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Posts Tagged ‘Oil and gas companies’
British Gas to create 2,600 green jobs
July 1st, 2009 |
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Recruits will be needed to help introduce ‘smart meters’ to help people see exactly how much energy they are using in their homes
British Gas today promised to create 2,600 green jobs over the next three years by rolling out “smart meters” and installing wind turbines on peoples’ homes.
The move should help ministers meet targets of cutting carbon emissions through lower use of power, especially that generated by gas or other fossil fuels.
About 1,700 of the recruits will be new to the industry, while 900 are expected to be brought in from rival metering organisations in time for a government-backed roll-out programme due to start in 2012. Earlier this year the company unveiled plans to take on an additional 1,500 staff to work in the clean technology sector.
“Today’s announcement of 2,600 new jobs by 2012 shows we are creating skilled green jobs in Britain and training the experts who will help customers become more energy efficient in the future,” said Phil Bentley, managing director of British Gas.
The new workers, to be trained at the company’s growing network of energy academies, will install smart meters and help homeowners understand how the devices could reduce energy use, save money and end the practice of estimated monthly bills. Anecdotal evidence suggests savings of up to 25% can be made.
In May energy secretary Ed Miliband launched a consultation process on smart meters that is planned to run to September. The government would like energy suppliers to be responsible for meters with a new third-party body handling the data, but the companies want to do it all themselves.
Britain plans to replace all existing electricity and gas meters – often clunky objects hidden away in cupboards – with easily viewed devices that show consumers exactly how much energy they are using, and even see the energy demands of individual appliances.
It is hoped that people will change their behaviour to save money. The meters will also help homeowners sell electricity from green technologies such as solar panels or rooftop wind turbines back to the grid, while improving energy demand forecasts and network management.
Smart meters are seen as a first step toward creating “smart grids” where consumers can adjust electricity use to benefit from cheaper energy at times of low demand, including charging electric cars, and reduce consumption at peak times.
The British government estimates that smart meters could deliver net benefits of between £2.5m and £3.6m over the next 20 years.
In April, the government set a 2020 target to cut Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions by 34% compared with 1990 levels but the necessary renewable energy growth and efficiency improvements have so far been small.
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ExxonMobil funds climate sceptics
July 1st, 2009 |
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Records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published ‘misleading and inaccurate information’ about climate change
The world’s largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming, despite a public pledge to cut support for such climate change denial, a new analysis shows.
Company records show that ExxonMobil handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds to such lobby groups in 2008. These include the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas, Texas, which received $75,000 (£45,500), and the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, which received $50,000.
According to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics, both the NCPA and the Heritage Foundation have published “misleading and inaccurate information about climate change.”
On its website, the NCPA says: “NCPA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth’s current warming trend is [sic] still unknown, the cost of actions to substantially reduce CO2 emissions would be quite high and result in economic decline, accelerated environmental destruction, and do little or nothing to prevent global warming regardless of its cause.”
The Heritage Foundation published a “web memo” in December that said: “Growing scientific evidence casts doubt on whether global warming constitutes a threat, including the fact that 2008 is about to go into the books as a cooler year than 2007″. Scientists, including those at the UK Met Office say that the apparent cooling is down to natural changes and does not alter the long-term warming trend.
In its 2008 corporate citizenship report, published last year, ExxonMobil said it would cut funds to several groups that “divert attention” from the need to find new sources of clean energy.
The NCPA and Heritage Foundation are included among groups funded by ExxonMobil, according to details of its “2008 Worldwide Contributions and Community Investments” published recently.
Ward said: “ExxonMobil has been briefing journalists for three years that they were going to stop funding these groups. The reality is that they are still doing it. If the world’s largest oil company wants to fund climate change denial then it should be upfront about it, and not tell people it has stopped.”
In 2006, Ward, then at the Royal Society, wrote to ExxonMobil to challenge the company’s funding of such lobby groups. The move, revealed in the Guardian, prompted accusations of censorship and debate about whether experts should “police” the distribution of scientific information.
In an article on the Guardian website, Ward writes: “I have now written again to ExxonMobil to point out that these organisations publish misleading information about climate change on their websites, and to seek guidance on how to reconcile this fact with the pledge made by the company. I believe that the company should keep its promise by ending its financial support for lobby groups that mislead the public about climate change.”
ExxonMobil said it annually reviews and adjusts its contributions to policy research groups. A spokesman said: “Only ExxonMobil speaks for ExxonMobil and our position on climate change is clear. We have the same concerns as people everywhere, and that is how to provide the world with the energy it needs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We take the issue of climate change seriously and the risks warrant action.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
ExxonMobil funds climate sceptics
July 1st, 2009 |
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Records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published ‘misleading and inaccurate information’ about climate change
The world’s largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming, despite a public pledge to cut support for such climate change denial, a new analysis shows.
Company records show that ExxonMobil handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds to such lobby groups in 2008. These include the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas, Texas, which received $75,000 (£45,500), and the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, which received $50,000.
According to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics, both the NCPA and the Heritage Foundation have published “misleading and inaccurate information about climate change.”
On its website, the NCPA says: “NCPA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth’s current warming trend is [sic] still unknown, the cost of actions to substantially reduce CO2 emissions would be quite high and result in economic decline, accelerated environmental destruction, and do little or nothing to prevent global warming regardless of its cause.”
The Heritage Foundation published a “web memo” in December that said: “Growing scientific evidence casts doubt on whether global warming constitutes a threat, including the fact that 2008 is about to go into the books as a cooler year than 2007″. Scientists, including those at the UK Met Office say that the apparent cooling is down to natural changes and does not alter the long-term warming trend.
In its 2008 corporate citizenship report, published last year, ExxonMobil said it would cut funds to several groups that “divert attention” from the need to find new sources of clean energy.
The NCPA and Heritage Foundation are included among groups funded by ExxonMobil, according to details of its “2008 Worldwide Contributions and Community Investments” published recently.
Ward said: “ExxonMobil has been briefing journalists for three years that they were going to stop funding these groups. The reality is that they are still doing it. If the world’s largest oil company wants to fund climate change denial then it should be upfront about it, and not tell people it has stopped.”
In 2006, Ward, then at the Royal Society, wrote to ExxonMobil to challenge the company’s funding of such lobby groups. The move, revealed in the Guardian, prompted accusations of censorship and debate about whether experts should “police” the distribution of scientific information.
In an article on the Guardian website, Ward writes: “I have now written again to ExxonMobil to point out that these organisations publish misleading information about climate change on their websites, and to seek guidance on how to reconcile this fact with the pledge made by the company. I believe that the company should keep its promise by ending its financial support for lobby groups that mislead the public about climate change.”
ExxonMobil said it annually reviews and adjusts its contributions to policy research groups. A spokesman said: “Only ExxonMobil speaks for ExxonMobil and our position on climate change is clear. We have the same concerns as people everywhere, and that is how to provide the world with the energy it needs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We take the issue of climate change seriously and the risks warrant action.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
BP shuts alternative energy HQ
June 28th, 2009 |
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• ‘Beyond Petroleum’ boast in doubt as clean energy boss quits
• Renewables budget will be reduced by up to £550m this year
BP has shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed budget cuts in moves likely to be seen by environmental critics as further signs of the oil group moving “back to petroleum”.
But Tony Hayward, the group’s chief executive, said BP remained as committed as ever to exploring new energy sources and the non-oil division would benefit from the extra focus of being brought back in house.
BP Alternative Energy was given its own headquarters in County Hall opposite the Houses of Parliament two years ago and its managing director, Vivienne Cox, oversaw a small division of 80 staff concentrating on wind and solar power.
But the 49-year-old Cox – BP’s most senior female executive, who previously ran renewables as part of a larger gas and power division now dismantled by Hayward – is standing down tomorrow.
This comes alongside huge cuts in the alternative energy budget – from $1.4bn (£850m) last year to between $500m and $1bn this year, although spending is still roughly in line with original plans to invest $8bn by 2015.
The move back to BP’s corporate headquarters at St James’s Square in London’s West End made sense, particularly when the group was sitting on spare office space due to earlier cutbacks, said Hayward.
“We are going through a major restructuring and bringing the alternative energy business headquarters into the head office seems a good idea to me.
“It saves money and brings it closer to home … you could almost see it as a reinforcement [of our commitment to the business],” he said.
Cox was stepping down to spend more time with her children, Hayward added. “I know you would love to make a story out of all this,” he said, “but it’s quite hard work.”
The reason for the departure of Cox is variously said by industry insiders to be caused by frustration over the business being downgraded in importance or because she really does intend to stay at home more with her young children. Cox had already reduced her working week down to three days and had publicly admitted the difficulty of combining different roles.
She will be replaced by another woman, her former deputy Katrina Landis, but the moves will worry those campaigning for more women in business, especially as Linda Cook, Shell’s most senior female executive, has recently left her job too.
BP has gradually given up on plans to enter the UK wind industry and concentrated all its turbine activities on the US, where it can win tax breaks and get cheaper and easier access to land.
In April the company closed a range of solar power manufacturing plants in Spain and the US with the loss of 620 jobs and Hayward has publicly questioned whether solar would ever become competitive with fossil fuels, something that goes against the current thinking inside the renewables sector.
Hayward has also moved BP into more controversial oil areas, such as Canada’s tar sands, creating an impression that he has given up on the objectives of his predecessor, Lord Browne, to take the company “Beyond Petroleum”.
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