Sunday, Jul. 03, 2005
Exxon: A Dark Shade Of Green
By Cathy Booth Thomas/Dallas
ExxonMobil, the Texas-based oil giant, has pledged $100 million over 10 years to research "innovative and cost-effective" ways of meeting the world's energy needs. One of its partners in the project? General Electric.
So why is GE generating such positive buzz with its green initiative while Exxon generally looks like sludge? Look to the top. Lee Raymond, Exxon's chairman and CEO, is a verbal gusher of anti-global-warming rhetoric who opposes mandatory caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. Environmentalists accuse Exxon of being the "No. 1 climate criminal," responsible for the Bush Administration's refusal to sign on to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for reducing pollution that causes global warming. "We do think there is a risk of climate change, but there are much better approaches to making progress than mandatory caps," says Sherri Stuewer, Exxon's vice president of safety, health and environment.
Exxon shareholders are mostly on Raymond's side. The boss, after all, has delivered on profits 10 years running --to the tune of $25 billion in 2004 alone."We don't think the technology for renewables--whether solar or biomass--can support a profitable business," says Stuewer. Electricity generated by solar, she notes, is five times as expensive (for now) as that produced by gas or coal. Exxon is investing in Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project, she says, to develop breakthroughs in solar, biofuel, hydrogen and even coal technologies that could be offered cheaply and profitably to developing countries, whose growing economies will require increasing fuel in the future.
Is GE wrong, then, about its bet on going green? Exxon is a fuel company, while GE makes "devices," says Stuewer. And therein lies the crux of their differences. Exxon did toy with alternative-energy technologies--most notably with solar in the 1970s--but failed miserably. "Who was brought in to clean it up? Lee Raymond. He sold it all off," says Ed Ahnert, who retired last December as president of the ExxonMobil Foundation. "He learned you stick to what you know best."
Despite the environmental badmouthing, Exxon is pushing in-house energy efficiency and co-generation, which last year resulted in 10 million fewer tons of carbon dioxide released into the air--equal to taking a million cars off the road. But in the end Raymond is an oilman; he believes fossil fuels are the only way to fill the 50% increase in global energy demand projected by 2030. Raymond has called the Kyoto Protocol "flawed" and predicts that Europe won't be able to meet its emission-cutting goals. Exxon's line is that there is "no scientific certainty" behind studies blaming fossil fuels for global warming.
Last month, as if to emphasize the point, Exxon hired Philip Cooney, the ex--White House staff member accused of revising government science reports to downplay the link between emissions and global warming. He will work in public affairs on the "issues group." You can guess which one. --By Cathy Booth Thomas/Dallas