels.[1]

Credits

IETA => Verra =>

CCUS

Carbon Capture, Utilization + Storage:

Fossil fuel companies have similarly relied on the potential of carbon capture technology to reach net-zero goals. “Carbon capture” describes a set of technologies that remove carbon dioxide from either an industrial waste stream or directly from the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide can then either be utilized for industrial processes or stored in underground deposits.37 The four fossil fuel companies in the Committee’s investigation have made investments in developing and deploying carbon capture and have lobbied in support of government aid to support the technology. 38 Fossil fuel companies publicly tout carbon capture technology as key to transitioning away from fossil fuels.39 However, internal documents obtained by the Committee suggest the companies view this technology as a social license to continue producing fossil fuels for decades to come. BP’s website highlights that “CCUS plays a vital role in the transition to a low-carbon energy system.” 40 However, an internal document prepared to brief BP leadership on Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative focuses on carbon capture as a way to “enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond.”41 Similarly, in January 2018, BP’s Head of Carbon Capture, Use and Storage and BP’s Director of Climate Change and Sustainability Technology prepared an internal paper on CCUS for BP employees. The paper provided public messaging points on carbon capture, but the paper itself was “not for external distribution.” Under “Key Messages” the paper emphasizes, “Carbon capture use and storage (CCUS) is a critical tool for meeting the Paris Climate Agreement goals at lowest cost” and asserts,

“CCUS technologies are proven, reliable, and ready – but scale-up needs to be accelerated.” 42 However, the paper also points out how CCUS enables the continued use of fossil fuels. For example, it highlights the use of CCUS in “energy-intensive industries that rely on the use of fossil fuels” and notes, “Long-term growth of gas is partially enabled by CCUS on gas power and heat.” The paper lists among the “Challenges” for CCUS the “[s]ocietal concerns with CCUS extending the use of fossil fuels.” The paper also notes that captured carbon can be used “to enhance oil recovery”—meaning to make oil fields more productive—which undermines the emission reductions from sequestration. 43 Shell has also pointed to its CCS and CCUS technologies in discussing its net-zero aspirations, but documents obtained by the Committee show that in private discussions, Shell executives raised concerns about publicly sharing specifics of Shell’s use of CCS technology to reach net zero. In an October 2019 email exchange, Jan Sherman, Shell’s then-General Manager for U.S. Carbon Capture and Storage, asked colleagues for advice on what “not to say” to environmental groups at an upcoming event in Washington, D.C. Helen O’Connor, Shell’s Manager for U.S. Stakeholder Relations, suggested that Ms. Sherman should “be cagey about project specifics” and avoid “traversing far from the CCUS topic regarding Shell and climate change.” She further noted that one environmental group in attendance, the Natural Resource Defense Council, “are not friends” of Shell and is “likely closely aligned with those working hard to litigate against us.” Ms. O’Connor also reminded Ms. Sherman that Shell’s “Sky scenario” for reaching net-zero emissions—which relies in part on widespread implementation of CCS—is “not a Shell business plan, but a technically possible, although challenging scenario for how global society might meet the goals of the Paris agreement.” 44 Currently, Exxon only operates one carbon capture facility, in Schute Creek, Wyoming, and serves as a partner in a facility in Australia and one in Qatar.45 Over its lifetime, Schute Creek has only captured and stored 3% of its carbon dioxide underground, either venting or selling the rest to be injected underground into depleted oil reservoirs, thereby enhancing oil recovery and generating more emissions.46 The Australia project has repeatedly failed to meet its storage target by about 50%. 47 A recent report surveying 13 flagship carbon capture projects around the world, including the Wyoming and Australian facilities, found that ten either underperformed or failed.48 Exxon recently announced ten potential new facilities around the world. 49 Exxon spent $86 million in 2010 to expand its carbon capture facility in Wyoming and plans to spend another $400 million on a further expansion of the facility. 50 Exxon claimed $240 million in carbon capture tax credits over the last decade of the facility’s use. However, experts estimate that Exxon may only be capturing less than 1% of its total emissions through carbon capture technology.51 In a May 2018 email exchange, Exxon CEO Darren Woods and Exxon’s Vice President of Corporate Strategic Planning, Mr. Wojnar, discussed “emissions avoided” through carbon capture technology. Mr. Wojnar wrote to Mr. Woods that he was “[c]oming back on your question on GHG emissions avoided,” including through carbon capture technology, and provided “options for how to respond to a query” on this topic. Mr. Wojnar suggested that Mr. Woods say that “over the last decade, ExxonMobil has taken action to reduce GHG emissions by approximately 75 million tons.”52 In reality, nearly all the carbon dioxide Exxon has captured through CCS has been sold to other fossil fuel companies to inject into their depleted oil fields to help extract even more oil. As a result, the carbon captured by Exxon through CCS technology likely has not meaningfully reduced total carbon emissions.53 Exxon has heavily advertised its efforts to develop carbon capture technology. Three carbon capture television ads from 2016 through 2019 aired 9,058 times nationally, generated 4.1 billion impressions, and are estimated to have cost Exxon over $68 million to run. 54 Draft advertisements prepared by BBDO in 2018 targeted at a New Jersey audience described “carbon capture at mass scale” as one of “the technologies being developed right here in Jersey at ExxonMobil’s Research and Engineering facilities.”55 Private discussions between Exxon and BBDO acknowledge the limitations of Exxon’s CCS projects. In 2018, BBDO noted that after conversations with Exxon about draft CCSrelated advertisements, they would “replace any lines that imply the technology is live today, and more the solution more future focused (e.g. we’re building a plant to test this…).” 56

Biofuel

Algae

Exxon’s Algae Biofuel Technology Exxon’s climate advertisements have focused heavily on algae biofuel and CCS. 21 Exxon touts algae biofuel as a breakthrough technology and has a stated goal to produce algae biofuels equivalent to 10,000 barrels of oil per day by 2025—amounting to approximately 0.3% of the company’s current daily fossil fuel production.22

However, internal Exxon documents reveal tension between the company’s public aspirations and actual technological capabilities. In one email exchange in April 2016, Exxon public affairs employees discussed a planned television advertising campaign touting Exxon’s algae research. Exxon employees debated referring to “abundant algae” versus “finding the algae that will make abundant and cheap biofuels.” One Exxon public affairs manager expressed concern with using the phrase “abundant algae,” noting that “even though they are abundant, it will take a ton of them to make biofuels so that might create some angst with the research folks who know that.” 23 Between April 17, 2017, and July 12, 2017, Exxon ran a television advertising campaign called “Energy Farmer,” centered around Exxon’s research into algae biofuels. The advertisement garnered nearly 675 million impressions. 24 The ad featured an electric guitar rendition of the children’s song, “The Farmer in the Dell,” with shots of sprawling vats of green liquid, and scientists examining algae in tubes and under microscopes. A December 2016 mockup for the advertisement obtained by the Committee states: We move through an ExxonMobil algae facility, but everything we see feels more akin to farming than science. We see algae ponds that resemble fields, geometric patches of different kinds of algae that resemble Midwestern farmland from above, and a grow room that looks more like a greenhouse than a lab.25 Meanwhile, onscreen text reads, “Algae. A renewable source of energy. ExxonMobil is researching it. To revolutionize biofuels. For more energy. And fewer emissions. In the future.” 26 An Exxon scientist appears on screen wearing a t-shirt that reads, “I [heart symbol] Single-Celled Organisms,” standing against a background of bubbling, floating bags of green algae. She says to the camera, “I’m Dr. Kelsey McNeely, and someday, you may be calling me an energy farmer. Energy lives here.” 27 An earlier mockup of the ad from December 2016 had a slightly different a script, with Dr. McNeely saying, “I like to consider myself an energy farmer.” 28 The Committee has obtained internal discussions between Exxon representatives and employees of the advertising agency BBDO Worldwide before the “Energy Farmer” advertisement went live, suggesting Exxon was concerned that the advertisements as prepared may have implied the technology being promoted was currently viable. One November 2016 email exchange on several algae advertisements under consideration noted that Exxon representatives had asked BBDO to “replace any lines that imply the technology is live today,” and instead emphasize “the solution is more future focused (e.g. this could be a biofuel in the future.).” BBDO further noted, “[N]eed to add more science to underscore point that this is in the research phase.”29 In another exchange in November 2016, BBDO notes Exxon asked to revise the text of the Energy Farmer advertisement, emphasizing that Exxon “is researching” algae rather than “cultivating it,” and that algae biofuel is “for a potential future,” rather than “for a future.”30 The final advertisement that ran on television used, “in the future.”31 Although Exxon employees appear to have carefully crafted the language in this advertisement, the images in the advertisement showing test tubes and vast pools of algae clearly evoke scaled production of biofuels and give the impression of clean, abundant algae biofuel.32 This focus on advertising unproven technologies that may not scale for decades, if at all, suggests that these advertisements served to distract the public from Exxon’s continued fossil fuel business. Three Exxon advertisements focused on algae in 2017 through 2019, aired more than 10,000 times, garnered over 3.7 billion impressions and are estimated to have cost Exxon $68 million to air.33 In contrast, Exxon has spent a little over $300 million on algae research since 2009—a little more than four times its advertising budget, less than 3% of its annual research budget, and an even smaller fraction of its overall capital expenditures, which reached over $391 billion in that period, mostly on oil and gas development.34 Scientists have raised doubts about the practicality of algae biofuel, in particular the cost and the amount of land required for harvesting. At best, experts predict it will take decades to gather enough investment in algae to be economically viable, long past the time when electric vehicles are currently expected to dominate the transportation market.35 The Committee obtained a September 2018 draft Exxon presentation for investors by T.J Wojnar, Exxon’s Vice President of Corporate Strategic Planning, entitled “2018 Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040.” The presentation lists different biofuels research and development projects that Exxon was pursuing in the transportation fuels sector, including algae. Although optimistic in tone, notes accompanying the presentation acknowledged that research into biofuels was “still decades away from the scale we need,” which is consistent with other Exxon statements on the topic.36

Manure

For New York’s dairy operations, the calculations may be particularly flawed. Of the ten farms that have contracts to produce FGA or are seeking permits, every one had built a digester years ago, and had been generating electricity for use on-site. As these farms switch to producing pipeline gas, no additional methane is getting captured; it’s simply being repurposed.

“That’s a spurious greenhouse gas capture,” said Tyler Lobdell, a lawyer for Food and Water Watch who focuses on factory farming. “They are not causing any emission reduction on the ground.”

Indeed some experts have noted that when farms shift from using biogas on their farms to sending it to pipelines, it’s a net loss for the planet. In public comments opposing a permit for Bluebird Renewable Energy’s proposed dairy pipeline projects in Cayuga County, Josh Berman, a lawyer with the Sierra Club’s environmental law program, argued that the projects “would significantly increase pollution and greenhouse gas emissions associated with the two farms.”

Both farms had digesters to capture methane for electricity, and Berman said the pipeline project would be a less efficient, more polluting use of the farms’ manure biogas. “There are so many additional steps to go through to make it a saleable product to get it into the pipeline,” Berman told New York Focus. The gas must be refined to remove impurities and compressed before it can be injected into a pipeline, both energy-intensive processes. And in most scenarios –including the Cayuga County projects–the gas must be trucked to the pipeline, which creates a risk of leakage and even explosions in case of road accidents.

The transition to pipeline gas also means the digesters no longer provide their relatively low-carbon electric power to the farms themselves. Don Jensen’s contract with Brightmark requires him to sell all the methane his digester produces, so now when he flips on the lights, he is buying electricity from the local utility company, like most other consumers. “We can’t even run a generator. That was a condition.” Jensen said. The money he makes from selling the biomethane more than makes up for his new electric and heating costs, but that new energy consumption may not square with New York’s climate goals.[2]

Plastic Recycling

[3] [4]

Sources

  1. ↑ "Big Energy Companies’ New Pitch: ‘Carbon-Neutral’ Oil and Gas" by Dieter Holger, Wall Street Journal 12-OCT-21 https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-energy-companies-new-pitch-carbon-neutral-oil-and-gas-11634032800
  2. ↑ https://www.nysfocus.com/2022/05/25/big-oil-wants-new-yorks-cow-manure/
  3. ↑ https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data
  4. ↑ https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled
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