Exxon: America will always rely on foreign oil

[sasha031]

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The United States will always rely on foreign imports of oil to feed its energy needs and should stop trying to become energy independent, a top Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) executive said on Tuesday.
"Realistically, it is simply not feasible in any time period relevant to our discussion today," Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Stuart McGill said, referring to what he called the "misperception" that the United States can achieve energy independence.
The comments, in a speech at an energy conference in Houston, come a few days after U.S. President George W. Bush declared America was addicted to Middle Eastern oil and promised to help the country kick the habit.
Many in the United States believe America should wean itself off oil imports from the Middle East, fearing it makes the country dangerously dependent on an unstable region.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2006-02-07T191922Z_01_N07246586_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-EXXON.xml&rpc=23

[megatherium]

1. always a bad idea to listen to advice from someone

with a huge conflict of interest.

[LSK]

2. he doesnt care what happens in 50 years, he will probably be dead

And his children will be living in energy independent Southern France.

[Nutmegger]

3. Thank you Exxon

Thank you for not doing all you can do to keep oil prices down. Thank you!:hi:

[blogslut]

4. Stuart McGill

Can you say D-I-N-O-S-A-U-R Stuart?

[Angry Girl]

5. We should stop trying, eh?

Is that why ExxonMobil and GM and other corporations with an interest in oil bought the patents to so many alt-fuel engines in the 70's and 80's and SHELVED them?

But, good luck, Amerika, tryingto break out of the prison you built: Your education and science funding has been so gutted that if things continue like they have in the past 4 years, by 2010 a full 90% of all scientists in the WORLD will live in Asia. (prediction by Nobel Prize winning scientist in Reader's Digest article, Dec 2005)

[Coastie for Truth]

7. The rest of the story

You posted

Is that why ExxonMobil and GM and other corporations with an interest in oil bought the patents to so many alt-fuel engines in the 70's and 80's and SHELVED them?

But you left off

and laid off the engineers and scientists who developed them

---A veteran :-( (But in retrospect, probably the best thing that ever happened to me)

[Coastie for Truth]

6. McGill is no dummy

He is a PhD chem engineer - and coming out of Sydney Univ he must have had some exposure to Bockris (the real father of fuel cells) and Vittorio deNora-Henri Beer fuel cell team. But, in a company like Exxon one gets very quickly "socialized to the norm" where narrow myopia is an attribute that is rewarded (for example, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz says hybrids will never amount to much - as his pay gets cut 50% - but he's still Vice Chairman :shrug:).

Realize - McGill, even though he is a PhD - is a "production" man (oil field and refinery)

Some very interesting things to watch:
1. ExxonMobil has an extensive patent portfolio (about 150 US patents) in the synthesis of liquid fuels (gasoline and diesel) from coal.
2. ExxonMobil generates a few patents a year on fuel cells - probably evidence of a "fuel cell group" of 20-60 engineers and scientists.
3. ExxonMobil has extensive cross-license and joint research agreements with most of the "players" in the "fuel cell" and "synthesis of liquid fuels" areas.

[Angry Girl]

8. Aaaah! That explains the coal, shale interest

Poor Alberta. They will never be the same.

[Coastie for Truth]

10. Oil shale, oil sands, and Fischer-Tropsch scare the daylights out of me

I grew up in the South Western Pennsylvania coal fields - south of Pittsburgh PA. My dad was a UMWA lawyer.

We had a major coal mine sink hole in our back yard, and we were not that far from of the famous Donora Smog and when we left the coal fields and moved up to "The City" - we lived near Century Three Mall - its claim to fame is that it is built on steel mill slag and coal mine spoils.

And, if you really want a coal site - if you ever fly out of (through) Pittsburgh - and take off on runway 28R (toward the west) - that ugly red gully is more coal mine fill.

Shale, oil sands, and Fischer Tropsch all leave environmentally unfriendly residue.

[blogslut]

9. another speaker from that conference...

HOUSTON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Mandating costly alternatives to oil in the name of a cleaner environment could impoverish people and lower living standards, the Saudi Arabian oil minister said on Tuesday.

"I believe that we should not impoverish people in the name of a cleaner environment," Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi told an energy conference. "Lowering living standards, or limiting peoples' ability to rise out of poverty, in order to improve the environment trades one potential health hazard for another..." - link = http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07231749.htm

Yeah, right Ali. This "concern" for the poor is a sham.

[Coastie for Truth]

11. Saw that yesterday - here's what I posted

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2091624&mesg_id=2091751

[blogslut]

12. What's so sad

about it all is that the US could p0wn the alternative energy business if they just tried. But no. Instead, we get rich coporatists, lying in bed with tyrants, in order to sustain a dying industry.