Shell Says Bye-Bye to Wind, Solar, and Hydrogen UPDATED

Shell, one of those companies often accused of greenwashing for promoting renewable energy in their advertisements while spending only 1% of their investments on it, just announced it's getting out of the game altogether.

What does this mean?

Renewable energy still costs too much for businesses to make money.

Even in this era of oil uncertainty, Shell finds the future of renewable energy even less secure.

Scary!

I don't know much about finance and investments and that type of thing, but to me it sounds like a lot of government R&D money is needed to help make renewable energy competitive. We can't hedge our future on oil sands and a continued oil economy, for the sake of our health, quality of life, and the environment.

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Note that the second link is from the Breakthrough Institute blog, from the authors of the same-titled book. Check it out.

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I forgot to mention one of the reasons I originally decided to write this post. In my sustainability class yesterday we talked about the various definitions of greenwashing as well as all the backlash against companies like Clorox and Walmart who have ventured into environmentally friendly products. Many of us discussed how we did not necessarily trust Clorox's Green Works to be as ecofriendly as 7th Generation or Ecover, no matter what they claim. However, apparently the Green Works line is taking market share from other Clorox products, so those people who trust Clorox as a valued name in cleaning have used the Green Works line to venture into more earth-friendly products. I'm sure many of these people would never try an "unknown" brand like 7th Gen. Likewise, thousands of Walmart shoppers would probably never buy organic produce or products had Walmart not introduced them.

The teacher's point of that discussion is that maybe we shouldn't be so quick to judge those companies that are incrementally pursuing green products. Maybe we should applaud them for what they are doing and continually demand more.

That said, what about Shell? I certainly liked to make fun of them for their commercials touting green energy when we all know it's Shell Oil. But based on well-reasoned logic like that of my teacher, I should have applauded their 1% investment. And now they've pulled the rug out, making one wonder if they were ever really serious in the first place. This will probably just make environmentalists' more mad at corporations and less willing to work with them. The news these days is depressing.