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Need I repeat myself? Greentech will succeed when and where it’s profitable.
Another venture founded in science and technology that papier-mache pundits lampooned as unrealistic and too far ahead of its time. |
Despite the widely publicized “moonshine” remark a few years ago by Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, the company has spent several years exploring various fuel alternatives, according to one of its top research officials.
“We literally looked at every option we could think of, with several key parameters in mind,” said Emil Jacobs, vice president for research and development at Exxon’s research and engineering unit. “Scale was the first. For transportation fuels, if you can’t see whether you can scale a technology up, then you have to question whether you need to be involved at all.”
He added, “I am not going to sugarcoat this — this is not going to be easy.” Any large-scale commercial plants to produce algae-based fuels are at least 5 to 10 years away, Dr. Jacobs said.
Oilgae-powered Mercedes at the Sundance Festival
But if it proves a bona fide effort, Exxon’s move into biofuels, long the preserve of venture capital firms and biotech start-ups, could provide a big push to the Obama administration’s policy of encouraging more renewable energy…
Exxon’s partnership with Synthetic Genomics is also a vote of confidence in the work of Dr. Venter, a maverick scientist best known for decoding the human genome in the 1990s. In recent years, he has focused his attention on a search for micro-organisms that could be turned into fuel…
Algal biofuel, sometimes nicknamed oilgae by environmentalists, is a promising technology. Fuels derived from algae have molecular structures that are similar to petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, and would be compatible with the existing transportation infrastructure, according to Exxon.
It hasn’t been too many months since Venter just smiled and said something like, “you’ll be hearing about genomic designs in biofuel – soon”.
Look what I said originally..
Even the Gas/Fuel CORPS will tell you..
the reason they use Crude, is ITS CHEAP..
After the $0.70 tax, and the $0.35 COST of the fuel.. the REST is profit.
These folks have been on the boat for years. and expecting them to change to something that will have a LOWER profit margin, is like trying to STOP an 18wheeler on a DIME..
There are lots of alternatives.
there is 1 that has a great chance.
HEMP.
#26
Oh, I think Exxon will invest in alternative energy eventually, but not until the profit margin for oil is affected by availability. right now, given the current usage and known oil reserves, we have enough to last about 100 more years. I would venture that 10 years is plenty of time for Exxon to develop to commercial viability any alternative technology that is a drop-in replacement for crude, which is the big buzz for algae- and bacterial-based alt fuels. So that basically means that they won’t actively pursue it for at least another 80 years.
you forget that Exxon simultaneously declared that they were finding it increasingly costly to find and drill for oil reserves, while posting their HIGHEST profits EVER. $40B in 2007, I think. That’s PROFIT, not revenue. income – all business costs = profit (==measure of how much they’re screwing their customers).
part of the current problem is that true costs are not internalized into the fuel price.
think of the cost air pollution. The oil companies currently get a free ride on that one.
and for those of you that dont understand a STRANGE FACT..
OTHER nations charge FUEL tax as a percentage.
Canada is 50% TAX..so that $6 per gallon is $3 tax, $0.35 for COSTS and $2.65 is profit.
THE USA has State and Fed tax, at a fixed rate.
the highest is $0.70.
So, $3.00 gas is
$0.70 tax, $0.35 cost, $1.95 profit.
ALSO, that in the WORLD, there are only 3-4 CORPS that control all the Crude oil to other nations. Sames ones in Europe, Americas(USA, Canada, mexico, S. America) and most the rest of the world.
Someday carbon doom will be laughed at louder than falling off the edge of the earth when sailing along too far.
This is actually quite a great move by Exxon since biofuel and other alternative fuels are the “in” thing right now.