Non-renewable energy: Part 1

GREEN HOME SHOW #36: Non-renewable energy: Part 1 The greening of oil

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The following content is from THE GREAT GREEN HOME SHOW #36.

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The content of the GGHS is solely the responsibility of the ECF and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of WILM, its sponsors or Clear Channel Radio.  Any rebroadcast, reproduction or use of the Great Green Home Show or its contents without written permission from the Green Fox, Paul Hughes, Doug Hunt, Aunt Jean, Brenna Wallace, Brooke Chase, the Watson Brothers, The Snap and the Sin City Band is strictly prohibited.

Introduction – Good Morning !!! Welcome to another edition of the Great Green Home Show... the Delaware Valley’s best… the Delaware Valley’s only weekly “Green Variety Show”.

We have a very interesting show today that will include all of the usual stuff… renewable energy info, sketches, tips, Green News, information on how to reduce your carbon footprint… and today, we have a fantastic guest, Katherine Maroney of Ecos Corp who’s here to talk to us about the Greening of Corporate America and how it affects us all.

As always, we try to bring you the latest green news and the best information available in a format that is entertaining and digestible. Right now, technology and the green trends are changing and evolving so fast that it's nearly impossible to keep up. But we see that as a really good thing and it ensures that there is never a shortage of material to get out to you, our listeners.

We’d really like to thank last week's guest, Charlie Szoradi of Green and Save, who gave us some very sound and economical tips and suggestions on how to reduce your energy consumption and bills around your home, without spending a lot of money. His website greenandsave.com even gives figures on ROI and payback periods... excellent info and an excellent site. But this is not only a great place to go and save money, but you can actually use it as a template to create your own 10 year “Energy Independence” program. We'll talk more about that on future shows.

I’m Doug Hunt and next to me is my co-host, Paul Hughes. Anything new in the Green universe this week?

Paul:Hello everybody happy Sunday morning.... well yes there is always something. Today I have a couple of thoughts that have been researched over many many years. It has been working in the back of my mind … you see I was watching a TV segment last night about women walking for breast cancer. There were wearing pink hats, pink shirts, pink boas, and painted themselves pink in a lot of instances and they were walking 60 miles per breast cancer, amazing women energized for their fallen friends and raising money to combat cancer.

Towards the end of the show they interviewed a crying woman who said she was sure her friend who died of cancer was looking down upon her and although she knew her friend thought she was crazy she knew she was proud of her.

I've seen a lot of these shows and a lot of women/men that have walked many miles in honor of their past friends and to raise money to keep their current friends alive. But something wasn't sitting quite right with me. Something had been brewing in the back of my head for quite a while I had known it and it popped out. So go with me on this one.

I am in awe of these courageous women\men and I am humbled by their efforts, their love for their brothers/sisters, and their perseverance in fighting cancer and many other debilitating and deadly diseases, including: MS., Parkisons, asthma, birth defects, diabetes and obesity (which I believe has a lot to do with the type of foods we are eating not just eating to much).

So here's what I would like to add: although it's great to go out and raise money in honor of our ailing and fallen friends, I think some or most of this effort could be redirected towards the primary causes and exponentially increase the effectiveness of the energy expended by this ever-growing, compassionate army.

I will go as far as to say, that I believe if we took this army of courageous soldiers, male and female, and directed their efforts towards fighting the pollution in our air, water, land, and consequently in what we breathe, what we drink, and what we eat, there would be a lot less walking after the fact. If, instead, we take the same amount of energy and effort and directed it towards the polluters, the people that buy their products, and the legislature, I think the weight and the force of attacking the related causes for cancer and a myriad of other diseases (which are exploding), the effect of pressure at this point might also produce a quantum leap in results.

So keep walking and keep raising funds for those specific causes, but in the back of your minds and maybe now in the forefront, possibly the leaders of these organizations could take half of the walks and half of the money raised and organize with other groups a concerted effort aimed at coal fired power plants without scrubbers, food companies and the FDA who allow some God-awful things to get to our dinner tables, and the legislators who, when they are informed and moved can affect a policy which will have a ripple effect upon the negligence of others for many years to come. Instead of having walks in cities at different times, possibly one large walk, nationally organized and coordinated on the same weekend or day, by all of these groups would be more effective. We need both types of marches... Ok so let’s plug our big effort and we hope you will all bike, walk, carpool, and take mass transportation to get to the________________________________... Doug?

Doug: “Great Green Expo”… March 29th at the Chase Riverfront Center. Green vendors, speakers, auto manufacturers, food, prizes, cool stuff for the kids, fun and interesting stuff for the big people… there’ll be international spies, aliens, bigfoot… the Cowboys cheerleaders… will not be there… but… everyone else needs to attend… that includes you… yes you, sitting in front of the radio and you, the other guy in front of your computer… again, that’s March 29, 2008 at the Chase Riverfront Center… a moral imperative…Before we get started, we need to thank our sponsors… Paul?

Thanks to: CMI Solar Electric... Energy Services Group... Suntrust Mortgage of Christiana... Myecoagent.com and Option Insurance Group. Also, Mark Unruh for the great music… and listen to Scott Birney’s program on WVUD - 91.3 FM on Fridays… Protect us Doug…

Today’s Topic - 4:30 Sponsored by Energy Services Group

The Greening of Black Oil...

In an effort to keep up with what big oil is doing we have been doing some research here and want to bring you some information today. Oil prices are soaring, stocks prices are rising, and with the stock market the way it is a lot of people are looking at oil in the short and long-term as a place for profit. The question is, can investors own oil stocks, and maintain a green conscience and feel good about themselves.

I can’t answer that question, but we can take a look at what some of it... and see what it is doing and point you in the direction and then let you do a little digging. In an effort to help our listeners we are going to list some of the sources that we used in research articles. Of course you can always write us a week and put you in the right direction.

According to Fast Company who did several surveys on a lot of oil companies on a rating scale which included environmental management of their product and facilities, an environmental impact of production, they found this:

It looks like BP petroleum although it is fairly high on the investment in renewable energy category, is still producing 71,000,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year to produce over 960 million barrels of oil aural equivalents including natural gas. However, only two of the top 10 oil companies bettered that rate of 74 tons per thousand barrels. BP has a very large board which includes two women and two minorities and the employee benefits are attractive and petroleum engineers are paid more than industry peers.

So you get the drift on the on the management, fair trade leaning, and the pollution quotient.

BP is managed by a member of the royal family has long been the largest investor in solar and renewable technology. On the comparison scale, it far surpasses the other oil competitors. Although there were refinery explosions in 2005 and two large oil spills, without reading and regurgitating the other companies specs, I agree with Fast Company placing them at the top of the list as the least offensive of the oil companies.

That's how I like to put it. So let me just list and give some of the reasons that I found... we could go into more detail, but if you catch fire... you can dig deeper. If you are going to invest in oil stocks which try to invest in the ones where they are going to at least invest a portion of their profits in renewables.

As of yet, the industry as a whole invests less than 1% of their profits in renewable energy research. That's an amazing and alarming statistic. I think we need to ask ourselves, what are the oil companies going to do with all of the profits as oil prices soar and record profits are reached every year if not invest in other forms of renewable energy. I don't feel like buying hydrogen for the next 40 years at a higher price every year.

Best Bets:
  1. BP petroleum: for the reasons mentioned above
  2. Royal Dutch Shell: they're already trading carbon offsetting
  3. Chevron/US: tapping geothermal energy, however not looking very well on the international fair trade front.
  4. Marathon Oil / US: this is a tough one because of its recent involvement in expanding ethanol capacity... mostly from corn.
  5. Conoco Philips: one of the only members of the US climate action partnership
  6. Total / France; they sell alternative fuels at the pumps in France

I've been to meetings with Conoco Philips that they're putting on as they go around the country, and I was impressed with their effort to educate the public, but at this point it looks more like an “answer hunt”, to kind of feel out what the consumers are going to want in the future. I don't blame the oil companies for trying to figure out what the next phase is and not gamble their money until they know which energy source will be the energy source of the future. I think this is one of the reasons that they’re holding back their money from research at this point.

It looks like most of the companies are taking their profits and buying back their own stocks and investing in themselves at this moment. This, of course, should be a clear signal that we are either at peak oil or passing it.

Of course we recommend investment in renewable energy sources such as: solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal and non-agro based bio-fuels.

If you are an oil stock investor and you want to take advantage of these stocks, at this somewhat of an unstable point of our country's economy, then take a look at their environmental performance for investing. This public service announcement is brought to you by the environmental communication foundation and has been given the green Fox seal of approval. Good luck and as we are not recommending anyone in particular I think with a couple hours of research you can figure out which ones are starting to invest in renewable energy sources and are becoming more responsible stewards of the planet as they plan the future of their corporation. Good luck to both the investors and the oil companies and their upcoming transition.

Sources: Fortune 2.0, World Rainforest Movement reports, European Research magazine, Earthwatch Institute Reports and Lester Browns Plan 2.0, to name a few good sources.We’ll be right back...

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