[Graeme]

Greenpeace study finds oil companies may be doomed

A long-term decline in the demand for oil could undermine the huge investments in Canadian tar sands, which have been heavily opposed by environmentalists, according to a report published today.

The report, by Greenpeace, will make uncomfortable reading for the companies that are investing tens of billions of pounds to exploit the hard-to-extract oil in the belief that demand and the price would climb inexorably as countries such as China and India industrialise.

Citing projections from the oil producers' cartel Opec and the International Energy Agency, as well as various oil experts, the report casts doubt on the conventional assumption that consumption and prices will begin gathering pace once the world pulls itself out of recession.

It argues that alongside the cyclical fall in the oil price there are more fundamental structural changes taking place. These are driven by advances in energy efficiency and alternative energy, cleaner vehicles, government policies on climate change and concerns over energy security. Greenpeace has posted the report to 200 shareholders in Shell and BP, including pension funds, in an effort to put pressure on the companies to think again.

guardian

[Maddog78]

Woohoo, no more peak oil we don't even need it any more!

Greenpeace, ha!

I remember when I saw their head office in Amsterdam.
It looked like any other corporate head office.
Coincidentally just after I was there a story came out in the Canadian press that 75 percent of all donations in Canada leave the country and go straight to the head office.
Another interesting thing, Greenpeace donations are not tax deductible in Canada.
The Gov't considers them as just another business, not a charitable organization.

[ian807]

A greenpeace study? Seriously? You might as well be citing a Rasmussen report for all the accuracy you're going to get there.

[TheDude]

"Doomed," eh? Greenpeace Says Oil Companies Are Screwed (RDSA, BP)

What about emerging markets, though? Certainly, they'll pick up the slack ? Not necessarily, says Greenpeace. China's aggressive and comprehensive energy policy is focused on one thing--security. Volatile, high, oil prices are a risk to the nation. Therefore, it is doing what it can to reduce its reliance on oil.

China is working hard to develop an electric car market. The Greenpeace report quotes executives from both Ford and GM who say they think Asia will be a leader in alternative auto technologies.

Add all this together, Greenpeace says, and it means that window for oil sands projects to squeeze in profitably is tiny. Since Shell plans on getting most of its oil from oil sands in the next ten years, the company is at risk.

Some charts excerpted from the report in this piece, and here's the PDF of the thing itself.

[Starvid]

Greenpeace are a bunch of lying conniving clowns, no matter what issue they talk about.

[copious.abundance]

The founders of greenpeace placed themselves in harm's way, between rare endangered whales and harpooners to save magnificent species.

That doesn't mean they're not a bunch of lying conniving clowns.

Abortion protestors, religious fanatics and all kinds of other crazies put themselves in harm's way all the time. Does that mean they're on the right side of an issue?

[Starvid]

My problem with Greenpeace is that they spread lies, ie fearmongering and incorrect information instead of facts. One example is how they just a few years ago tried to lead the public to believe that reactors could explode in the manner of atomic bombs.

I have nothing against the lobbying of special interests like Greenpeace, as long as they stick to the truth. But they don't.

[Maddog78]

So you think they made a mistake driving the Rainbow Warrior between the harpoons and the whales?

How much of that have they done lately?
Ever see Whale Wars with Paul Watson on Animal Planet?
He was an original founder of Greenpeace. Doesn't have much good to say about them now.

[Graeme]

Shifting Sands: Greenpeace report reckons we’ve hit peak oil (sort of)

It's gradually dawning on policymakers that cutting oil use might just make sense. By bringing in mandatory vehicle efficiency standards similar to those found in Europe, for example, the US could cut its daily use of oil by 10 million barrels. Very bluntly, politicians and the US public are starting to ask whether they'd rather have slightly smaller cars, or dead American soldiers being flown back in from some future Iraq. And this is a new, and welcome way of seeing the politics on energy - because it has the potential to destroy the whole ‘oil gets more expensive therefore we exploit tar sands' dynamic.

How? Well, we may have hit peak oil. Peak oil demand, that is. The chief executive of BP, Tony Hayward, said recently that "BP is unlikely to sell more gasoline ever in the United States ...than it sold in the first half of 2008." This isn't because the stuff is stopping coming out of the ground, but rather because the oil companies are anticipating a major efficiency drive from the US government, and a subsequent drop in demand for oil.

This in turn means that certainty about a relatively predictable, rising oil price - the kind of certainty that makes it worth spending billions on building tar sands infrastructure - can't really be taken for granted any more. And it's not just the US - China is busy implementing aggressive efficiency standards, and why wouldn't the rest of the world follow suit, as resources become harder to secure, stricter environmental legislations are imposed, and climate change restrictions lurk in the future?

greenpeace

[Starvid]

My problem with Greenpeace is that they spread lies, ie fearmongering and incorrect information instead of facts. One example is how they just a few years ago tried to lead the public to believe that reactors could explode in the manner of atomic bombs.

I have nothing against the lobbying of special interests like Greenpeace, as long as they stick to the truth. But they don't.

So you think they made a mistake driving the Rainbow Warrior between the harpoons and the whales? Or risking their lives stopping a French hydrogen bomb test in on a tropical isle?

I have said no such thing.

I said one shouldn't trust their studies.

I said nothing about whales or hydrogen bombs.

So you think they made a mistake driving the Rainbow Warrior between the harpoons and the whales?

How much of that have they done lately?
Ever see Whale Wars with Paul Watson on Animal Planet?
He was an original founder of Greenpeace. Doesn't have much good to say about them now.

Same thing with Patrick Moore, another of the original founders of Greenpeace.

[outcast]

Greenpeace study finds oil companies may be doomed

Greenpeace says lots of things, doesn't necessarily mean it's true.


EDIT: And does anyone remember 10 years ago when Greenpeace was up in arms about the Galileo and Cassini space probes have RTG's? Yet another example of their fear mongering.

[doodlebug2]

All groups and politics go by fear mongering, all. Dems, repubs, antiabortion, enviromentalists.
You get fear mongering everywhere, look at the health care debate, fear mongering on both side.

[threadbear]

Greenpeace are a bunch of lying conniving clowns, no matter what issue they talk about.

Little touchy on the whale issue, huh? This wouldn't be a region specific bias, would it?

I've been hearing the same on BNN, Business News Network, a Canadian biz channel, I follow semi-religiously. Mutual funds are dumping energy shares, at least in the short term and some analysts are echoing the Greenpeace report, for the long term.
Most Canadians don't realize how well and truly screwed we are. Our currency is strengthening against the American dollar, while demand for oil drops for the long term. The worst possible scenario.

Albertans are about to eat some humble pie, while the last of the petro dinosaurs mill about Ft. McMurray, as it becomes the world's most expensive ghost town. It's just not meant to be. The planet is too precious to tolerate the continuing use and abuse.

[threadbear]

Same thing with Patrick Moore, another of the original founders of Greenpeace.

Patrick Moore, works for the nuclear industry now. Like Lovelock, he probably genuinely believes that nukes are the lesser of two evils...and they may turn out to be. Who knows? But this attitude splits environmentalists into two camps and Green peace is opposed to military nukes and energy nukes, I guess.

[Starvid]

Albertans are about to eat some humble pie, while the last of the petro dinosaurs mill about Ft. McMurray, as it becomes the world's most expensive ghost town.

I take it you've stopped believing in the peak oil theory then?

[Maddog78]

while demand for oil drops for the long term.

Albertans are about to eat some humble pie, while the last of the petro dinosaurs mill about Ft. McMurray, as it becomes the world's most expensive ghost town. It's just not meant to be.

I very much doubt this.