Why it matters:

Chevron has been unabashedly gouging its hungry talons into the Earth in pursuit of profit for decades. Now, in a ghoulish twist, Chevron invests in a solar company that doesn’t create solar energy to use, but helps Chevron pump more oil, faster.

Recap:

Chevron recently invested heavily in a solar energy company called BrightSource. Quoting the NY Times article:

Chevron is an investor in BrightSource, a solar power plant builder based in Oakland, Calif., and solar-powered oil extraction offers the oil giant an opportunity to reduce its carbon footprint while gaining a hedge against volatile natural gas prices.

“It’s potentially a very lucrative market for us,” said Keely Wachs, BrightSource’s senior director of corporate communications.

Commentary:

From the looks of it, Chevron’s venture into sustainable energy may do more to diminish the hopes of a cleaner world then it does to promote it. A clean tech investment born more from economic philandering then economic or environmental necessity yet again proves Chevron’s continued desire to extract and produce every last drop of oil.

Reuters reported that the site would be operational by 2010. This development means two things:

1) Chevron has ingloriously harnessed solar power to do exactly what it does best, at the continued peril of our planet;

2) Chevron will be producing petroleum in a more efficient way then before and will be able to get a tax credit from the government for doing so. An odd twist of fate for a government that has staunchly advocated the development of sustainable energy.

Van Jones predicted this sort of behavior earlier this year when he said:

“”[If] All we do is take out the dirty power system, the dirty power generation in a system and just replace it with some clean stuff, put a solar panel on top of this system. We don’t deal with how we are consuming water, we don’t deal with how we’re treating our other sister and other brother’ species, we don’t deal with toxins, we don’t deal with the way we treat each other, if that’s not a part of this movement, let me tell you what you’ll have. This is all you’ll have. You’ll have solar powered bulldozers, solar powered buzz saws, and biofuel bombers and we’ll be fighting wars over lithium for the batteries instead of oil for the engines and we’ll still have a dead planet. This movement is deeper than a solar panel. Don’t stop there. Don’t stop there. No, we’re going to change the whole system.”

Economically, the development of solar fields by independent solar companies for gas corporations will mean that a greater deal of their income will be coming from the well-healed oil industry. Other companies like Bright Source, Ausra and eSolar for example, might just find it difficult to resist the advances of an industry that still powers the chariots we ride in.

Irony aside, this act does nothing but illustrate Chevron’s intention to remain singularly focused on turning black sludge to green paper.

The sun continues to shine and by 2010 even the oil companies will be harvesting that endless natural energy…to harvest finite toxin-based energy. Brilliant.

Creative Solutions:

• Watch Crude, the Movie, and Spread the Word
• Watch H2Oil and Tell Canada to Keep the Tar Sands Oil
• Understand the Number 350
• Convert to Bio Car
• Park the Car – Walk or Ride a Bike
• If Buying a Car, Go for the Green

Tagged as: asura, bright source, chevron, chevron oil, clean energy, crude, esolar, extraction, solar investment, solar oil refinement, solar panels, supreme motor oil