EGEB: Exxon plans to increase emissions — leaked documents

• Bloomberg reports that Exxon plans to actually increase its emissions, according to internal documents.
• A New York state senator has introduced legislation requiring zero emissions for new vehicles by 2035.
• The UK’s Octopus Energy will create 1,000 clean tech jobs and a new tech hub.
• Arcadia Power is committed to making clean energy work for the planet and your bank account — all without changing your utility company. Sign up to receive your $20 Amazon Gift Card.

Exxon — seriously?

While European oil giants like BP and Shell are busy trying to formulate a net zero plan and transition to renewables, Exxon is in a time warp and making plans to increase its emissions, according to internal documents obtained by Bloomberg Green:

Exxon’s own assessment of its $210 billion investment strategy shows yearly emissions rising 17% by 2025, according to the internal documents.

The planning documents show for the first time that Exxon has carefully assessed the direct emissions it expects from the seven-year investment plan adopted in 2018 by Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods. The additional 21 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year that would result from ramping up production dwarfs Exxon’s projections for its own efforts to reduce pollution, such as deploying renewable energy and burying some carbon dioxide.

Bloomberg Green says the rise is equivalent to the entire emissions output of the country of Greece, or 26 coal-fired plants.

The fossil fuel giant wrote in its document:

As demand returns and capital investments resume, our growth plans will continue to include meaningful emission mitigation efforts.

Electrek’s Take: Exxon has ambitious and unrealistic growth plans that look backward, not forward, and its “mitigation efforts” are anything but meaningful. Exxon, you’ve gotta get with the program — you’re living on your own polluted planet.

Will NY go EV?

On September 25, Democratic state senator Pete Harckham from New York’s Hudson Valley introduced a bill that would require all New York State sales of new cars and trucks to be zero emissions by 2035.

Harckham’s bill also requires that all New York sales of off-road vehicles and power equipment be zero emissions by 2035, and medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks reach net zero by 2045. Harckham said he hoped the switch to electric could happen even sooner.

The bill specifies that the New York Climate Act‘s 22-member Climate Action Council and state agencies speed up the development of affordable charging for EVs. It focuses on ensuring access to charging in low-income communities.

It also asks that regulatory processes to transition away from fossil fuel production facilities be expedited, with progress to be reported by July 15, 2021.

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, at 28% in 2018. Light-duty vehicles make up the largest percentage of that, at 59%. And in New York State, transport makes up around 36% of New York’s emissions.

Octopus’ green tech

The UK’s green energy tech firm Octopus Energy has announced it will create 1,000 new clean technology jobs across the UK, primarily in London, Brighton, Warwick, and Leicester. This hiring spree would double Octopus’ workforce by the end of 2021. The positions are primarily for STEM graduates.

It will also set up a new technology, data science, and artificial intelligence hub in Manchester. Octopus says it wants to make the UK the “Silicon Valley of energy.” As Business Green reports, the center would be “dedicated to developing smart grid technologies that can help the UK’s carbon intensive transport and heating industries cut costs as they transition from fossil fuels to clean electricity.”

As Electrek reported in May, Octopus’ cloud-based energy platform Kraken allows customers to pay less when clean energy generation is high, and avoid paying high costs when generation is low.

Octopus aims to have 100 million energy accounts on its Kraken platform by 2027, up from its current 17 million.

Photo: AP/Matthew Brown