If you’ve been around awhile you may remember BP rebranded itself from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum. That hasn’t worked out too well.
BP faces ‘existential crisis’ after ruinous attempt to go green https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/23/bp-the-oil-industrys-biggest-loser-on-net-zero/
Addressing journalists and executives at the Royal Lancaster Hotel overlooking Hyde Park, Bernard Looney, BP’s new chief executive, urged them to “reimagine” his company as a champion of green power. By 2030, BP would have cut oil and gas production by 40%, he pledged, with the lost fossil fuel income replaced by wind farms, solar parks and biofuels made from plants…
Five years on from that speech in February 2020, the company is beleaguered by a ruthless activist investor, under pressure to boost its flatlining share price and considering a return to the oil and gas exploration that made it so successful to begin with.
The net zero plans unveiled by Looney have hammered profits and generated intense speculation about a takeover, break up or even a merger with arch-rival Shell. This month the fears became real with revelations that Elliott, a Florida-based hedge fund and corporate raider, has built a £3.8bn stake in BP – and is laying siege to the company…
To win round doubters, he is expected to announce a major break with the last five years – shifting away from net zero and back towards its oil and gas heritage.
“BP’s shareholders had realised that the green spending they supported in 2020 had halved their dividends. Total shareholder returns had underperformed Shell by 15%, France’s TotalEnergies by 30%, Chevron by 60% and ExxonMobil by 100%.”
I remember BP rebranding itself from British Petroleum to BP and going green wayback when. In the late 1990 the two major suppliers of marine solar panels were Siemens and BP. EXXON also had its eyes on green, they dabbled in algae to biofuels which is why I invested in and lost money in the experiment.
Never invest before the technology Crosses the Chasm!
Once green energy was a progressive issue. But now voters in the west seem less enthusiastic about it. Cost seems to be the issue. Maybe green is a luxury.
New technologies can be expensive but the cost drops by Wright’s Law. Check out the falling price of lithium and LI batteries.
The problem is political activism based on ideology, the end of the world by 2030 boiled like frogs by Global Warming. Net ZERO by 2030 or else! Just like Knute could not command the tide, politicians cannot command the economy.
Cost is the consequence of bad policy, exaggerated expectations.
The Captain
had solar panels and a wind turbine on his sailboat as well as a wind operated auto pilot, much more reliable than the electric one. The sound of the sea is nature’s music.
Green energy, mostly, is based on technologies that have little or no fuel costs. So most of the money has to be made on the initial purchase price. While technologies like NG, coal and oil, ~all the money is in the recurring revenue from obtaining and distributing more fuel – after you’ve been locked into a power plant, gas car, etc. that requires that fuel.
Of course true cost of green energy depends on the installation cost plus allowances for service life and maintenance requirements. At this point installation cost is the only firm number. The others are estimates.
Yes, installation costs should come down with experience and volume production.
True numbers will take a while. No one expects it to be free. And competition with fully depreciated fossil fuels plants make green look costly.
That really wasn’t my point. A good long term business is one that has lots of recurring revenue. Most green energy business have very little (if any) recurring revenue.
Think software. It was mostly one-time purchases, but now much of it is subscription…like razor blades; like ink-jet printers.
BP, starting waaay back when, has been posturing for profits rather acting that way.
What was needed, the only thing that would have worked, was for the Body Politic to have learned, debated, and then chosen the path with least long term risks and highest payoffs over time. I am convinced by mountains of evidence that that path was to cut greenhouse gases as rapidly as socially possible. Instead we have had endless posturing and shrieking, all counterproductive.
I think we still expect the oil industry to take over the hydrogen business when it is large enough. Otherwise they become mostly a maker of nasty forever plastics. Green synthetic fuels?
I think this is a different comparison than the one that matters. The comparison that matters is when you decide to BUILD a new power plant TODAY, which one do you build? Do you build a natural gas one, or a solar one, or a wind one, or a hydro one, a nuclear one, etc? For this case, you are comparing the prices NOW (well, really the net present value of all the costs over time) for each of the alternatives available TODAY for new construction.
I think it is a luxury, right up until the time when your farmland no longer supports your crops, when your air conditioning bill for a summer which lasts from March through November drains your bank account, and when the rivers run dry.
Then it’s not so luxurious anymore. Unfortunately then it will be too late, because like a universe sized ocean liner it will take decades, perhaps eons for the planet to reverse course.
But, you know, why plan for anything? Jesus will save us, probably. He always has, right?
As noted the “decider” persons are “JCs” in their 60s and 70s. They don’t care what happens in 20-30 years, because they will probably be gone, and the consequences will be someone else’s problem…in short, we are all Jeff Immelt.
Most people aren’t “JCs” pocketing $30m/year. Do you think Jack Welch cared what happened to GE? Do you think Jim McNerney cared what happened to Boeing? Put one of those “geniuses” in charge of the country, why would anyone think the mind set would be different?
This isn’t what you replied to! You replied to the claim that the earth will not be hospitable for humans due to not being green. And you said “they don’t care because they will be gone in 20 or 30 years”. Are you really claiming that the honchos are destroying the earth and don’t care about their own kids and grandkids?
And as far as corporate entities go, why should anyone care about what happens to them in 20 or 30 years? Does it make much of a difference if my plane runs on a GE engine, a Rolls Royce engine, or a CyberJet 2050 engine in 30 years from now?