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this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Exactly. US oil companies won't voluntarily "go green" unless it is more profitable to do so.
I was a production engineer at a US oil company for 5 years and each week I was instructed to calculate what the maximum amount of natural gas each well was allowed to flare while staying exactly below the legal limit. This is natural gas which cannot be sold so it is burned on-site which produces less greenhouse gases than just releasing it to the atmosphere.
Essentially, I was helping them pollute the maximum legal amount in order to maximize profit from the oil production. The gas pipelines hadn't been built yet but the oil company didn't want to wait for that since the oil is more valuable. This was A LOT of gas being burned. The fire balls were enormous and roared, sounding like a helicopter or jet engine at times.
Everything in the company worked this way. Old wells didn't get plugged and cleaned up until the local state government threatened fines. Leaks and spills were only monitored as closely as they were because the state had inspectors going around issuing hefty fines.
Yeah, this is the truth that people are too emotional to accept. I do air permitting and also spend every day calculating the "maximum allowable pollution" a site can produce while keeping it within applicable regulatory limits. Even if the CEO was like "alright, time to go green!" and devotes 100% of the profits to operating "green", they'll just get sued by the shareholders and be bankrupt or go to jail. Even if there are no shareholders, their operating costs will skyrocket and they'll be put out of business by the company next door, or even just Saud Arabia.
Passing government regulation is the only way. But we are also operating in a global economy, so you might just end up destroying your entire oil business in the process, sending all of that marketshare to places with even -worse- environmental regulation. Which just comes back to us anyways in the grand scheme of things.
Good points, it is certainly a fine line between controlling pollution and hampering a domestic industry which would otherwise be replaced by equally bad overseas industry. As bad as the pollution seemed, the wells were very clean compared to how things used to be done in the US not that long ago, and how I assume things are still done in many parts of the world.
I have a hard time blaming the oil company in isolation, they are just doing what they must do for shareholders, as you said. As long as there is demand for oil, there will be someone there to supply it. I mostly blame the government for not doing more to expedite the development of more economical green solutions.
BUT! Although the company I worked for was not one of the majors who hid climate change, they do have a substantial superPAC to influence politics and elections. The billionaire owner regularly flew to Washington to meet with people, even the president.
And when the state government wanted to increase taxes on oil to help the state pay for public services, the oil company printed lots of protest signs and bussed employees who volunteered to go to the state capital and protest. These types of interference in the government hinder progress and keep the oil companies in control. The gov needs to stop this behavior but I think it's a feedback loop of corruption.