ExxonMobil's Energy Outlook thru 2030

Excerpt:
For ExxonMobil, the world is rapidly changing, but somehow their business will stay exactly the same. What follows are facts gleaned from ExxonMobil’s The Outlook for Energy, A view to 2030 (PDF)

• "Most of the world's growing energy needs by 2030 will continue to be met by oil, gas and coal." Today, 80% of the energy we use comes from fossil fuel. Exxon doesn't expect that number to change.
• The world will require "about 60%" more energy in 2030 than it does today. That's a total consumption of 325 million barrels per day.
• Non-OECD nations will account for 80% of that increase.
• In 2000, non-OECD countries drove roughly 100 million cars. By 2030 they’ll drive 500 million.
• If the world were not moving towards more efficient use of energy, our energy use in 2030 would be 100% higher than it is today. Good thing we're so efficient.
• By 2030, wind and solar will only account for 1% of all energy produced.
• By 2030, 30% of all new vehicles sold will be hybrids or other high-efficiency vehicles.
• Biofuels will make up only 2% of all liquid fuels by 2030, Bio-Willie notwithstanding.
• The USGS estimates there are around 3.2 trillion barrels of oil that can be extracted from the world. ExxonMobil sees around 4 trillion as economically recoverable.
• Corn-based ethanol is a non-starter. By 2012, the U.S. will burn up 21% of the U.S. corn crop to create 3% of our fuel. Exxon chortles: "...this provides some perspective on its ultimate potential as an alternative fuel supply."
• Cellulose is also too complicated to turn into fuel. The process involves enzymes and other things oil men find unfamiliar and strange. President Bush was foolish to tout the energy potential of switchgrass.
• Natural gas will become more popular than any other fuel, and most of it will be used in power generation.
• CO2 production will increase at exactly the same rate as energy consumption.
• There are four opportunities to reduce carbon emissions: nuclear power, advanced vehicles and fuels, carbon capture, and "breakthroughs."
• ExxonMobil helped establish (via a $100 million grant) Stanford Univeristy’s Global Climate and Energy Project. ExxonMobil hopes Stanford will provide some breakthroughs.

An interesting read:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/2672

Now that is funny. Thank goodness the world will be safe from EM.

Unbelievable

Looks like ......"EM pays my salary, what would they like to hear."

ExxonMobile is in the business of keeping the world running on their products. I wouldn't expect them to put out any figures that show a world that is moving towards biofuel solutions.

I can't believe that ExxonMobil put out such an ignorant statement. Too bad most americans are just as stupid and will continue to put up with this BS.

"You can't put up those wind towers in my back yard.. CUZ I"D RATHER HAVE AN OIL WELL INSTEAD.... "

Yes that was aimed at all those ignorant MAss Holes who oppose the windfarm idea.. and everywhere else in the world.

The one item that looks good in this report:

Page 6
"It is an economic fact: people tend to buy cars as their incomes go up.

Countries whose economies are expanding rapidly usually see signifigant increased in vehicle purchases, until eventually they reach a vehicles-per-capita saturation point, where purchases level off.

. . . the U.S. is nearing saturation."

So at least the number of cars-per-capita is leveling off in the USA. That won't help fuel prices, because 3 billion people in China and India want cars of their own.

Without reading the original Exxon-Mobil document, but only your summary of it, it seems that their Outlook is an excellent best-guess prediction. I would quibble with 1) their estimate of natural gas usage 2) the 500-million-car estimate in the non-OECD countries (probably less than 200 million).

And that's about it -- the rest seems quite reasonable. Wrong, most likely, but reasonable.

t-y-p-i-c-a-l

Exon Mobil Gets Exposed

53x19 said:

Excerpt:
[*]There are four opportunities to reduce carbon emissions: nuclear power, advanced vehicles and fuels, carbon capture, and "breakthroughs."
[*]ExxonMobil helped establish (via a $100 million grant) Stanford Univeristy’s Global Climate and Energy Project. ExxonMobil hopes Stanford will provide some breakthroughs.[/LIST]

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ExonMobil has lots of spare change to spread around these days. Their version of "breakthroughs" would have us all buying more of their products, regardless.

$100M grant to Stanford fits perfectly with their pattern of funding the 'The Cold Earth Society': http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16475341/site/newsweek/ and http://www.exxposeexxon.com/.

Do they say what a barrel of oil will cost by then? Or how we'll pay for one?

By 2030 , Exxon will be a small player in the oil market.

Dimitri16V said:

By 2030 , Exxon will be a small player in the oil market.

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That may be. But oil will always need refining. Also, there are many other energy-related fields for Exxon to enter, beyond those it is already involved in.

While the OECD countries (read: US, Canada, Japan, and Western Europe) are preparing to spend trillions to reduce CO2 emissions, the rest of the world will quadruple its fleet of vehicles and nearly double its use of coal. That's why I doubt that these trillions we are about to pay in taxes and regulatory costs will have any useful impact.

Based on the chart of global CO2 emissions, it looks like the non-OECD countries will be producing more billions of tons of CO2 annually in 2030 than all countries (OECD and non-OECD) produced in 2000.

So even if all Western countries plus Japan reduced energy consumption and CO2 output to zero, the rest of the world will more than make up for the loss.

IMO there is no reason not to adopt cheap and easy technologies to reduce emissions of CO2. Cheap and easy technologies can work in the Third World too, where they might make a difference. Expensive technologies which seek to reduce emissions to zero won't work in the Third World and will only harm the economies and lower standards of living in the developed industrial world.

This seems like too high a price to pay. Even if you believe humans are changing the global climate, and that the net effect will be negative -- if half the world is more interested in economic growth than reducing emissions, then what is the point?

The point is political power. The people who want less autonomy for individuals and more power for politicians and government bureaucrats, who used to call themselves Marxists or socialists, now call themselves environmentalists. It's just new names for the same old redistribution of wealth. Why do billionaires contribute to environmental causes and activist political organizations? So they get to keep their billions in the new world order, along with their private jets and yachts, while the masses get squeezed into mass transit?

The secular religion of communism is dead. The new secular religion is environmentalism. Free-market capitalism is still the enemy... but there's no need to nationalize industries when it's much easier to make new clean air laws.

/end of pseudo-rant

You can say what you want about XOM, but their energy outlooks are highly respected. If you go back 25 years and look at their projections, they're very good.

OkiTDI

TornadoRed said:

IMO there is no reason not to adopt cheap and easy technologies to reduce emissions of CO2.
...If half the world is more interested in economic growth than reducing emissions, then what is the point?

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I agree with you, the point is political power. XOM has lots. More than the Sierra Club, fortunately.

TornadoRed said:

The secular religion of communism is dead. The new secular religion is environmentalism. Free-market capitalism is still the enemy... but there's no need to nationalize industries when it's much easier to make new clean air laws.
/end of pseudo-rant

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Wow, I'd love to see the real rant. IMHO, most "environmentalists" are blissfully unaware of their communist underpinnings. They're just part of the masses getting squeezed-out of their fair share of the pie and use XOM as a target. So does Hugo Chavez....

Then, there IS the matter of the pseudo-free-radicals:
http://www.oism.org/oism/s32p31.htm

gsh said:

I agree with you, the point is political power. XOM has lots. More than the Sierra Club, fortunately.

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It's also fortunate that Exxon-Mobil has more money than the Sierra Club. XOM stock is in all our mutual funds and retirement funds. I'm glad that the company defends its right to make a profit. If it uses part of its profits to fund research into the effects of carbon fuels on the atmosphere, that's a good thing.

Exxon-Mobil probably should have done more research into the effects of oil spills on the ocean environment, back in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez incident or even before. They might have posed the questions: What was the impact from all the oil tankers sunk in WWII by aerial bombing, naval gunfire, and torpedos? Was it greater than the partial spillage from one super-tanker? Did the oceans recover from the oil spillage during WWII, and how long did it take?

IMHO, most "environmentalists" are blissfully unaware of their communist underpinnings. They're just part of the masses getting squeezed-out of their fair share of the pie and use XOM as a target. So does Hugo Chavez....

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Absolutely. But the leaders of the environmental organizations know what they are doing.

Then, there IS the matter of the pseudo-free-radicals:
http://www.oism.org/oism/s32p31.htm

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Just over ten years ago I wrote a paper for a university course on this topic, so I recognize nearly all of the charts and diagrams. I used the most-current scientific papers available as resources. Unfortunately the references for the paper you link to list nothing more recent than 1997 -- and there's been a lot of climate research, some of it very good, since 1997.

TornadoRed said:

They might have posed the questions: What was the impact from all the oil tankers sunk in WWII by aerial bombing, naval gunfire, and torpedos? Was it greater than the partial spillage from one super-tanker? Did the oceans recover from the oil spillage during WWII, and how long did it take?

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A couple of interesting things happened with those oil tankers. Number one was that sometimes they were on fire when they were sinking and breaking up. Frequently, the oil slicks on the surface of the oceans partially burned off instead of just sitting in the water. Second, these oil tankers were frequently sunk a good distance away from any land. The oil that did leak from them was broken up by wave action in the middle of the oceans, and it was biodegraded by sunlight and bacterial action. Third, the oil that was contained inside of the ships when they sunk usually stayed in the tanks. When sunk in the cold depths of the ocean, the oil is jellied nearly sold and doesn't leak out of the wrecks much.

There is a good amount of semi-solid oil in tankers on the bottom of oceans, and I don't think there is a lot of research into what happens when these wrecks finally rust apart and release the oil. The US Navy has conducted surveys of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, and after the last survivor from that ship dies they will likely do something to remove the fuel oil from that wreck to avoid a future catastrophe. But that is a very shallow wreck that can be easily fixed in that way.

In WWII refineries were a prime target. I am of the impression that
most petro shipping was of finished product such as:
Bunker C (?) Very thick, must be heated to flow at all.
Diesel
Av gas 100/130 ??? Very volatile, likely to burn off quickly.

I don't think there were refineries near the front lines, although the
Japanese were moving a lot of crude towards the home islands of
Japan..(?) These islands were not the front lines until the closing days
fo the war, so could have had operational refineries.

Anyway the natural flow is crude oil toward refineries and product
away from the refineries.
During WWII the USA supplied both the crude oil, refining capacity,
and transport for the Allies. Most of the German oil was refined
in Ploesti, Romania. (?) And I think the Japanese got their (?) oil
from Manchuria and maybe the Philipines. (?)

So we didn't move much crude by ship, but the enemy did in the
far east. All of our big ships ran on Bunker Oil (bunker C) that is
thicker than crude and likely to stay where it is. (wherever that is)

The stuff that might leak (be leaking since the war) would be
lubricating oil that every ship needs to operate. This will be like
old time motor oil, single weight, high ash and non-detergent.

The above is just my own musings, I am not a petro engineer nor
a historian. I did not research the subject before posting, so I
may be all wet on some or even all of the above.
Just trying to shed a little light on a long distant subject.

Anyone that has better info, please chime in!!

YMMV, of course.

Bill

TornadoRed said:

I'm glad that the company defends its right to make a profit. If it uses part of its profits to fund research into the effects of carbon fuels on the atmosphere, that's a good thing.

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Not a troll here, nor do I profess to be an appropriate peer to critically review details of published reports on the thermodynamics of our global carbon equilibrium, but ExxonMobil-funded research should support objective and balanced scientific investigation, not disinformation campaigns. Thus, IMHO, it's NOT A GOOD THING when a company with billions $$ starts throwing some of it's profits to fund 'push-back' science:

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=25
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf

Defending its right to make a profit...OK, but don't kill the goose that laid the black egg.

gsh said:

ExxonMobil-funded research should support objective and balanced scientific investigation, not disinformation campaigns. Thus, IMHO, it's NOT A GOOD THING when a company with billions $$ starts throwing some of it's profits to fund 'push-back' science...

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So much current research funding is politically motivated. I don't see any reason why Exxon-Mobil should pretend to be impartial or unbiased in the projects it funds. Good science involves the questioning of assumptions, even when it's unpopular.

Dunno513 said:

I can't believe that ExxonMobil put out such an ignorant statement. Too bad most americans are just as stupid and will continue to put up with this BS.

"You can't put up those wind towers in my back yard.. CUZ I"D RATHER HAVE AN OIL WELL INSTEAD.... "

Yes that was aimed at all those ignorant MAss Holes who oppose the windfarm idea.. and everywhere else in the world.

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Yo lay off the MAss Holes!! The wind farm is really only opposed by a very few very wealthy folks. Don't lump us all together!!

sts9fan said:

Yo lay off the MAss Holes!! The wind farm is really only opposed by a very few very wealthy folks. Don't lump us all together!!

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I'm not sure if you're referring to a specific wind farm that was shot down, but I know voters here in WA have been shooting down wind farm proposals for years, and it's not just a few super wealthy folks - it's entire communities of wealthy homeowners who don't want to lose their million dollar views, combined with environmentalists concerned with things like the paths of migratory birds (apparently they're too stupid to fly around them).

Lector Caveo!

TornadoRed said:

So much current research funding is politically motivated. I don't see any reason why Exxon-Mobil should pretend to be impartial or unbiased in the projects it funds. Good science involves the questioning of assumptions, even when it's unpopular.

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It's a sad reality that research funding is so often politically motivated these days. Trying to teach students to always read the acknowledgements first before the conclusions is disheartening. Let the reader beware!

Unfortunatley, most people don't use heuristics to arrive at a conclusion when faced with such issues as Global Warming, Greenhouse Gas Emission, rising fuel prices or restrictions on their choice of vehicles they drive (e.g. CARB states). They do, however, tend to blame whoever is holding all the money, keeps quiet about it and continues to make record profits.

Good science indeed requires challenging assumptions, but that is not why Exxon in being criticized. It is being criticized for obfuscation of good science. And obfuscation does no one any good, not even its investors, who should demand transparency. But Exxon is changing their tune anyway, with the change in control of Congress.

Anyway, here's an insight into just how clueless some of our gov't officials are (Domenici's remark is priceless -- where has he been the last 20 years?!?). You can also get the webcast (be patient, there's a good 17 minutes or so of dead air)

Great article about the recent congressional hearings. Alas, the "I told you so" attitude just doesn't cut it anymore. The next two years will be very interesting, if not over-heated.

blacka5 said:

But Exxon is changing their tune anyway, with the change in control of Congress.

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Too little, too late. Anyway, the Post Carbon Institue will be fossilized along with the rest of us by the time congress increases fuel efficiency standards.

So barring any unforseen "breakthroughs", they see their "fossil-fuels-rule" business model remaining the same for the next 30 yrs. I wonder if that perspective favors putting money into alternative energy research, or into political campaigns...

But, it's also true that if shareholders don't really care about anything but the beancounter numbers, then that's what they as shareholders, and we as the public get.

On the other hand, thinking about the Enron case, if Exxon management wanted to deceive shareholders about problems with oil extraction or the oil business in general, they probably could get away with it for some years.

Just last year, 2006, it emerged that Shell had overestimated the size of its reserves by quite a bit.