Western fossil fuel industry helps to power autocrats

William P. Hall on March 7, 2022

After a long history of helping Putin, the Western oil giants are only now leaving Russia. Perversely this may benefit China.

Thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several fossil fuel giants are severing long-standing relationships with Russia and its oligarchs, which would seem to put the brakes on the further growth of fossil fuel production in Russia. Foreign Policy reviews the sordid history of these these and similar associations in the past, and considers their likely impacts on the climate emergency, autocrats and their oligarchs, and the fossil fuel special interests.

For example, BP has owned 19.75% of Russia’s Rosneft, supplier of the fuel being used to invade the Ukraine. It’s divestment only executed after the invasion started, has knocked the bottom out of the Russian oil market and may delay key development projects. It should stop financing and technology transfers Rosneft needs for its future growth.

Despite people being shocked by BP’s Russian involvement, Foreign Policy notes that this goes back to before 2014 when Russia invaded and annexed the Crimea – and was clearly favorable to BP’s bottom line – let alone Putin and his cronies.

In fact, Western oil companies often partner with autocratic, corrupt and repressive governments, e.g., in Africa, Arabia, and in the Americas to the detriment of almost everyone else as described in the Foreign Policy article:

Working pumpjacks are seen in the Montebello Oil Field in Montebello, California, on February 23, 2022. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images / via FP

by Alexandra Gillies, 04/03/2022 in Foreign Policy

How to Stop Oil Companies From Propping Up Kleptocrats: The industry’s belated withdrawal from Russia is a welcome move, but energy giants could do more to avoid bolstering corrupt and repressive regimes.

The profits from these associations, make big oil even more powerful and damaging to the environment than they would otherwise be. One wonders how much Big Oil has contributed to the Australian COALition Government’s love and support of the fossil fuel industry in our country? The political context and implications are crystal clear.

For years as Scotty says below in his own words, our LNP COALition puppet Government has been supporting the mindlessly greedy fossil fuel special interests in preference to ordinary people. Both the industry and the puppets work first, to deny the science that shows us the world is warming at an accelerating rate from the continued burning of fossil carbon; and secondly, to fill our thought space with endlessly distracting humbug and blather so we won’t pay attention to what they are doing. Burning fossil fuel clearly comes first before acting on the climate emergency!

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Featured image: oil refinery plant Yaroslavnefteorgsintez in Yaroslavl town, Russia. Русский: нефтеперерабатывающий завод, вечер / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en / via Wikimedia Commons / Author Svtk44

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Ukraine war makes zero emissions nuclear power attractive

William P. Hall on March 7, 2022

CNBC sees possible rosy lining to the colliding black clouds of the Ukrainian War and attacks on nuclear power stations

The Canadian broadcaster, CNBC reviews progress of the nuclear power industry as a zero emissions supplier of energy in the context of the accelerating growth of the climate emergency driven by the greenhouse gas emissions of the fossil fuel industry.

Presently around 10% of the world’s electricity is produced by some 440 nuclear reactors with 55 more under construction. Almost all of these are products of China and Russia — and are pressurized water reactors that are a lot safer to operate than was the case for the unstable RBMK Reactor at Chernobyl that exploded under bad management.

Encouraged in the US by the Biden Government’s Infrastructure bill, nuclear energy projects are rapidly ramping up as driven by climate change concerns. This seems to be especially true in states with dying coal economies. There also seems to be substantial interest in developing inherently safe(r) modular reactor technology.

The Ukrainian War is adding impetus for ramping up nuclear power generation in the West as Russian aggression has disqualified the country both as a supplier of fossil fuels and of nuclear technologies. The US is also seeing the need to outdo the Chinese marketing of its nuclear technologies.

The CNBC article provides more details.

The Vogtle Unit 3 and 4 site, being constructed by primary contractor Westinghouse, a business unit of Toshiba, near Waynesboro, Georgia, is seen in an aerial photo taken February 2017.
Georgia Power | Reuters

by Catherine Clifford, 0f/03/2022 in CNBC/Clean Energy

How the war in Ukraine and climate change are shaping the nuclear industry: The future of the nuclear power industry is being pushed on both by climate change and security fears stoked by Russia invading Ukraine and targeting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Featured image: Fuqing Nuclear Power Station a 6000MW CPR and Hualong one plant / CMG, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source: http://www.fujian.gov.cn/english/news/202201/120220104_5806821.htm / Author: CMG

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.