As you may have read, Vermont’s political leaders have decided to ban hydraulic fracturing. This action is a product of media hype, poor science, and politics – given that Vermont has little or no proven natural gas reserves, and therefore little incentive to apply hydraulic fracturing technologies there. Interestingly, the state’s decision to ban hydraulic fracturing directly contradicts the very principles Vermont lawmakers had articulated just last year.
A Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee hearing today featured executives from several companies who have made investments in their operations to reduce energy use and emissions. It’s no surprise that such investments not only help protect the environment, but also help a company’s bottom line. At a company like ExxonMobil, with large and complex operations around the world, the benefits of such investments are significant – saving energy, emissions and costs. So I thought I’d share a few examples of our successful projects around the globe.
For former astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, it was her high school science teacher, Dr. Mommaerts. In an op-ed featured this week on Mashable.com, Ride celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week by talking about Dr. Mommaerts’ efforts to not only teach her about science, but to give her the confidence to believe she could do anything – including becoming the first American woman to travel in space. It’s that all-important combination of competence and confidence that teachers must possess in order to pass it along to their students. And as Dr. Ride mentions in her op-ed, those are the skills we want to help teachers further develop at the Sally Ride Science Academy, a key element in ExxonMobil’s commitment to math and science education in the U.S.
We’re currently having an interesting discussion in the United States — one that few would have thought possible a decade ago. Americans are talking about the recent upswing in U.S. oil and natural gas production – and how it can benefit the U.S. economy and U.S. energy security. Technology developed by the industry has opened up vast energy resources across the country, from shale gas and tight oil to deepwater oil and gas. They’re also talking about what these new supplies mean for the United States when it comes to energy trade – what we import and what we export.
