Last Friday, I sat down with Freddy Gray at The Spectator’s office in Westminster to record an episode of the Americano podcast. We talked about the collapse of the EV market, Britain’s disastrous energy policies, energy humanism, and the tectonic political changes in the US and Europe on climate policy. These shifts clearly impact companies like BP Plc (BP), explains Robert Bryce, editor of Robert Bryce on Substack.
The tectonic shifts are evident, and this headline from the BBC on Wednesday provides further proof:
The temerity of those pesky shareholders who want a return on their investment! As the BBC explains, BP no longer stands for “Beyond Petroleum.” Instead, it’s slashing investments in alt-energy and returning to the drill bit...
“Five years ago, chief executive Bernard Looney, who was in charge at the time, accelerated that process with ambitious targets to cut oil and gas production 40% by 2030, while massively ramping up investment in wind and solar. Today, BP could stand for "Back to Petroleum" following its announcement to shift back to oil and gas production and slash investment in renewables. (Emphasis added.)”
BP is (finally!) coming to its senses. Last summer, it halted new investments in offshore wind. In December, BP’s head of offshore wind projects left the company.
In a nice bit of honest reporting, the BBC notes that there is “simply less money in renewables than in oil and gas and some BP shareholders have become angry and impatient” as other multinational oil companies, including Shell Plc (SHEL) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), are producing far bigger profits. The BBC also explains that BP’s move away from alt-energy “follows rivals’ Shell and Norwegian company Equinox scaling back plans to invest in green energy.”
It has taken a while, but some of Europe’s biggest companies and top politicians are abandoning the alt-energy mirage and are embracing energy realism. Need more proof? The new German coalition government is signaling it will restart the country’s idled nuclear reactors.
As Alex Kaufman explained on Substack, “Nuclear energy may be the big winner,” of the recent German elections. He notes that the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union have vowed to “stick with the nuclear option.” Further, incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for a “nuclear dismantling moratorium,” which, as Mark Nelson noted on Twitter/X, should pave the way for the country to restart its reactors.
Things in Europe are changing. The next obvious policy change is for Britain to start drilling and fracking for natural gas. Alas, don’t hold your breath on that.
