Big oil companies, however, say they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research and develop alternative and renewable power sources ? not only as part of the green movement, but with serious hopes of cashing in when the technologies are broadly commercialized...
In 2007, BP spent $750 million, or 10 percent of its U.S. capital budget, on developing alternative and renewable technologies, which include solar and wind energy and biofuels. The company has said it will spend $8 billion from 2005 through 2014.
"By the end of this year, we expect to have 1,000 megawatts of U.S. wind power capacity on line, increasing to 2,400 megawatts by the end of 2010," BP American chairman Bob Malone told the House Select committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming last month, according to a transcript.
BP is a partner on a $480 million, 300-megawatt wind farm in Weld County that began operating in November.
Chevron is also accelerating its investments in the renewable field. The company has earmarked $2.5 billion for renewable- and alternative-energy development through 2009 after spending $2 billion from 2002 to 2007.
Chevron Energy Solutions, which launched in 2000, generates about $300 million a year and is growing 20 percent annually, according to Jim Davis, the division's president...
ConocoPhillips plans to spend $150 million in 2008 on the development of unconventional oil and gas resources and the development of new energy sources. The company recently purchased a 432-acre campus in Louisville that will serve as a hub for its alternative-energy research.
The company is more focused on developing liquid fuels from renewable sources, rather than wind and solar generation that other major oil companies such as Shell and BP are embracing. Shell co-owns a wind farm in Lamar and is involved in 11 wind projects in the U.S. and Europe...
In 2002, Exxon committed $100 million over 10 years to Stanford University to fund the research and development of cleaner power sources.
Why should I call my Congressman? I do support drilling in ANWR and always have, though I do have concerns with offshore drilling with fisheries being in the shape that they're currently in. What's ANWR drilling going to do though, drop the price of gas a nickel in 6 years when it comes online? I don't know if anyone saw it, but I was leafing through the Time 100 the other day in the doctor's office, and there was a blurb written by the chief economist for Tesoro, saying essentially that the high prices aren't based on low crude supply, but on rabid speculators and low refining capacity. That sounds about right since someone can throw a rock at an oil tanker and see gas rise a dime a gallon. I'm also in line with clean coal and nuclear power, but evidently your side hasn't done a good job of convincing the American people that this is the direction that we need to head.
And I don't buy for a second the notion that Democrats are any more guilty of corruption that Republicans. That's a disease that seems to afflict the powerful, no matter what the party.
