I hope you are all well and enjoying the spring. Asheville is getting a fair amount of those April showers and I’m ready for May’s sunshine.
Last December, I wrote a letter about green hydrogen and prefaced my comments by saying I’m not taking sides in an argument about climate science. Ditto for this letter. My purpose is to highlight corporate innovations that can solve problems. I have always been a believer that the world’s largest energy companies – Exxon, Chevron, et.al. – will play meaningful roles in addressing the various energy concerns we face. These companies have the financial resources and technical expertise to tackle big projects from green hydrogen, to the large-scale production and distribution of biofuels, to projects designed to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. These companies can innovate, while continuing to provide the fossil fuels required for today.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched an interview on Squawk Box, the morning business show, featuring Dan Ammann, ExxonMobil’s low carbon solutions unit president. That interview, linked below, describes one of Exxon’s projects in which the carbon dioxide produced by 1 manufacturing plant will be captured and sequestered in a quantity equivalent to converting 700,000 gasoline powered cars to electric cars. That’s all the EVs purchased last year… and that’s just 1 manufacturing plant. Imagine the cumulative impact of this work going forward. And here’s the other kicker, Exxon will make money doing this work.
Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/wr2yBMMOHGc
And here’s to innovation! Enjoy a beverage and some cheese straws while you ponder the wonders of carbon capture.
Cheers!
