Shell to Give up on Wind and Solar power for Biofuels

www.shell.com

The Anglo Dutch oil company known as Shell stated that they would no longer be focusing on wind, hydro, or solar renewable technology. Now the company hopes to focus all of its attention on biofuels. However, many environmentalists are not happy with this choice, claiming that biofuel has driven up the cost of food, as well as brought on more deforestation.

Shell feels like this is the clear next step to take since they are already the world’s largest buyer of biofuels anyway. They also plan to spend more money to the develop new biofuels that will not use food based crops, making them less harmful to the environment. However, the amount of money that they hope to put towards this use was not specified.

The Friends of the Earth origination criticizes Shell for pulling out of other renewable energy investments. They feel that biofuels end up putting off more emissions than both petrol and diesel. Until recently, it had looked like Shell was going in the way of wind power. The company already made more than 550 megawatts of wind power from around the world. This is enough to power a city the size of Sheffield

However, just last year, Shell pulled out of a huge 1,000 megawatt project that was called London Array. This would have been the biggest offshore wind farm to date. The partner on the project, e.on, has not yet said whether they will continue on with the project alone or not.

Shell made note that by 2025, 20% of its energy will come from alternative energy sources, and 80% will come from fossil fuels. However, the company is just spending about 1% of its budget on alternative technologies, which makes this goal seem unreachable.

For more information visit: www.shell.com