[gwbrooks]

I'm no apologist for the oil companies but: Why is this surprising?

Demand for energy is rising; demand for premium-priced energy covering the reduced efficiency and new capital costs of greener technology is not rising as quickly. In the markets where genuinely massive shifts are both politically necessary and possible (Hi, China!), the state will be the driving force.

At the oil companies themselves, management has a singular duty to shareholders -- anything else is just PR blah-blah. We can debate whether that's a feature or bug of capitalism, but pearl-clutching news reports that ignore that basic fact aren't helpful in the public debate.

[rrradical]

Laws/regulations are a function of, in part, public opinion. Public opinion is a function of, in part, greenwashing.

[KennyBlanken]

> demand for premium-priced energy covering the reduced efficiency and new capital costs of greener technology

"Greener technology" does not have "reduced efficiency and new capital costs." Solar and wind cost a fraction of any hydrocarbon-based energy sources and solar in particular has been plunging in cost. Coal plants for example, are being shut down left and right while solar and wind deployment is skyrocketing.

[OrvalWintermute]

> At the oil companies themselves, management has a singular duty to shareholders -- anything else is just PR blah-blah. We can debate whether that's a feature or bug of capitalism, but pearl-clutching news reports that ignore that basic fact aren't helpful in the public debate.

I agree with this, however, we know that energy harvesting potentially has negative side effects, often from byproducts such as methane production. Which can then lead to methane off-gassing.

From an investment perspective this really ticks me off, because I want that methane captured, brought to market, and sold. We should fight the idea that energy companies should be in the business of bad practices. Now, that raises a new set of questions around incidental methane capture, and the technologies needed for capture, to prevent off-gassing.

The key to this is trending - are we heading in the right directions, or not? What major and minor course corrections do we need to correctly steer the behemoth that is the energy industry?

[Apocryphon]

> We can debate whether that's a feature or bug of capitalism

I wonder how different things were before Jack Welch became chair of General Electric and the deregulation of the ‘80s.

[drewcoo]

> I wonder how different things were before . . .

Do you mean after Justice Brandeis? After one of the Presidents Roosevelt? Do you mean the previous gilded age? Do you mean some other time entirely? It's not as though greed over time grew monotonically with a particular inflection point on Neutron Jack.

[Apocryphon]

Sure, but the ‘80s is within living memory and so is more easily comparable.