Charlie Rose

SharkswithfrikingLazers  04/10/2013 04:46 PM Report

Exxon's Disaster Relief

Exxon tries to put the Pegasus pipeline oil back underground where it came from and employs a time-honored cleanup technique pioneered by drunk guys. (03:02)

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/425286/april-09-2013/exxon-s-disaster-relief

(Stephen Colbert is funny!)

SharkswithfrikingLazers  04/07/2013 06:01 PM Report

Rex, no bueno my friend:

Local guy Drew Barnes who lives in an evacuated house: http://youtu.be/ECKYz00aouo

Neighbor video Of Clean-up Crew (Exxon-Mobil?): http://youtu.be/HsXsC32X-DA

CNN Video: http://youtu.be/BvK85r7x_3E

vongleichent  04/06/2013 11:10 AM Report

BP stands for Broken Pipe.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  04/06/2013 02:41 AM Report

Charlie, CEO pay--when does it finally become robbery?

CHART OF CEO PAY vs WORKER PAY vs S&P INCREASE:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/Users/cunninghamlg/CEOvsWORKERcomp.jpg?uuid=DvkH0JuIEeGew k3kPCNo5A

(How do we get our money out of a S&P 500 mutual fund and into a CEO pay mutual fund?

By the way, JC Penny cut their CEO's pay by 96%. He is down to $1.5M. Hard to live on huh Charlie--eight million dollar man.)

SharkswithfrikingLazers  04/06/2013 02:27 AM Report

We are seeing a vicious cycle in which rising oil prices drive up the cost of food, which triggers political disorder in the oil-producing countries, which in turn pushes oil to still higher prices, propelling food costs even higher, and so forth—with no end in sight.

In 2007–08 the prices of oil and food reached record levels and helped fuel the Great Recession.

Between July 2007 and June 2008, crude oil rose from $75 per barrel to $140, an increase of 87 percent; during the same period, basic food prices also shot up, from about $160 to $225 on the “Food Price Index” (with $100 representing the average cost of the same staples in 2002–04) calculated by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

That the price of oil and food rose in tandem at this time is hardly surprising, the World Bank concluded in 2009, as “agricultural production is fairly energy intensive.” Rising oil prices “raised the price of fuels to power machinery and irrigation systems; it also raised the price of fertilizer and other chemicals that are energy intensive to produce.”

OIL PRICE=FOOD PRICE. FOOD PRICE=POLITICAL STABILITY.

charliesheep  03/31/2013 12:01 PM Report

FLASH--; THOUSANDS OF GALLONS OF "STORED" OIL SPILLED INTO WATER SUB-STRAKE-AQUAFER, OUT OF THE[PROTECTION] COFFER DAMNS--IN ARKANSAS; THIS EASTER-- WHAT THEY[OIL] WORSHIP, YOU DRINK "GOD " BLESS'S THEM FIRST LAST AND TILL THEIR MONEY STREAM RUNS DRY

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/27/2013 05:09 PM Report

NASA ON CLIMATE CHANGE: http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

ExxonSecrets.org documenting Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change skeptics: http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=631

NASA QUOTE:

In its recently released Fourth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there's a more than 90 percent probability that human activities over the past 250 years have warmed our planet.

The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 379 parts per million in the last 150 years. The panel also concluded there's a better than 90 percent probability that human-produced greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have caused much of the observed increase in Earth's temperatures over the past 50 years.

They said the rate of increase in global warming due to these gases is very likely to be unprecedented within the past 10,000 years or more. The panel's full Summary for Policymakers report is online at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/20/2013 02:26 AM Report

IRAQ!

Here is the agreement from last April:

http://www.c-span.org/Events/US-Deputy-Energy-Secretary-and-Iraq-Deputy-Prime-Minister-Discuss-Energy -Agreement/10737430106/

Looks like oil production is increasing 10% a year in Iraq. So why aren't prices going down 10% a year?

Forecast of going to 10M barrels a day in 6 years from 3M barrels.

Signed 12 contracts for 12 oil fields and 3 gas fields which could be 12M barrels a day (even more).

Exxon-Mobil got a huge field in southern Iraq. However, there is a big fight with the Kurds:

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/02/baghdad-iraqi-kurdistan-oil-dispute.html

If this is plunder then why is gasoline still so high? Iran sanctions? Market/Enron like manipulation?

Too much treasure and blood in Iraq: http://costsofwar.org.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/16/2013 06:28 PM Report

Rex and then four days later we hear from Jeremy Grantham.

Each should watch the other for their own sakes and our sakes.

SAKES ALIVE CHARLIE!!!! Those two interviews were great.

charliesheep  03/14/2013 06:04 PM Report

IT WAS CALLED; HUMBLE OIL; WHEN[1950'S] A MECHANICAL ENGINEER MAN NAMED, MR.FISH HAD A CARBURATOR THAT YEILDED 100 M.P.GALLON--THE PATENT RIGHTS WERE[IMMEDIATELY] BOUGHT AT HIS PRICE,--- BY THAT OIL COMPANY--- WHO SUPPRESSED THE USE OF BETTER MILEAGE-DEVICES! HMMM?

michaellaurie  03/14/2013 09:59 AM Report

Charlie,

You are the best interviewer in America and I watch many of your interviews with interest and learn a lot. But I was very disappointed with this one.

Scientists around the world tell us that the window of opportunity for avoiding catastrophic climate change is rapidly closing. And you have someone like Mr. Tillerson acting like we have many decades to start the transition.

We don't.

I am also disapointed that you did not challenge him more. Look at David Brooks recent article on energy. Even a conervative like him gets that climate change has to play a major role in our energy decisions today not 30 years from now.

I strongly encourage you to bring Amory Lovins on to get another perspective, one that potects the future and how much of the energy transition can be done with investments that will be good for the country, job creation, and financial returns.

Time is running short on America getting this energy picture right. Please play a bigger role in helping us get it right.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/14/2013 02:04 AM Report

$25.2 million (2011) in salary vs Obama at $400K.

Nothing really compared to Lee Raymond who had the job previously.

On April 14, 2006, it was reported that Raymond's retirement package was worth about $400 million, the largest in history for a U.S. public company.

Black GOLD.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/14/2013 01:52 AM Report

$150 to $175 a barrel for oil?

Rex says he would never subscribed that it would go to this level unless something happens like Saudi Arabia is off the map.

Yes, but at what level does food become too expensive for those making a few dollars a day and we have another Arab Spring/Revolution?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/14/2013 01:47 AM Report

The U.S. exported more gasoline, diesel and other fuels than it imported in 2011 for the first time since 1949, the Energy Department said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-29/u-s-was-net-oil-product-exporter-in-2011.html

It appears Rex that it is sooner than 2020 be it your security or Charlie's independence.

Yes, reliability remains critical.

Affordability, need lots of work here Rex.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/14/2013 01:40 AM Report

Rex tells us,

Natural Gas: shift about a decade ago, Qatar and LNG, pioneered by independents in America but small amounts, will be the fastest growing energy source over the next 30 years, lower emissions, abundance, affordability, higher efficiencies, thermal efficiencies, transformational horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing for gas and tight oil.

Yes Rex, but clean water first. More research please.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/14/2013 01:16 AM Report

Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, D. C. Baum Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, whose research has involved fracture mechanics for more than 30 years, has said that drilling and hydraulic fracturing can liberate biogenic natural gas into a fresh water aquifer.

That is, just because gas is biogenic does not necessarily indicate that it reached a well by natural means.[15] (SHAKE AND BAKE.)

This YouTube video will help: http://youtu.be/exazFKY51ss

Change the pressure profile or equilibrium state underground and risk causing a fault. Fracking fluid is a lubricating fluid by nature so lubricate a fault and let it slip and get hundreds of little earthquakes. Not only the process Rex.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/14/2013 01:11 AM Report

Yes Rex, hydraulic fracturing in the United States has been used for over 60 years, and over a million wells have been hydraulic fractured over that time.[1]

No Rex, it is not benign and environmental safety and health concerns about hydraulic fracturing emerged in the 1980s, and are still being debated at the state and federal levels.[1][2]

You can get this movie at the library or buy it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Gasland-Josh-Fox/dp/B0042EJD8A

Watch the bonus features--the interviews with the Scientists--especially concerning the mini-earthquakes shaking the ground and perhaps shaking gas at higher levels into drinking water.

Rex, you are very naughty in your "no documented case", "million data points" nonsense.

When you say Rex, 'If there were a problem state regulators would be all over this' you must have forgotten about the EPA getting involved because the state regulators were not doing their job.

"The E.P.A. has taken strong stands in some places, like Texas, where in December (2010) it overrode state regulators and intervened after a local driller was suspected of water contamination."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/04gas.html?pagewanted=all

Of course, Dick Cheney was the mole. "In 2005 Congress—at the behest of then Vice President Dick Cheney, a former CEO of gas driller Halliburton—exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=safety-first-fracking-second

Fracking should NOT be exempt from protection by clean water regulations don't you think Rex?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 10:00 PM Report

Yes, PEAK OIL . . . Rex tells us you think you know the size of the container but technology keeps enlarging the container.

And the cost of this technology is reflected where exactly?

How about $100 a barrel oil? (Remember when Bill Clinton had an average of $15 a barrel oil during his terms to help him create a surplus?)

Perhaps watch this documentary:

http://youtu.be/Q3uvzcY2Xug

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Suburbia

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 09:50 PM Report

Rex tells us, “We have always said that it is important that we pursue all forms of energy because we are a technology based company and we believe in technology.”

Nope.

Someone needs to review the ol' annual reports about not wasting money on things that are not profitable--especially alternative energy sources.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 09:44 PM Report

So we look out to 2040 and Rex tells us 80% of the world energy needs will continue to come from oil, natural gas and coal.

However, he also tells us it takes 100 years or more for new energy source to penetrate: coal replaced trees and oil replaced coal.

Until the mid-1950s coal was still the world's foremost fuel, but after this time oil quickly took over.

So oil should still the major energy source until around 2050 if he is correct. Except now we have China, Climate Change and huge technology changes.

Charlie, you might have asked him if oil is a zero sum game--especially with China's thirst.

Also, the same advances in technology he is using to find oil at 10K feet in the ocean, in the Arctic and in shale are the same advances that might further the other forms of energy. Perhaps like this TED video on special batteries:

http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy.html

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 09:00 PM Report

Yes Charlie, our Mr. Coll . . .

There are accounts of employee kidnappings, and tick-tock financial reporting about events like Exxon’s 1999 merger with Mobil.

The company, Mr. Coll writes, is “a corporate state within the American state” (about 3% of our GDP and sales bigger than many countries' GDPs) and “one of the most powerful businesses ever produced by American capitalism.”

Some employees call its ominous headquarters near Dallas the Death Star. Little light, or information, leaks from the Death Star. The company wields “a corporate system of secrecy, nondisclosure agreements and internal security,” Mr. Coll writes, “that matched some of the most compartmented black boxes of the world’s intelligence agencies.” Exxon Mobil’s media strategy, an in-house joke declares, is learning to say “no comment” in 50 different languages.

At length Mr. Coll dilates on the “resource curse,” a phrase for the way that finding oil reserves can make some poor countries go backward instead of forward, like lottery winners on an unhinged binge.

(With a 51% stake in the oil of a poor country XOM can (and does) run the country. Why then aren't these countries flourishing with middle class voters? Yo ho ho it's a pirates life for me.)

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 08:47 PM Report

“I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.,” Mr. Raymond once declared.

(Interesting contrast of CEOs huh Charlie?)

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 08:40 PM Report

Yes Charlie,

As President George W. Bush said to the prime minister of India in 2001, “Nobody tells those guys what to do.”

Rex tells us, “Any steps we take to develop new resources to promote trade and relationships to promote stability in countries from a socio-economic, geopolitical perspective is all in the US national interest.”

(Don't understate your power Rex.)

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 08:32 PM Report

Lee Raymond PhD in Chemical Engineering, the guy who had Rex's job @34:00: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/663

“The data supports the notion that the earth is gradually warming.” “The climate has changed every year for millions of years, sunspots, wobble of the earth. Times when there was no ice on the earth. Is part of what is happening related to something other than natural variability? The House of Lords say the data is not clear that human activity produces global warming."

“If Lee Raymond is wrong we have lost 10 years in doing something with Global Warming.” That was said by you Charlie Rose over seven years ago.

So we hope for the best and only plan for the best and the clock keeps ticking.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 02:24 AM Report

"No scientific body of national or international standing maintains a formal opinion dissenting from any of these three main points; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.[10][11] Some other organizations, primarily those focusing on geology, also hold non-committal positions."

Charlie, did you smell alcohol or the sticky icky?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

The main conclusions of the IPCC Working Group I on global warming were the following:

1) The global average surface temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 °C since the late 19th century, and 0.17 °C per decade in the last 30 years.[6]

2) "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities", in particular emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.[7]

3) If greenhouse gas emissions continue the warming will also continue, with temperatures projected to increase by 1.4 °C to 5.8 °C between 1990 and 2100. Accompanying this temperature increase will be increases in some types of extreme weather and a projected sea level rise.[8] From IPCC Working Group II: On balance the impacts of global warming will be significantly negative, especially for larger values of warming.[9]

Charlie, let's say you start taking steroids. You hit a home run. Is it the steroids? Probably not after just one home run. Say you hit 763 home runs. Now is it the steroids?

Well according to Rex we are only looking at one thing--steroids. We need to look at wind speed, the pitchers you faced, the home advantage, the pitch on the bat, the moisture content of the air, and on and on for over 30 variables.

Does this guy drill wells knowing all the variables and having a perfect model?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 01:51 AM Report

Indeed, U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions in early 2012 lowest since 1992:

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7350

Get off coal and on natural gas.

Get off gasoline and on natural gas (T. Boone Pickens' plan).

Ride the climate change wave of warmer winters and less heating oil burned.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/13/2013 01:34 AM Report

Charlie, your question fell short. You said oil prices have risen dramatically at the pump. He took it as gas prices and went through the typical song and dance about maintenance (remember Enron and California) and summer blends.

THIS IS A KEY ECONOMIC QUESTION.

"All but one of the 11 postwar recessions were associated with an increase in the price of oil, the single exception being the recession of 1960. Likewise, all but one of the 12 oil price episodes listed in Table 1 were accompanied by U.S. recessions, the single exception being the 2003 oil price increase associated with the Venezuelan unrest

and second Persian Gulf War."

http://dss.ucsd.edu/~jhamilto/oil_history.pdf

Please look at this chart http://www.theoildrum.com/files/us-crude-oil-prices-in-2012-dollars.png.

Now please remember what Jeff Immelt told you Charlie about the power of the price of a barrel of oil.

AWENSHOK  03/12/2013 10:38 AM Report

When this subsidy sucking oil parasite came out against tax and investment incentives for alternate fuel sources, it was typical of the self-deluding right-wing. NO single industry has demanded, gotten and profited more handsomely from government support and taxpayer contribution than the fossil fuel industry. Hilarious to listen to this 'job'creatin' law-breakin', money slurping, teeth sucking Texan say in one minute that alternative renewable fuel sources will never be more than 1% energy producers and in the next to argue for allowing them to fail. What a phoney -- like most in Houston.

acpsrhp  03/11/2013 11:54 PM Report

So disappointed. This was a horrible show. This selfish rich man should not have been given a soapbox to espouse his oil and gas are good and the earth be damned. And you dind't even challenge him. That's what is upsetting. I expect more and better. A few weeks ago, you were almost mean in challenging Maggie Smith ... but this guy, you seemed to worship! Ugh.

barock  03/11/2013 11:11 AM Report

Would you consider having someone with a different perspective on renewable energy on for equal time? Here is a link to a Yale 360 article on Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Thanks http://e360.yale.edu/feature/amory_lovins_clean_energy_guru_presents_his_master_plan/2496/

WPAJudy  03/11/2013 10:12 AM Report

Charlie, please discuss this important subject with the scientists who have done extensive research on natural gas and fracking: Dr. Theo Colburn, founder and president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange in Paonia, Colorado, www.endocrinedistruption.com and Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, civil and environmental engineering at Cornell University, www.cornell.edu You will get the straight scoop from them.

LewPringle  03/11/2013 10:09 AM Report

I thought your interview of Mr. Rex Tillerson was superb. I know a little something about the issues you and he covered. He was correct and informative on all points. I note further that one of your commentators described him as 'pure evil. This is a superbly revealing statement of where we are at the moment. To react in that way to such a man, saying what he said, is quite simply madness. Mr. Tillerson accurately described empirical fact as well as current scientific and engineering consensus. The points he made are, in general, not open to debate. To express disagreement is to admit error. To do so a la avellanus is to reveal an emotional illness.

Mr Tillerson is to be commended for his answers and YOU ......... for your questions.

Lew Pringle

avellanas  03/11/2013 08:42 AM Report

The look and sound of pure evil.

Gelles  03/11/2013 04:16 AM Report

The Wikipedia account of algae based methods to replace fossil fuels (natural gas, oil and coal) currently predicts such replacement will take 20 or more years.

..... Government paid-for crash programs are not included.

..... GP-FCPrograms for solar, wind, fail-safe atomic, and similar FF replacement projects, are also not included in this Rex Tillerson interview.

All in all the opinions of Rex Tillerson appear to be at odds with the best outcomes for the United States relative to the future of our environment and our responsibility to defend democracy as an accepted fact.

If the legendary Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin or Teddy Roosevelt were available to replace Tillerson, no one in their right mind would bother with Rex.

Yet Tillerson has the job. His associate's inside his corporation, industry, and national power structure, all seem satisfied with his policies and his personality. And what we write in this archive has less than NO-effect on the future of this country or this planet. The fact that any of us is alive or that the Internet invites progress is not significant on account of our own mind sets and those of billions of others.

We write to hear ourselves think. We think because we are a thinking social animal. And we fail because it is our habit, fate and destiny.

What do I imply? I imply it could be different. We needed aviation fuel we did not have when our fate hung in the balance in 1942. Better men than we are, made sure failure was defeated and civilization marched forward so that today we have the option not to fail this time.

izaworwag  03/10/2013 08:03 PM Report

Did you hear him talking about algae as a future fuel? Now his strategy of changing planet 's atmosphere and temperatures is explained - it supports grow of algae. - next ExxonMobil 's investment. That is why we cannot expect any new sources of energy implemented until this powerful oil company (bdw -no wonder why his name is Rex) will be done with profiting on oil. He said it will take some 40 years until they start with algae.

AnnR  03/10/2013 07:29 PM Report

Certainly a very interesting interview. Many of his comments were to be expected from an oil and gas executive. I hoped his support for promoting the growing role of natural gas would have included an understanding of the need for better regulations. His comments that environmental concerns were misplaced and that state regulators will protect water supplies reflects the power of his company and the oil and gas industry. They write the regulations that the state and federal agencies enforce.

Gelles  03/10/2013 05:44 PM Report

There are several people who post on this archive whose position on avoiding permanent damage to the environment our children will inherit is to minimize the risk of permanent damage ahead of any clear proof that such damage is in the offing.

These people would like take out insurance NOW and not wait until the barn burns down.

These would be INSURERS need to cooperate with each other to add to this archives FORUM another forum where they can plan and execute some effective action.

HuckFairman  03/10/2013 03:08 PM Report

While Mr. Tillerson sounded quite reasonable on some aspects of the need to change fuels, from fossil to

renewables, he got away with a number of errors or self-serving interpretations, and we were disappointed

that you did not question him on them.

Among the points that stood out:

- he claimed that there is no way to give up fossil fuels, particularly oil and coal, over the next forty years, given the dependency,

but the vast majority of scientists worldwide agree that we have 5 to 10 years to change away from them

or unpredictable feedback loops (global heating drawing methane out of the permafrost and oceans, etc.)

will carry us beyond any human ability to control climate. Moreover, a recent NY Times report noted

that Spain's wind power provided more of the country's energy needs than all other sources.

A number of Western European nations are approaching reaching 30% of their energy needs coming

from renewable. Tillerson's 1% is a sad understatement, and a dangerous one.

- he claimed that there are too many variables to know what will happen to the climate , but our American Climatological

Association ( of climate scientists) have found that their predictions, based on modeling, have not

only come true but that changes are occurring sooner than their predictions.

- he says that he has seen no link between wild weather and global warming, despite the testimony and

scientific reports that establish links - not to every storm, but to the world wide pattern of extreme

weather. He is apparently unaware that warmer sea temperatures transfer greater energy to the

atmosphere and its storms

- he seems unconcerned that half of all counties in the USA last year and this year are in drought

conditions ... and drought has ravaged, Australia, the Amazon, Russia, Africa

In short, he made a number of scientifically unsubstantiated points. For those interested, visit the

American Meteorological Society website, or Climate Central's site ( a research org. in Princeton, NJ)

or any number of other research organizations to hear the facts.

The vast majority of scientists believe that this climate change, this global warming, is the greatest

threat to civilization as we have known it. A World Bank economist warned that the cost of global

warming, if not restrained,will be bigger than the complete collapse of all western economies. There

will be few customers and shareholders for Mr. Tillerson to worry about.

This is serious. It is important that we all understand the climate predictions that science is arriving at.

Huck Fairman

WPAJudy  03/10/2013 01:41 PM Report

I watched Mr Tillerson expound on his own reality until Charlie asked him about fracking and the concerns about violations and pollution of ground water etc and Mr. Tillerson said if that were the case, state authorities would be all over them. Well, in my state, the authorities are being found to be incredibly connected to the natural gas industry as indicated in this recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/state/frackings-revolving-door-draws-a-warning-678701/. Those of us who have concerns over the fracking process long ago lost any faith in our state governor, many of our representatives and DEP. We have also come to believe nothing we hear from the industry.The gas industry has very deep pockets and definitely its own reality.

Max83  03/10/2013 01:33 AM Report

A Must Watch for all true American Patriots!

A fantastic analysis of the current state of affairs, both foreign and domestic. Lecture was held at Cornell University.

''Political economist Lord Robert Skidelsky warns about free markets''

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sle53C96ZU

'' Published on Apr 27, 2012

Lord Robert Skidelsky of the University of Warwick delivered his first lecture as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large on April 18, 2012. The talk, 'The Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on the Future of International Relations,' was given as part of the Einaudi Center's Foreign Policy Distinguished Speaker Series.''

goclimb511  03/09/2013 02:38 PM Report

I believe Rex Tillerson indicated use of renewable energy is growing at about 800% a year, but that renewable energy would only account for 1% of our energy consumption by 2040. I assume he is talking about the US. This doesn't make sense logically and I believe Rex has some bias in his statement. The US Energy Information Administration issued a report on 12/5/2012 indicating “the use of renewable energy in the United States as a percentage of total energy use will grow from 13% in 2011 to 16% in 2040”. See: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=18834http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news _detail.cfm/news_id=18834

Gelles  03/09/2013 09:21 AM Report

Tonight I tried to focus on COMPETITIVENESS (and Michael Porter,) POLICY (from a Brain Science perspective) and the FUEL business (and Rex Tillerson,) because Charlie Rose forced me to on TV and the Internet.

What these three have in common is the contest between BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG BUSINESS, and BIG MONEY, to organize, control and command nations, peoples and the whole planet to serve the interest, NOT of the poor and victimized, but of people like Porter, Kandel, and Tillerson, who have succeeded in their struggle to compete with peers and win the political-economic battles which they joined decades back to make a living and even more than that if possible.

All three were well versed in their professional fields of knowledge. All three acknowledged the American people were at risk to lose or gain from where they are to where they will be in decades, even centuries from NOW.

We are not that great NOW, when we measure median and minimum wealth, and wisdom and morality, of this nation -- in comparison with what they could be if we were all trying to serve the public interest ahead of narrower interests that have dominated us in the past.

Yes, this is a complaint, that Porter, Kandel and Tillerson, and Rose and authors of these comments, have not helped each other embrace the immediate change we so desperately need.

"And what might that be?", you say, to my complaint.

..... ..... I say it is to reduce the risks of climate change and sweat-shop competition we are so wedded to from force of habit; and invest in GREEN and DO-GOOD reform of all things less than perfect to end unemployment over night and poverty tomorrow.

Tillerson represents corporate oligopoly and all the sins that brought them the power to defeat real people. Porter represents strategic thought in search, perhaps, of the same objectives I have: (I am much at fault for not having discovered enough of these goals as is my duty). Kandel, it seems to me is nigh on perfect as he is. It is policy he's seeking and science that he serves. I cannot ask for more. I am certain the policy he wants includes obedience to the Golden Rule and acceptance of pragmatism over dogmatism and doing good over doing evil. If outcomes need improvement -- that is just the fact.

The presentation by guests of Rose and Kandel which included the brain power of the very young, before their sixth year, was exciting to learn of and imagine as a source of immense future power to solve intractable problems.

I conclude that we have given too much money to big oil and big finance. They have not the skill manage risk and have proved that in the pollution they created and the highways they've constructed more for profit and for safer travel.

And we have given too little money for the care and growth of the tender young. Each deserves an inheritance great enough to ensure we do not lose genius to gain acceptance by masses of customers for the shoddiest of products because we had no standards for the care and education of our infants of which Franklin and Lincoln, were they alive today, might approve.

Sugarland  03/08/2013 09:40 PM Report

Mr Tillerson describes the role of Exxon as a risk manager. This is for investment in oil and gas projects of long duration (20 yrs) and requiring tens of $Billions. The company has the characteristics of a merchant bank. Managed risks are commercial (cost overruns, deficiencies in equipment, interruption of raw materials, reduced demand for product, fluctuation in exchange rates etc) and political (country specific). A large technical force is employed to monitor the technology available and evaluate the technical risks of any new innovations. Due to the large sums involved, management of the technical risk requires it to be held near zero. Studies show it takes an average of 15 years to implement an incremental technical innovation in the oil & gas business and it can be as long as 25 years.

Mr Tillerson made it clear that developing new technology is not their business. He wants government to do basic research followed by, as in the case of shale gas, someone else to be a first adopter and establish the “materiality” of the technology. Exxon would then step in to finance and monetize the deployment of the technology. That is where the big money is made. The high research and even higher first adopter risks are born by others. These others generally have little or no equity in the deployment.

Solar, wind, bio are just fine with Exxon. Just bring them a fully developed competitive technology and they will monetize it. Thank you very much.

If Exxon will not call themselves an “energy company” and develop technology from scratch then the idea that government should tax them and use the proceeds to do it for them and others could make sense.

finalfantasytown  03/08/2013 09:34 PM Report

When watching Saint seiya 'the lost canvas' episode 5, I understand the rose incense.

finalfantasytown  03/08/2013 09:08 PM Report

When sb. who is genius comes to you, how do you think about it? Is it a gift or trap from God. How do Prometheus and Epimetheus think about it? Why in Pandora's jar there is only hope not being released for Epimetheus? Come with me.

jackwilco  03/08/2013 07:43 PM Report

Now that we have ExxonMobil's plea to cut incentives and credits to alternative energy suppliers, what about the massive credits, incentives and sweetheart leases oil, gas and coal continue to enjoy that hide the true cost of their product, notwithstanding the huge environmental costs. Rex T. (or is it T. Rex), made one honest statement when he said making money was his primary goal. All programs that help us convert to low/no carbon energy are being threatened by the efforts of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group funded by powerful fossil fuel interests including ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers. Please interview Kevin Knobloch, President of the Union of Concerned Scientists to get a science driven take on the viability and desirability of Wind, Solar, Hydro, Geothermal, Conservation and other alternatives to fossil fuel. If not Kevin, perhaps someone he recommends.

margaretw  03/08/2013 06:07 PM Report

What scares these guys about renewable energy sources is that the best way to collect it is to diversify. In areas with a lot of wind, build local wind generating power, in places with a lot of sun, homes and businesses supplement the grid with solar panels, near the coast, tidal generated energy and the list goes on and on - hydro, thermal energy, bio fuel. Corporations like Exxon Mobile don't want communities to have their own energy supply because it will cut into their monopoly. Belittling the environmentalists, talking earnestly about the viability of shale and chuckling like a kindly uncle at the efforts of renewable energy and environmentalists is a way of making these huge multinational energy companies appear nonthreatening and their opposition as childish.

charliesheep  03/08/2013 05:23 PM Report

GLOBAL WARMING; IS THE OVERABUNDANCE METHANE, COMING FROM THAT GASEOUS BALL OF LIES, THAT POSES AS EXXON CEO- ONE FACT REMAINS THEY ARE POLLUTERS- LIARS OF THE "FIRST" MAGNITUDE! "W" TOGETHER WITH; BAND OF FOOLS, HAVE DRANK THE KOOL-AID-I.E. REPUBLICANS -FOSSIL FUEL OF A DIFFERENT STRIPE TO BE SURE-KOCH BROS-ROVIANS-NORQUIST FOOLS-! ARE THE LEMMINGS, DRAINING THE WORLD OF ITS LAST DROP OF WHATEVER-!SO, HOLD ON THE RIDE FOR EXXON IS STILL ON AND THE CUSTOMERS ARE "CHUM" IN THEIR PIPELINE

! CHEANEY AND BUSH SHOULD TAKE TILLERSON ON "GOOSE" HUNT IN SOUTH TEXAS AND SEE WHO GET GOOSED FIRST!

Ellen_Dibble  03/08/2013 02:59 PM Report

As a disclaimer, this hour was way over my head. However: I thought I heard Tillerson object to government incentives for the new energies -- solar, wind, geothermal, and so on -- saying the incentives make the initial efforts noncompetitive. That was what I think I heard. Yet if I understood, Exxon Mobil sees those as the next-generation energies, after natural gas, and I think Exxon -- from its ads, and even from this interview -- means to take the lead in that generation as well. (The word "monopoly" comes to mind.) If you balance the resources of, say, a 20-year-old new-generation "Bill Gates" against those of Exxon-Mobil, do the 8 billion humans stand a fair chance? China might be able to mobilize that "next generation" fuel faster, and might need to, if they don't have the same petroleum resources as North America.

Maybe I missed it, but it seems other countries, not the USA, will have to take the lead, if he's the standard for USA energy industries, or for oil corporations globally. "We're busy with natural gas, thank you very much."

I'd have to know a whole lot more science to understand the point that there are "thirty other factors" that could be causing the environmental effects we call global warming, species die-off, etc., etc. If our petroleum resources are so much greater and so much more available than was predicated a decade ago, then the idea that we will toast the planet but not totally char it black goes by the boards. And global energy industries will all the more likely have to be either part of the solution or the number one self-inflicted victims, or perpetrators, or both.

I also hear that if the water supply were damaged by hydraulic fracturing, there would be at least one damaged property or individual who would have come to someone's attention, and that there are some tens of thousands of longstanding examples without complaints, I think I heard. (If I were an oil executive, it would not amuse me in my free time to read about environmental illness, nor would I want the government to fund research into anything like that; if health care is getting more expensive, that's all to the profitability of other businesses, I would be thinking.)

In any case, if the USA is surpassing other petroleum-producing countries, I suppose the prosperity of Africa and the Middle East could be threatened, or at least the prosperity of certain dictators there. Is this good, is this bad?

In the Cold War, the colossus of the USA and the colossus of the USSR threatened a kind of global nuclear Armageddon if the gridlock/peace were fractured; now it seems there could be a kind of global petro gridlock of the same two regions, North America and north Asia, with not nuclear winter but global environmental degradation being the deterrent -- the far less obvious mutual deterrent.

Or actually, these fuels aren't deterring anything. People welcome it as the New Prosperity. The theory seems to be, If we don't ruin ourselves, someone else will do it for us. (That is probably completely true, at this time.)

bigldmix  03/08/2013 02:52 PM Report

I felt that Mr. Tillerman had a definite boas in his oppions, which was to be expected. But he looked at wind power as a new industry. At last recollection it out dates the oil and NG industry by several hundred years. And if efficiencies are promoted by performance with out artificial props such as tax breaks and grant moneys and other forms of business welfare? I ask just what has Exxon, Mobile and the other big oil companies been doing with the billions they have all received over the years from the government? All of the pollitics that are presently involved in the energy industry are all greatly influenced directly by big oil to there favor and to the detriment of the new arrising alternative industries. Even to the point of causing endangering national security and the national economy. The Government needs to think along the line of good business and old fashioned common sense that you put all your eggs in one basket. This would also serve to bring overall national health and strength buy not keeping everyone dependent on the wims of the world markets and declines in a dependence on one singular sorce of energy. All world economies are energy driven and in the place the US stands now energy threatened and hindered. There is only one answer to all of this and that obvious answer is to support alternative energy as oil has been supported all through the rise of the oil industry from its first wells in Pennsylvania to present. Stop letting oil and coal call all the shots because they have a chokehold on the country because of lack of alternatives. We need to promote the alternatives and end their monopoly on the economy and energy industry.