Can Big Oil Companies also Do Good?

Robin Shreeves — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:24:49 +0000

We seem to be piggybacking off of each other here around Green Options lately - reading each others’ posts and writing new posts based on them. I just finished reading the post that Adam Williams wrote earlier today, World Naked Bike Ride: Is Anything Gained by Protesting Oil Dependency in the Buff?, and in the post he mentions that Last week ExxonMobil reported a record-setting $11.7B in second-quarter profits. These profits were gained, of course, at a time when Americans are paying more for gas at the pumps than they ever have in the past.

His post reminded me of something else I read earlier today, something else that had to do with ExxonMobil last week. On August 1, 40 local Dallas area high school students graduated from the 27th Annual ExxonMobil Green Team program. According to ExxonMobil’s website,

The ExxonMobil Green Team Program is a summer youth employment program where students are paid to participate in cleanup, environmental and beautification projects, as well as construction projects in public parks and economically depressed neighborhoods throughout the United States.

Dallas isn’t the only place ExxonMobil sponsors this program. It’s currently run in 9 U.S. cities. Students not only participate in environmental activities but they also work on basic academic skills in reading, math and writing and are taught the importance of education.

Ethanol Brings Gas Prices Down, Saves Consumers Money

Clayton B. Cornell — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:27:38 +0000

As controversial as corn-grain ethanol is, it may be offsetting high oil prices and saving consumers between 6 and 9¢ per gallon on fuel.

Research by the American Coalition for Ethanol (or ACE - totally unbiased, I know) found that gasoline-ethanol blends are selling 10-35¢ lower than non-blended gasoline, which after factoring in the ethanol-blender’s tax credit amounts to about 6 to 9¢ per gallon.

This may also help explain why diesel is so much more expensive than gasoline right now:

“The price of gasoline isn’t rising as quickly as the price of diesel, partly due to the fact that there’s an alternative to gasoline – ethanol – that’s adding more than 2 million gallons a day to our nation’s fuel supply,” notes Ron Lamberty, ACE’s vice president/market development.
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Can Big Oil Companies also Do Good?

Ethanol Brings Gas Prices Down, Saves Consumers Money