In A Strange Development, Big Oil Turns To Wind Power
Oil exploration and refining companies are natural enemies of alternative energy. Wind power, nuclear power, clean coal, and solar could all undermine the value of crude in world markets. Oil companies have a great deal to gain if new sources…
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Under those circumstances, it is odd that Valero (VLO), one of the world’s largest oil refiners, would turn to wind power to provide energy to some of its operations.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Valero installed 33 windmills to supply a refinery in Texas with green electricity to produce gasoline and diesel.
The rising cost of energy is creating strange bedfellows. The wind energy being used by Valero is relatively cheap compared with alternatives. At the same time, it offers proof of the efficacy of a critical counter to the use of fossil fuels and provides the government with more fodder for its argument that an investment in new forms of energy can produce inexpensive and plentiful options that do not involve the production of oil and gas and the pollution by-products that go with their use.
Valero is in the process of making a case against its own core business.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
