Big Oil weighs the alternatives

A study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute finds that, from 2000 to 2008,  the oil and gas industry accounted for 44 per cent of US public and private sector investment in technology to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

The trouble with that, say some climate change activists, is that most of the spending was related to their core fossil fuels business.

According to the report prepared by consultants from the consulting firm T2 & Associates and the Center for Energy Economics at the University of Texas at Austin, total US spending on measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions amounted to nearly US$133 billion (Dh488bn) over the nine-year period.

Of that, the US-based oil and gas industry invested US$58.4 billion, compared with $55.3bn from all other industries and $19.2bn from the federal government.

But another comparison reveals that only 12 per cent of the oil industry's investment, amounting to $6.7bn,  was in renewable energy. That compares to a 31 per cent renewables share for other industries and 32 per cent for the government.

Oil and gas companies spent another $21.2bn on fuel substitution technologies - mostly on finding new ways to use gas instead of oil. They spent $30.6bn on "end-use technologies", including efficiency improvements, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and advanced technology for vehicles.

Big Oil has long argued that "bridging technologies", aimed at reducing emissions from the continued use of fossil fuels, will be essential to keeping the world adequately supplied with energy in coming decades, even as governments and the international community fight climate change.

Thus, BP Alternative Energy, the green energy arm of the largest British oil company, includes CCS and  natural gas-based hydrogen power in its project portfolio. Other oil and gas companies count research to improve the efficiency of gas-fired power plants or liquefied natural gas (LNG) production in their tally of environmentally friendly investments.

LNG technology is especially controversial because it relies on industrial-scale refrigeration, which is energy intensive. The international oil companies that own the technology say it increases the availability of a cleaner-burning fuel to countries that would otherwise use more coal or oil.

Critics say the oil industry should spend more on developing renewable energy, so that all fossil fuels can be phased out faster.

They also draw attention to Big Oil's heavy spending on green-themed advertising, which they say does little to save the planet from global warming.