this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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Aren't some of these big oil companies also heavily investing in the clean energy sector at the same time? I mean ultimately it's the future, so I'd be surprised if they weren't.
A pittance, and almost always on the condition that they get a new monopoly. Hence why nearly all of it goes to green hydrogen and other things a few chemical companies can create a very profitable monopoly on.
Offhand, I believe it was Shell which offered to put some decent headline figure of money in solar, on the small condition that the panels energy can have a 10% markup in an highly competitive industry with profit magins closer to 2% to 3%.
If you are already part of a very profitable cartel that has convinced the world it is not only necessarily but the reason the standard of living has increased in the last century, you can’t make even more money by becoming just one fish in an highly competitive market. Way back in the seventies they did the numbers, and found the delay, deny, defund was a far better option for making money. It would fail eventually sure, but even if ninty percent of thier profit went to lobbying and funding hate groups it would still be more profitable than entering an actually free energy market.
Besides, the deadline for decarbonisation has always been twenty to thirty years away, it’s not “realistic” to try for anything soooner, and the’ll have retired to thier mansions by then.
They do not. The biggest consumer of oil products are in transport and it is car companies who are investing into alternatives there as well as established players in making electric trains. For solar, wind and other forms of clean electricity production it tends to be power plant operators who move to them , rather then oil companies. So that is happening that way. The only one were you see large investment is offshore wind, as oil companies have a good advantage in offshore operations from oil rigs. So a goof bit of knowledge can be transfered. There is investment into hydrogen, but even in that case a lot of it comes from the chemical site of things. However most chemical companies are independent from oil companies.
So big oil just tries to make as much money as they can and pay it out in dividends. The shareholders can invest it into whatever they prefer.