Originally Posted by edyvw
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The big oil companies are promoting VRE for two reasons:
1. It makes it appear as though they care about the "green" agenda and they aren't just dirty old dinosaurs holding onto the past
2. NG is necessary to prop-up VRE, so promoting this pairing makes perfect sense.
Advocating for VRE, and then talking about how well it pairs with gas is a perfect forward-looking strategy for oil companies that are already massively invested in NG infrastructure. They get to be the "progressive" entities while ensuring their massive profits continue. This is the same reason they oppose, and always have, nuclear, because that same sort of reliance doesn't exist.
Agree. All these companies are heavily involved in Socially Responsible Enterprise (SRE) strategy, which sometimes collapses dramatically (VW, BP etc.).
This is from Shell:
https://www.energycouncil.com/articles/gas-naturally-compiments-renewables/
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PERFECT PARTNERS
Gas and renewables are perfect partners to help address this energy challenge.
Renewables will continue to expand rapidly in the years to come. According to our Shell Scenarios, wind and solar could grow to supply 40% of primary energy demand by the end of the century, up from around 1% today.
But renewables are intermittent. And solutions for storing power when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing are often very expensive, especially in the case of seasonal storage.
On top of this, although the growth of renewables will help lower emissions from the power sector, electricity accounts for less than one fifth of the world's total energy use today.
To further reduce emissions, the world's economy will certainly need to rely more on electricity.
Different solutions will be needed in some sectors, such as heavy-haul transport (which accounts for more than 20% of annual road transport energy demand), as well as energy-intensive industries, including steel, cement, plastics and chemical production.
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