Oh, Yay, We're Saved - Exxon Will Spend $60 Million (1 Day's Profits) On Fuel Cell Deal
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Yesterday, E&’s Carlos Anchondo reported that Exxon “reached a $60 million agreement with FuelCell Energy Inc. to further develop carbon capture technology that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its industrial operations.” The aim is to use this technology at refineries and chemical plants to capture emissions, because “Exxon Mobil is committed to doing our part,” according to a spokesperson.
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As Kathy Mulvey of the Union of Concerned Scientists told Anchondo, this is a “drop in the bucket” of what Exxon spends on pumping more climate-killing oil out of the ground. The deal “certainly doesn’t absolve Exxon Mobil of responsibility for the negative climate impacts of its products.” She’s right. While $60 million might sound like a lot, ExxonMobil earned $20.8 billion in 2018, or just shy of $57 million a day.
How committed, then, is Exxon to this questionable new climate solution? So much so that it’s willing to spend 1/365ths of its annual profits on it. And what are they spending on expanding their oil and gas drilling? Something like $6 billion a year, two orders of magnitude more, and as much as $50 billion over five years, it announced at the start of 2018.
According to an InfluenceMap report that the Intercept reported on, Exxon Mobil spent “at least $56 million on climate messaging” in the three years after the Paris climate agreement.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/8/1898053/-As-NY-Case-Ends-and-Others-Begin-ExxonMobil-Invests-a-Day-s-Worth-of-Profits-In-Carbon-Capture
