Shell’s kite wind project deployed in the North Sea. Source: Makani Power Inc.

By Will Mathis: 15 August 2019, 13:00 BST

Alphabet-subsidiary Makani completes test in the North Sea

Airborne machine could work in some of the deepest waters

A carbon-fiber kite tethered to a buoy floating in waters 220 meters (761 feet) deep took flight in a test to prove that the future of offshore wind power might fly through the air.

The kite, owned by the Alphabet Inc.-subsidiary Makani and backed by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, completed its first demonstration about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) off the coast of Norway in the North Sea.

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An ‘energy kite’ wind power venture start-up backed by Google’s parent company and Shell has made its debut offshore flights.

The Makani team made two test flights off Norway last week – the second ending with the loss off the kite when it failed to successfully land on a floating platform.

Makani is a spin-off from Google parent company Alphabet and was backed by Shell in an investment by the oil and gas giant earlier this year. read more

SINGAPORE (REUTERS) – Royal Dutch Shell is considering installing solar panels to power its Bukom refining site in Singapore, a company spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday (Aug 6).

“We are exploring the potential of installing solar panels at our Pulau Bukom Manufacturing Site,” she said, without providing further details.

The Bukom manufacturing site includes a 500,000 barrels-per-day refinery, which is Shell’s largest wholly-owned refinery.

The oil and gas company has been exploring solar installations for its other sites in Singapore as part of its plans to improve energy efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint. read more

Rooftop solar at Shell units in Europe, Asia to generate 7,500 MWh a year

The panels can result in the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions of about 4,500 tonne on a CO2-equivalent basis per year, equivalent to taking about 2,600 cars off the road for one year, a statement by the company said.

August 06, 2019, 07:42 IST

New Delhi: Lubricants major Shell on Monday said it is installing solar photovoltaic panels on the roofs of seven of its plants in India, China, Italy, Singapore and Switzerland, which would generate 7,500 MWh of power annually.

The panels can result in the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions of about 4,500 tonne on a CO2-equivalent basis per year, equivalent to taking about 2,600 cars off the road for one year, a statement by the company said.

Combined, they are expected to generate over 7,500 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity a year, it added. read more

Royal Dutch Shell Plc is spending about $2 billion a year on these technologies. The company says it wants to become the largest electrical power company in the world by the early 2030s.

By David Stringer: 3 August 2019, 01:00 BST

By 2050 solar and wind will supply almost half the world’s electricity, bringing to an end an energy era dominated by coal and gas, according to forecasts by BloombergNEF, Bloomberg LP’s primary research service on energy transition.

It can’t happen without storage. The switch from an electricity system supplied by large fossil fuel plants that run virtually uninterrupted to a more haphazard mix of smaller, intermittent renewable sources needs energy storage to overcome two key hurdles: using power harvested during the day to supply peak energy demand in the evening and ensuring there’s power available even when the wind drops or the sun goes down. read more

Shell boss welcomes ‘mobilisation of society’ as oil protests intensify

by Mark Lammey 01/08/2019, 10:32 am

Shell’s chief executive said today that he welcomed the “mobilisation” of society in the crusade to meet global climate change targets.

But Ben van Beurden said he could not agree with some of the more extreme methods used by militant activists in their protests against energy companies’ activities.

Mr van Beurden said demonstrations must not damage property or jeopardise the people’s safety.

Fellow energy giant BP suffered disruption to its plans for a well in June when Greenpeace activists clambered onto a Transocean rig in Cromarty Firth, then pursued it across the North Sea for several days in their Arctic Sunrise ship. read more

Van Beurden told the New York Times in 2016 about how he had once come home to find one of his children crying inconsolably. He thought at first that it was because he was going out with his wife that evening, but he soon learned that she was upset because she had been learning about climate change at school.

By Joe Sandler Clarke: 19 June 2019

Ben van Beurden, the CEO of Shell, wants you to do your bit to solve climate change.

In early June, he told an audience of corporate bosses in London that we should eat fruit in season and recycle more.

“I have three daughters, they are all quite fashion conscious,” he explained. “I like to point out to them, having something new for every season four times a year is creating quite a significant ecological footprint, have you realised that? Because they are all about climate change.” read more

by Allister Thomas: 09/07/2019, 2:20 pm

Shell CEO Ben van Beurden has been unveiled as part of a global commission to help global progress on energy efficiency.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has unveiled the group, comprising of business executives, thought leaders and government ministers.

The IEA said energy efficiency will play a “central role” in reaching climate goals, potentially accounting for more than 40% of the necessary emissions cuts globally.

It could meanwhile save the world more than half a trillion US dollars in lower energy bills through 2040. read more

Shell, like Spain’s Repsol and France’s Total, is making deals along the electricity supply chain — from gas and renewable power generation to electric vehicle charging points, echoing its existing oil extraction-to-petrol-pump model. Public sentiment towards many oil and gas companies has soured as criticism of them for not taking sufficient responsibility for their role in global warming has intensified. After selling petrol and diesel at the pump, they are now trying to penetrate the market for household energy supply. READ THE FULL FT ARTICLE read more

Energy giant Shell is to urge the prime minister to make the electric car-charging network more accessible.

Industry bosses are set to meet Theresa May on Wednesday to explore ways to boost the uptake of electric cars. Sinead Lynch, Shell’s chairwoman in the UK, said one of the problems was the array of subscription cards or mobile phone applications still needed to access different charging points.

She said: “There needs to be truly open access so that people can just charge seamlessly wherever they go. They [ministers] have started to address it, but haven’t gone to where Europe is.” read more

As Dutch journalist Jelmer Mommers revealed last year, Shell has known about the climate crisis for nearly four decades and its own considerable role in causing it.

THE FIRST THREE SLIDES of climate scientist Peter Kalmus’s plenary speech to Shell’s Powering Progress Together conference were intended to gauge audience reactions. First, he would have asked attendees if they are “concerned about climate breakdown.” Then, to raise their hands if they are “EXTREMELY CONCERNED” about it. In the third slide, Kalmus would have asked panel-goers to raise their hands if they agreed with a simple statement: “Fossil fuel causes harm.”

He never got the chance. Last Wednesday, the day before he was scheduled to appear, Kalmus was disinvited from what the oil giant billed as “an action-oriented day of dialogue focused on accelerating the energy transition.” For those curious about what spooked them, The Intercept is publishing Kalmus’s contraband slideshow. read more

Eneco Group operates more than 2,000 MW of renewable energy and serves over two million customers in The Netherlands, Belgium and the UK.

According to insiders, Dutch-British Shell, in collaboration with Dutch pension investor PGGM (healthcare and welfare sector), offers a great opportunity to win the takeover battle. With its New Energies division, Shell has set aside billions to invest in green energy.

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch FT, Financieele Dagblad.

Shell, Mitsubishi, Macquarie and KKR continue in Eneco auction

Gijs den Brinker

Four parties are in the battle for energy company Eneco. This is a consortium of oil and gas company Shell and pension investor PGGM, the Japanese company Mitsubishi, the Australian infrastructure investor Macquarie and the American investor KKR.

Multiple sources say that to the FD. KKR is a surprising name in the playing field. Never before was it known that the American investment company was making a shot at the energy company that advertised itself as green.

Eneco is currently owned by 44 municipalities, including Rotterdam and The Hague, but is for sale. Candidate buyers were able to express their interest until the end of May. The sale goes through a so-called controlled auction. At the end of last week, the company, together with representatives of the shareholders, decided which parties could continue to the next round. read more

George Monbiot: Wed 26 Jun 2019

Don’t buy the greenwash. Shell’s initiatives, which have won over many conservation groups, are dwarfed by its investment in oil and gas

It is hard to believe it needs stating, but it does. The oil industry is not your friend. Whatever it might say about its ethical credentials, while it continues to invest in fossil fuels, it accelerates climate breakdown and the death of the habitable planet. You would think this point was obvious to everyone. But over the past few weeks, I have spoken to dozens of environmentalists who appear to believe that Shell is on their side. read more

Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent: Thu 20 Jun 2019 07.00 BST

The UK’s largest energy companies have withheld support for a legally binding target to reduce the EU’s emissions to net zero by 2050, even while publicly backing the plans. Although BP and Shell have both voiced public support for the Paris commitments, neither backed the EU’s plans for a net zero carbon target by 2050 in their response to an official consultation. The companies’ decision to withhold support for the target has reignited criticism that major polluters are “greenwashing”… read more

Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden speaks at a full year results conference in London on January 31, 2019. – Royal Dutch Shell today said that net profit surged 80 percent to $23.4 billion in 2018, thanks to higher oil prices and cost: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Fifteen years later, peak oil is still talked about by some, but most industry insiders pay it no heed. Instead, over the last few years, the increasingly popular concept has been peak demand. Peak demand is the idea that the demand for oil will reach an apex and then start to decrease, especially as government regulations require more use of alternative energies and as battery-powered machines, like electric vehicles, will presumably become more popular.

Peak demand may or may come to pass—that is not the concern here. What we do know is that if the peak demand idea continues to gain popularity it will lead to a shortage of oil in the coming years and decades. The idea of peak demand threatens the global oil supply because it incentivizes and even excuses oil companies to stop exploring for and producing (E&P) more oil. read more

By David Fickling | Bloomberg: June 5 at 7:03 AM

Greenwashed rhetoric is such a staple of the oil industry that it’s easy to assume every energy executive talking about climate and the transition to a zero-carbon economy is just mouthing words.

Barely a year after BP Plc Chief Executive Officer John Browne promised “action and solutions” on climate change in a 1997 speech, he led the then-biggest oil takeover in history with the acquisition of Amoco Corp. On his retirement a decade later, after years of rebranding about moving “beyond petroleum,” he left a base of oil and gas reserves more than twice the size of the one he inherited. read more