Next decade will be CCS , last decade was algae.
Why doesn’t anyone ask about all the algae research and promises? Is the investor community so gullible to this? Are employees who can question these things lqcking any conscience?
Genuine question – what happened to algae? How much money was spent? Not in research but the advertisements!
Exxon’s Algae Dry Ho-e ($300 million greenwashing failure continuing)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 16, 2020
https://www.masterresource.org/exxon-mobil/exxon-algae-dry-ho-e/
“That points to another potential challenge [to algae fuel commercialization]: the availability of land. NREL’s model for a commercial-scale algae facility calls for 5,000 acres of open-air algae ponds plus an additional 2,000 acres for support facilities. Yet all that land would produce only a limited amount of fuel.”....
In the case of Exxon Mobil, a lack of innovation allowed the independents to discover and perfect current drilling technology (hydraulic fracturing), which Exxon Mobil then tried to hijack with its purchase of TXO in 2009 for $30 billion. That failed miserably with a $40 billion writedown last month, most associated with TXO assets.
Another failure, begun in 2009, when oil prices were at a peak, involves Exxon Mobil’s $300 million bet (to date) on biofuels as a competitor to oil in transportation. A recent E&E News ‘Energy Transitions’ article by Benjamin Storrow, Exxon’s climate fix is algae. Experts say it won’t work (November 2, 2020) tells the story.
Exxon Mobil Corp. debuted a television ad dubbed “Energy Farmer” in 2017. An electric guitar belts out a searing rendition of the children’s tune “The Farmer in the Dell” as company scientists slog through ponds of algae, peer at an oozy substance beneath microscopes and fill test vials with florescent green liquid.
A printed script overlays the scene: “Algae. A renewable source of energy. ExxonMobil is researching it. To revolutionize biofuels. For more energy. And fewer emissions.”
Biofuels represent one of Exxon Mobil’s primary answers to climate change. In television ads and presentations to investors, the company showcases it as an example of its dedication to cutting greenhouse gases. But after more than a decade of research, serious questions remain about Exxon Mobil’s biofuel efforts….
Burning money on inferior energy is what Honest Lee Raymond would never have done.
Exxon Mobil is the only major oil company looking at algae as a potential source of biofuels. Scientists say there is good reason for that. The technology, while technically feasible, is wildly expensive.
“It’s like I give you $1 million and you convert it to $1 bills, and you light it on fire to make energy,” said Avigad Vonshak, a professor at Ben-Gurion University in Israel who has studied algae for decades. “I think it will be from stupid to nonsensical to believe that in any given time it will be an economically feasible process to extract fuels from microalgae.”
Poor Exxon Mobil can’t even get away with greenwashing!
The question facing Exxon Mobil today is whether biofuels are a real climate solution or just green washing. The company says biofuels could reduce commercial transportation emissions by 50%. That assessment is shared by many energy analysts, who believe biofuels could be an important tool for greening hard-to-decarbonize sectors like aviation. But many experts doubt algae will become a major source of that biofuel, saying other alternatives are more likely to compete on cost.
Critics contend Exxon Mobil’s spending on algae research represents a drop in the bucket compared with its efforts to boost oil and gas production…. Internal company documents estimate the additional oil and gas would increase Exxon Mobil’s emissions by 21 million tons annually, or by about five coal plants. That figure does not include emissions associated with customers burning all that additional oil and gas (Climatewire, Oct. 6).
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has seized on Exxon’s biofuels program as part of her lawsuit against the company, writing in the suit, “These ads constitute a highly effective greenwashing tactic, because they send the false and misleading message ExxonMobil is working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, when in fact, the Company is increasing fossil fuel production, and its profitability turns on its sales of fossil fuels, which necessarily increase the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving dangerous climate change impacts.”
The company’s bet on greening its existing business reflects a calculation that Exxon is best served by playing to its core strengths. Biofuels and carbon capture preserve the value of the company’s existing assets, essentially offering them a second life in a world where oil and gas consumption is significantly reduced. Pipelines and refineries would still be needed in a world running on biofuel.
Exxon first bet on algae in 2009 when oil prices were above $100 per barrel. Then came the fracking revolution, and prospects are grim.
But by then the world had changed considerably. The advent of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling sent oil prices plummeting and drove scores of biofuel companies into bankruptcy. Algae researchers, meanwhile, found other profitable uses for their product, which is now used in everything from fish feed to high-quality polymers to human nutraceuticals. Some scientists believe algae-based biofuels are possible, but they say government investment is needed to make the technology viable. Algae are likely to mirror renewables in that it will take decades to come to fruition, Stephen Mayfield, a professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, wrote in an email.
“Fuel is the cheapest commodity on the planet, so it will likely be the last product from algae to be commercialized, but if we stay on the path we are on now, we will eventually get to the efficiencies that allow algae biomass to be used as a biofuel,” he wrote. “I doubt very much it will be because of any single discovery, and almost certainly not one made by Exxon ;-).”
Doherty expressed doubts algae-based biofuel could compete on a cost basis at scale. “Unless they see the intervention that we’ve seen in road fuels, you won’t see massive penetration of biofuels in hard-to-abate sectors,” Doherty said. “Why would an airline, which is thin on margin, switch to a four times more expensive fuel unless they are required to? That’s for basic biofuel. Then algae is next level.” …
But many of the same traits that made algae attractive to Exxon also present challenges. An ongoing study carried out by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Arizona shows why.
High evaporation rates in arid regions can cause saline levels to rise to dangerous levels for algae, and removing the salt is expensive. NREL assumes a commercial-scale facility in Arizona would need to dispose of the salty water by injecting it deep into underground wells, much as oil and gas drilling operations do, significantly adding to the overall costs.
Minimizing costs would likely require using fresh water or building facilities in areas like the Gulf Coast, where evaporation rates are lower, the researchers said.
That points to another potential challenge: the availability of land. NREL’s model for a commercial-scale algae facility calls for 5,000 acres of open-air algae ponds plus an additional 2,000 acres for support facilities. Yet all that land would produce only a limited amount of fuel.
NREL demonstrated daily production last year in Arizona of 15.9 grams per square meter, with a goal of reaching 25 grams in 2030. At that production rate, Exxon Mobil would need a facility at least NREL’s size just to reach its 10,000-barrel-a-day goal, said Vonshak, the Israeli researcher.
“It doesn’t work. The numbers don’t fit,” he said.
Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist who studies transportation fuels at the Union of Concerned Scientists, was similarly pessimistic. Algae-based fuel may yet become an alternative to high-value petrochemical products, which would aid the world’s attempts to green the economy, he said.
“But the premise that this technology will fuel a significant share of transportation, even for aviation, remains very much in doubt,” Martin said. “If this is their answer for liquid transportation fuels, it tells me they are not serious about replacing petroleum in this space.”
Exxon Mobil’s PR push has continued unabated.
In one, an elementary-aged girl queries an Exxon Mobil researcher about her work. When the girl asks why Exxon is studying algae, the researcher responds, “We’re looking for alternative forms of energy that are better for the environment for your generation.” Exxon Mobil spent a total of $1.5 billion on corporate promotion across all media over the last decade, according to Kantar Media filings reviewed by Robert Brulle, a researcher at Brown University who tracks climate denial funding. That sum exceeds its spending on algae-based research. Algae nevertheless serve a purpose for the company, Brulle said.
“They’re not selling you algae. They’re selling you, there’s good guys at Exxon,” he said. “You don’t need to regulate us, you don’t need to sue us. We’re good guys.”
Threads such as these show how bad certain parts of the organization are. CSR is an epitome of hiring and producing worthless individuals.
Hands down, CSR in New Jersey is the worst place to work at due to poor quality of human workforce and significant lack of quality leadership.
Yesterday’s technology, tomorrow!
If the best place for us to invest our money is in tax writeoff activities we are in worse trouble that I thought.
@OP+1auJHMLg .....I work there everyday CSR is pitiful very low productivity from lab technicians and anything PPLE builds it’s not unusual to do it twice, contractors are beating the employees to lunch, How many productive hours per day? You would be very surprised. EMRE HAS to be looking at some big changes in the next year cannot exist as currently functioning, tax credits or not , ready yourself for the grand reveal. Upper management is scared to death in Annandale, see you later on the walking path, then lunch . Picnic this year YL ?
A lot of people fail to see the company's benefit from the years of algae and coming carbon captures.
It's the Tax Write–offs, ya'll.
Huge research and development write–offs – far more than the actual money expended.
CSR also finds ways to capture the last penny from each drop of oil.
but that is secondary to the R&D write–offs.
In any case, a commodity company can do without 'real' R&D.
A side note:
Did you see that API clown giving testimony today in Congress?
Sr. VP of the American Petroleum Institute.
More like a second–team player on a high–school debate team.
What a write–off the API is!!
Yo we gotta have something for the annual report!
PIP CSR and Biofuel workers at CSR.
DW sounds quite dishonest and evil when he talks about CCS in PR video. EM has become a mega fraud corporation from the very top to the bottom rungs... how did we get here?
Just a couple years from 10,000 bpd right? If not PIP those involved all the way to the top!
https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Energy-and-innovation/Advanced-biofuels/Advanced-biofuels-and-algae-research
All those complaining about algae don’t even know one single thing about algae program or the progress. There are a lot of people here with uninformed opinion about CSR.
Three car crusades continue with syrup at The helm
Does Exxon Know Something About Biofuel That Its Peers Don’t?
By Haley Zaremba - Jan 28, 2020, 4:00 PM CST
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Biofuels/Does-Exxon-Know-Something-About-Biofuel-That-Its-Peers-Dont.html
Oilprice has been reporting on the long, drawn-out death of the dream of algal biofuel for years. A field once crowded with startups and hyperbolic promises of industry disruption and energy innovation, the pool has all but dried up. The incredible abundance of microalgae (there are approximately 70,000 species) and the species’ incredible resilience and ability to acclimatize to seemingly any environment seemed to make it the perfect candidate for the kind of cheap, efficient biomass an economically viable biofuel model needs. What’s more, the fact that it could be grown in the sea or in a lab and not on land that would otherwise be used to grow food crops (as in the case of corn- and sugar-cane based biofuels), made it an especially promising field of research. But, as it turns out, all these promising traits just weren’t enough to make the promise of algal biofuel a reality.
In practice, making the model commercially viable just hasn’t been possible. As Robert Rapier reported back in 2018 in his “Algal Biofuel Obituary,” the process is just far too expensive. While these biofuel startups have focused on making the process more affordable by decreasing inputs and maximizing output, and even turning to gene editing and CRISPR to make the algae itself more biologically suited to fuel production, it simply hasn’t worked, and any promises that a breakthrough is just around the corner have proven to be empty ones.
While algal biofuel research was all the rage ten years ago, by 2012, Shell had ended its $12 billion Brazilian algae biofuel venture, news had dried up of BP’s $10 million deal with bioscience firm Martek, and Chevron’s five-year partnership with the government-funded National Renewable Energy Laboratory had produced no significant breakthroughs. By early 2018, Chevron’s website had gone from promising that algae biofuel development was ‘still in the research stage’ to openly admitting its work was unsuccessful, documents the Harvard Political Review.
Meanwhile, even companies that had been entirely dedicated to algal biofuel enterprises have also changed tacks. “Algae companies around the world have also announced intentions to ‘shift’ or diversify their research aims, usually to producing algae for food or nutritional supplements,” the Harvard Political Review continues. “For example, Algenol shifted to carbon capture and fresh water creation in 2015, and Chevron-backed Solazyme announced in 2016 that it would discontinue its biofuels program altogether.”
In the midst of all these companies abandoning the algal biofuel mission, however, one company has held strong to its ambitions and promises within the sector. That company is ExxonMobil. After announcing a major gene editing breakthrough in 2017 (when many algal biofuel companies were already folding or changing strategies) that the supermajor oil company said would significantly increase the lipid concentration of microalgae without diminishing growth, the company has continued to talk openly, if non-specifically, about the great promise and progress of the program.
These promises, however, should be taken with a sizeable grain of salt.
CSR is an epitome of how not to do things.
Even if a technology shows promise, if you hear CSR in Clinton, NJ mention it, run away from it like there is no tomorrow. This place will sabotage any technology or research whether it is good or bad, viable or not viable. The reason is simple ––– incompetent and ludicrous management and employees of CSR.
You could have filled the lecture hall with $100.00 bills with what was spent on Algae in Annandale. Oh and the commercials,What a waste of money,This carbon capture effort in the Labs in Clinton can’t last either, saddle up going south. “We are a technology company “ how many time have I heard this from upper management in Clinton, place is too expensive just can’t survive , lots of hot air up on CC 3. Big pitcher of kool–Aid in the Atrium for you to partake. Won’t be many employees left soon, just contractors. Place doesn’t have a prayer. Are we at least having a picnic this year....
CCS (according to the Paris accord) is required to meet emission targets. So at least there are some people that believe it to be viable outside exxonmobil.
I guess, that the awful truth has finally emerged. Algae is not a solution to economically produce enough quantities of biofuels and significantly limit CO2 emissions. May work in labs or semi–industrial plants but it's not scalable. It took EM many more years than its competitors to realize that it wasn't a technically viable option and additional years for P&GA and PR to draw the conclusion that this was no longer a card that could be played in the greenwashing game. So now CCS is the new flavor of the day (or of the decade). Hopefully more successful. Future will tell...
ExxonMobil spent $30 million a year, or about 0.14 per cent of its annual capital expenditure, developing biofuels and $56 million on green marketing, ClientEarth –a greenwashing watchdog– said
Lol I agree. Wake me up when we FID a project.