In case anyone is interested...

[KarenRei]

My father is no longer a president of Shell:

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/motiva-names-new-president-and-ceo,562856.shtml

[aptera1213]

congrats to your dad...

[KarenRei]

I wonder if he's now in a powerful enough position to get subpoena'ed by congress whenever they call up oil execs when gas prices get high; they normally call up the CEOs of the biggest US oil companies, and I'm not sure if Motiva is big enough. Their annual revenue is only roughly on par with Vermont's GDP. ;) Exxon-Mobil's, for example, is more like Michigan's GDP -- about 15x larger (it's the world's largest company by revenue).

If he is called up, I could loan him my Aptera to show up to the hearings in. ;)

[DonC]

If he is called up, I could loan him my Aptera to show up to the hearings in. ;)
I think being an "evil refiner" is better than a "speculator" at this point. Was it you who convinced him to artificially drive up the price of oil so as to make all these alternative cars so attractive? Now I guess he's going to cut off all oil to the SE so as to make them really attractive. :)

Congrats to him!

[ApteraH@3535]

I wonder if he's now in a powerful enough position to get subpoena'ed by congress whenever they call up oil execs when gas prices get high; they normally call up the CEOs of the biggest US oil companies, and I'm not sure if Motiva is big enough. Their annual revenue is only roughly on par with Vermont's GDP. ;) Exxon-Mobil's, for example, is more like Michigan's GDP -- about 15x larger (it's the world's largest company by revenue).

If he is called up, I could loan him my Aptera to show up to the hearings in. ;)

I'll bet he could educate them. Oil companies have in the past included 'green sheep" such as you as part of their research into future supplies.

I was working for Exxon during the last big oil shock in the 70's (gas at more than $3/gal was a big expense then). and found they were more convinced than anyone else that they were running short on oil. Since Exxon defined itself broadly as an energy supplier they were very interested in alternatives. Poured $Bs into oil-shale in Colorado and tar sands in Athabasca of course, but also invested hugely in solar energy - were leaders in development of thin-film solar cells and solar-thermal (my areas of research then) and commercializing it, in improving nuclear reactor design and finding uranium reserves, and in nuclear fusion (my current work).

One of the reasons the oil crisis passed was that they worked on computer analysis of seismic echo arrays. When I started work there, 10% of test drills found hydrocarbons - when I left it was 90%. Unfortunately that trick only works once.

At that time CO2 and global warming was known but not a front-burner topic. Still, a friend of one of my colleagues, Albert Rose at a nearby lab, wrote about the energy problem in a way that deserves more attention today.
"A global view of solar energy in rational units" Phys. Stat. Sol. (A) vol. 56 pp. 11-26 (1979) - is readable by most

It has a very simple thesis: you can't dissipate on earth as much energy as is absorbed from the sun (or even more than a few percent of that amount) without unavoidably raising the earth's temperature to uncomfortable levels. --- And that that limit is not so far off.

[KarenRei]

I think being an "evil refiner" is better than a "speculator" at this point. Was it you who convinced him to artificially drive up the price of oil so as to make all these alternative cars so attractive? Now I guess he's going to cut off all oil to the SE so as to make them really attractive. :)

Congrats to him!

I'm sure he wishes he could just dial up the prices to whatever he felt like ;) On a personal level, he has mixed opinions on high oil prices. He likes how they're encouraging the advance of technology, but he dislikes how much influence they give to countries like Venezuela and Russia.

[DonC]

I'm sure he wishes he could just dial up the prices to whatever he felt like ;) On a personal level, he has mixed opinions on high oil prices. He likes how they're encouraging the advance of technology, but he dislikes how much influence they give to countries like Venezuela and Russia.
I guess if we could dial up oil prices we could dial up Apteras! That would be cool. Actually if the major internationals could do it they'd probably be dialing up supply that wasn't controlled by nationals

Out of curiosity, did you ever live somewhere somewhat exotic growing up?

[KarenRei]

Well, it depends -- do you consider the north side of Houston or the Beaumont/Port Arthur area "exotic"? ;) At one point, my father was considering a job in Saudi Arabia, but it never happened. We did often get souveniers from all over the world, though. Right now I'm sitting beneath a bunch of Venezuelan native weapons. The spear, bow, and knife are pretty much just decorative, but the blowgun is actually quite effective.

My favorite picture in my parents house is of Moses parting the Red Sea. Nice and professional looking. Well... it is the Red Sea, but "Moses" is actually my father wearing hotel towels and a hotel bed sheet, standing on a rock and holding up a broom handle as the "staff" ;) His boss at the time took the picture. ;) My father always was somewhat of a clown. Back in college, he once took an inflatable Chiquita banana to a basketball game as a date -- bought it a drink, gave it a blanket, etc.