…Says transitioning towards renewable power, electric cars
OpeOluwani Akintayo
10 July 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Royal Dutch Shell Plc has said that it would be spending a total of $1 billion a year on its New Energies division.
The company said this on Monday, saying it is transitioning towards renewable power and electric cars.
“In some parts of the world we are beginning to see battery electric cars starting to gain consumer acceptance” while the wind and solar costs are falling fast, Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden said in a speech in Istanbul on Monday while addressing the World Petroleum Congress — a gathering of ministers and CEOs from some of the largest oil producers, according to Bloomberg.
“All of this is good news for the world and must accelerate,” while still offering opportunities for producers of fossil fuels.
Shell said it sees opportunities in hydrogen fuel cells, liquefied natural gas and next-generation biofuels for air travel, shipping and heavy freight — areas of transport for which batteries are not adequate.
According to him, the intermittent nature of the wind and solar energy means power plants fired by natural gas will have a long-term role.
While Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Saudi Arabian Oil Co. boss Amin Nasser said oil and gas will be dominant for decades to come, Van Beurden listed the potential for some of the fastest-growing nations to embrace clean energy mix.
“When you consider the areas of the world where energy demand is still to expand, like Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, there is a huge opportunity,” Van Beurden said. “These are areas that are not, on the whole, locked into a coal-driven system. There is the potential for them to shift more directly onto a less energy-intensive pathway to development.”
According to Beurden, there is often too much focus on energy transition policies in Europe and North America instead of the fast-growing developing world, he said.
“What happens in England is important, but what happens in Ethiopia is at least as important. From Denmark to the DRC, from the U.S. to Uganda, to India, to China, there is a lot of work to do,” he said.
