There are many valid reasons to criticize the Dow Chemical Company — Napalm, Agent Orange, its massive contribution to the U.S.’s population of Superfund sites — but Dow CEO Andrew Liveris earned the Midland, Michigan-based company some kudos this week by pushing for a new nationwide energy policy.
“I will guarantee you that I am not going to drop my voice one iota until we get an energy policy in this country that makes sense,” Liveris told Reuters in an interview last week.
Liveris bases his stance not on hard-green values of the eco-friendly kind, but on the value of cold hard cash. Volatile gas and oil prices hurt businesses and employees, he says. Ups and downs in the cost of natural gas, for example, have led to a loss of 120,000 jobs in the chemical industry alone over the past 20 years, he says.
Record-breaking oil prices earlier this year also hurt the industry, Liveris says, and the current respite from those levels doesn’t mean our problems are solved.
“No one’s head-faked by $2 gasoline,” he told Reuters. “Everyone realizes that $2 gasoline is here for the wrong reasons.”
Liveris’ answer? “Dow’s Energy Plan for America,” a 22-page document released last week. The plan sets out eight goals for a comprehensive U.S. energy policy:
- Encourage aggressive energy efficiency and conservation
- Speed more renewable energy to market
- Make commercial-scale alternatives a priority
- Encourage more domestic oil and gas production
- Optimize the carbon efficiency of coal
- Prove the viability of carbon capture and storage
- Accelerate the deployment of nuclear technology
- Recognize from the outset the interrelationship between energy policy and climate solutions
While many enviros might not like some of those recommendations, at least Liveris isn’t pulling an Exxon (Exxon Mobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson was recently quoted in the New York Times as saying, “For the foreseeable future — and in my horizon that is to the middle of the century — the world will continue to rely dominantly on hydrocarbons to fuel its economy.”)
Read more at Reuters or check out the full Dow energy plan here (pdf).
Dow CEO Andrew Liveris presents a list of objective that will are sure to be controversial to both sides of the environment conversation, but you must admit that he’s taking the approach that we need a variety of solutions to fix the energy crisis.
My feeling is that maximum attention be paid to the alternative, renewable solutions, but there can be a place for limited nuclear, and our coal reserves cannot be ignored. The key is to pursue these avenues with advanced technology.