Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 90 posts

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#81

Post by yencabulator »

gottorf wrote: post #48
oblio wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not paying for pollution we know they cause is an implicit subsidy, feels quite obvious.

Then the same "implicit subsidy" goes for literally every facet of human activity. Do builders of wind turbines and solar farms also pay commensurately for the pollution in the manufacturing and development process? Everything is implicitly subsidized because every action that any living being takes affects some other living being and the ecosystem as a whole, because we all live on the same planet. It's a meaningles…

Don't forget that the oil industry requires a lot of manufacturing and development too. They also cause stuff on top of that.

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#82

Post by animal_spirits »

stonethrowaway wrote: post #79
tw04 wrote: post #7

> as investors focused on near-term returns rather than the energy transition. If the justification for burning the earth to the ground continues to be “investors focused on short term returns” then governments need to start telling companies like BP they are legally and financially responsible for the effects those policies have on insurance rates and everything else. At some point if they can’t do the right thing b…

Yeaaaahh you keep saying that to yourself. The lack of action by people while expecting the government to do something is farcical. “There ought to be a law!” the outraged but impotent mob cries - and there will be one, when you take matters into your own hands and write it, just like the people who established this government did.

Soon I hope there will be a Github-for-law that we can all at least contribute requests to, with the proper structure, formatting, review process, and validation.

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#83

Post by nielsbot »

nradov wrote: post #71
pfdietz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an exercise in false equivalence. Does every facet of human activity have the same impact as CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion?

Why focus on CO2 emissions? That's only one aspect of pollution.

Ok, where should we focus it then?

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#84

Post by nielsbot »

nradov wrote: post #69
david38 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have to pay to clean up your mess to live in a world the way it was before you polluted it, it’s a subsidy

Before fossil fuels our cities were ankle-deep in horse shit, and when a horse died the owner dumped the carcass in the river. Some level of pollution is in inescapable price of civilization. We shouldn't be reckless or wanton about it but it's unreasonable and uneconomic to ever clean up all of the mess.

All or nothing fallacy. The argument is not to eliminate pollution, the argument is to stop generating greenhouse gases. You can already see the effects of climate change and it's guaranteed to get worse.

I don't understand why you're making excuses for carbon pollution.

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#85

Post by palata »

baanist wrote: post #34
palata wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well because other species don't manage to break the barriers as efficiently as we do. The way regulation works is that species are limited by their environment. If there are many antelopes, there can be many lions. But if there are two many lions, the population of antelopes goes down to the point where not all the lions can survive, right? This is simplistic, but that's the idea (the higher the population, the bigg…

Most of what you've said is true but what exactly does it mean to "break barriers"? We can not escape the laws of chemistry, physics, and thermodynamics because we live on a compact manifold with finite resources which must be recycled eventually by the surrounding ecology. This is why plastics are now found in all newborns, the chemicals produced by our factories are recycled back into the ecology and our internal b…

Totally. I just meant that those are less direct. Species usually don't reach a point where they change the climate because they are stopped by other mechanisms long before. Our cycle is slower, which gives us time to destroy more stuff before we "get regulated", I suppose.

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#86

Post by consteval »

gottorf wrote: post #48
oblio wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not paying for pollution we know they cause is an implicit subsidy, feels quite obvious.

Then the same "implicit subsidy" goes for literally every facet of human activity. Do builders of wind turbines and solar farms also pay commensurately for the pollution in the manufacturing and development process? Everything is implicitly subsidized because every action that any living being takes affects some other living being and the ecosystem as a whole, because we all live on the same planet. It's a meaningles…

> Then the same "implicit subsidy" goes for literally every facet of human activity

No, we generally pay for pollution. If I litter I pay. If I have to throw stuff away I pay (via taxes). If I have to dump dangerous chemicals I pay.

Oil industry can dump whatever they want into the air and they don't pay. You, and I, pay. We don't actually know how profitable oil is because of this.

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#87

Post by schiffern »

ksec wrote: post #74
schiffern wrote: post #4

Pioneering systems theorist Donella Meadows makes a highly salient point. The problem with BP isn't because there are "bad people" at the top, and the solution isn't to replace them with "good people." The problem is that the decision-makers are constrained to act a certain way . If they made different decisions then.... those people won't be the decision-makers anymore! The same is true for politicians, consumers, e…

>those people won't be the decision-makers anymore! The same is true for politicians, consumers, etc. Is that another way of saying the "Market" will dictate everything? I never thought about it this way in terms of politics. But may be some food for thought.

Accelerating this thought, the linked video is basically a primer on Systems Theory as applies to this problem. Use >1x speed if needed, but IMO it's worth it. Her talk is highly enlightening, and concept-dense.

Direct timecode to the start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg#t=419

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#88

Post by JohnMakin »

tw04 wrote: post #11
JohnMakin wrote: post #3

> BP (BP.L), opens new tab has abandoned a target to cut oil and gas output by 2030 as CEO Murray Auchincloss scales back the firm's energy transition strategy to regain investor confidence, three sources with knowledge of the matter said. > The company continues to target net zero emissions by 2050. "As Murray said at the start of year... the direction is the same – but we are going to deliver as a simpler, more foc…

They’re claiming to target 2050 in the hopes that the EU won’t come down on them with a sledge hammer. The fact they’ve cut all targets for 2030, and cut back all renewable plans tells you there’s no actual plan to hit net zero. This was a pretty obvious end result when the head of their renewables group resigned in April and instead of replacing her they decided to “shrink the executive group” by exactly one headcou…

yeesh, yea that makes sense. I personally think it was obvious quite a while ago, but the greenwashing lobby would scream you down if you dared challenge the long term efficacy of such programs. I don’t pretend to know the solution but asking the person nicely creating the problem to please stop making the problem worse doesn’t appear to have been a sound one.

The thing that truly drives me nuts is people still scream and yell about small individual actions mattering when stuff like this is going on, it just seems like gaslighting to me.

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#89

Post by Supermancho »

kieranmaine wrote: post #63
Supermancho wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it not seem like electric vehicles will eventually swallow the world? I don't believe so. As I understand it, there are not enough rare metals available, with the known battery technologies. I don't think will ever be the production capacity to construct and maintain (replace) electric-based equivalents to the solutions fossil fuels fit. Fossil fuels came to dominance because of a number of maximal equations.…

From "Most electric-car batteries could soon be made by recycling old ones" - https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/09/19/... Apologies for the paywalled article. The following quote sums up the article: "Globally, the mining of raw ingredients for battery manufacturing could peak by the mid 2030s, reckons RMI, an American think-tank. This will be caused by a combination of better recycling and contin…

> This will be caused by a combination of better recycling and continuing advances in battery chemistry, which boosts the energy density of cells so that batteries can be made with fewer raw materials

This is a hope, at best. For better or worse, I wouldn't bet on it. I don't think electric vehicles will "eat the world" in the foreseeable (or farther) future.

Re: BP abandons goal to cut oil output, resets strategy

#90

Post by bamboozled »

nomel wrote: post #49
bamboozled wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to blame this on "Elon" but that guy basically kicked off the revolution and is kind of destroying it. His cult following, toxic views and enthusiasm for conspiracies are starting to make EV ownership something for "weirdos" at a time when owning an EV was already contentious. At least in the US. There was a time when I dreamed of owning a Tesla, there is absolutely no way I'd drive one now. I think Ch…

No, this should/can be based on data . Data says [1]: 1. Range 2. Cost (correlated with range) 3. Lack of charging infrastructure Where I am, unless you own a home, charging an EV is more expensive than gas . [1] https://www.supplychainconnect.com/news-trends/article/55137...

From experience, a lot of car purchases are ultimately based on emotion.
Post reply on HN