People Named O'Reilly - Stoop (Stupid)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The head of oil company Chevron Corp said efforts to cut U.S. carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 were unrealistic because so much current energy infrastructure would have to be replaced.

Highlighting the scale of the task, CEO David O'Reilly said making every U.S. vehicle carbon free would only cut out 34 percent of greenhouse gases, while a completely zero-emission power generation system would only eliminate 40 percent.

"We'll be lucky if we can get 20 percent or 25 percent by 2050," O'Reilly said in a largely cordial debate on Wednesday night with Carl Pope, executive director of environmental group Sierra Club. "I hope I'm wrong about it, but I'm just looking at capital stock turnover."

O'Reilly cited the small fraction of hybrid cars on the road, after years of investment, as an indication of how long it would take to change. But Pope, pulling a cell phone out of his pocket, argued technology could drive change faster than people often believed.

Pope, who has held his position at the San Francisco-based environmental group since 1992, pointed to California's reduction of electricity use by half between 1973 and 2003 as an example.

O'Reilly, who has run San Ramon, California-based Chevron for nearly a decade, applauded the achievement, but said the wider transition of heavy industry to other states and countries meant much of the usage had simply moved elsewhere.

"You just can't draw a circle around the state of California and draw that conclusion without looking at the total load," O'Reilly said.

Both men agreed that moving away from coal toward natural gas in power plants would be one of the quickest ways to reduce carbon output, and promised to talk privately about potentially lobbying together in Washington D.C. about a perceived congressional bias toward coal.

Pope was particularly critical of the current climate bill in Congress for not making coal share more of the burden.

"The coal industry sent oil and gas its share of the dinner bill," he said, though he later added that he wanted the bill to move forward through Congress so it could be improved.

In the debate hosted by the Commonwealth Club, a San Francisco-based public affairs forum, both men agreed that a carbon tax was a far simpler way of reducing consumption, with O'Reilly calling the legislation "unnecessarily complex."

"When people see complexity, when they look at what happened in the financial system with all the complexities that developed there, I think they get distrustful," O'Reilly said.

Pope criticized U.S. energy regulation for not forcing utilities to buy more low-carbon electricity.

"Well, if you can get the government to move faster, then good luck," O'Reilly said.

Pope replied, to applause: "It would help if you would get out of the way."

After a brief discussion of a $27 billion pollution case Chevron is fighting in Ecuador, which has received much attention in recent months, a handful of audience members wearing shirts that said 'Chevron's $27 billion secret in Ecuador' stood up in protest.

"It's not a secret," O'Reilly said.

Good one, O'Reilly. Chevron would do right and replace this guy with someone a little more pro-active and educated in the Green Movement.

(Reporting by Braden Reddall; editing by Simon Jessop)

Green Money = Green Jobs = Green Future

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States should pass a comprehensive energy plan to ensure the number of jobs in environmental fields, such as renewable energy and cutting air pollution, will keep rising as they did in the decade to 2007, a Pew report said on Wednesday.

U.S. clean economy jobs grew at rate of 9.1 percent from 1998 to 2007 to 770,385, faster than overall jobs during the decade, said the Pew Charitable Trusts study, which aims to set a baseline to judge how well public policies and investments foster green jobs in the future. In contrast, the traditional energy economy of oil, natural gas, and coal employed about 1.2 million workers in 2007.

"We do believe our report points to trends that show a very promising future for the clean energy economy," Lori Grange, an expert on state policies at the Pew Charitable Trusts, told reporters in a teleconference.

"This sector is poised for explosive growth."

President Barack Obama has said he wants to create millions of "green collar" jobs.

In order to create that work force, more and wider policies are needed, according to the report.

WIDER PLAN

"The (U.S. stimulus bill) has made important investments in spurring economic recovery and protecting the environment," said Phyllis Cuttino, the director of the U.S. global warming campaign at the Pew environment group.

Despite the recession, innovation in the clean economy should continue to rise due to venture capital investments, the cost of fossil fuels, and state and federal policies such as the stimulus bill, the report said.

"But it has to be paired with additional federal policies that support and speed the transition to a clean energy economy. To do so, Congress and the Obama administration must work together to pass comprehensive global warming and energy legislation," Cuttino said.

Obama's stimulus bill included more than $60 billion for clean energy, including $11 billion to modernize the power grid to move energy from renewable energy projects to the cities and $2 billion in grants to develop better batteries for cars.

Obama also supports a comprehensive federal energy plan that would launch a "cap and trade" market on greenhouse gases and national mandates that would force power companies to generate a portion of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar power. An energy bill that would create such a market and mandates is working its way through the House of Representatives, but its future in the Senate is uncertain.

The report showed that states that were early leaders in forming so-called "renewable portfolio standards" that require generation from renewables have also been some of the best in drawing green jobs.

California led the country in the number of clean economy jobs in 2007 with more than 125,000 workers. Texas had nearly 56,000 such workers that year and Pennsylvania had nearly 39,000.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Share Your Greens

Carbon Dioxide (C02) is the known culprit in Global Warming. In case you may not fully understand why this invisible gas is to blame, this article helps to explain it all.