Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Secret Message Embedded in ExxonMobil's Outlook for Energy

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On December 11, 2009, I downloaded a copy of ExxonMobil’s publication titled “Outlook for Energy: A View to 2030”. When I searched through the document to see what ExxonMobil, a large supplier of both oil and natural gas that compete with nuclear energy for market share, had to say about the future of nuclear energy. As a fact-driven company, ExxonMobil does not ignore nuclear and recognizes that it plays a large role today and has the potential to grow rapidly in the future.


While searching the document to see where the word “nuclear” appeared in the document, I was surprised to see the word flashing from underneath some of the graphics. In one place, the way that it flashed completely changed the meaning of a highlighted quote box. On page 26, there is a quote in the upper right hand corner of the page that says:

Oil and natural gas remain essential through 2030, but the most important “fuel” of all will be energy saved through improved efficiency.

However, when I searched for the word nuclear, here is what it looked like it said as I clicked on the next arrow:

Oil and natural gas remain essential through 2030, but the most important “fuel” of all will be nuclear energy . . .
(I got so excited when I saw that word pop up in that particular location that I stopped reading the rest of the quote box.)

I know it was probably quite accidental and that it really meant nothing, but I was so amused that I documented the experience in the above video.

Just in case people might accuse me of making stuff up, I asked Atomic Insights readers to visit ExxonMobil’s web site and download the document before it got changed and to document their experience through the comment section on the December 11, 2009 post. If you do not believe that the document that I described in the video actually came directly from ExxonMobil, go and read the comments. (Many commenters on Atomic Insights are engineering types, so you will find that they have come up with a logical explanation that does not involve any secret admiration, but my interpretation is more amusing and interesting.)

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Comments

  4. Isn’t it almost prophetic they had, of all things, their “efficiency” message replaced by nuclear. This their plan: by promoting efficiency as the new “fuel” or “energy source”, they are *discouraging* any additional energy production, which would sooner or later lead to the re-discovery of zero-carbon nuclear energy. In the end of course, the efficiency-as-energy-source idea will turn out a big lie, when plugin hybrids start invading the streets, guzzling huge amounts of domestic electricity, but by then it will be too late to build new plants, so their “good old” technology of burning oil and gas will be the only one readily available to fulfill the demand.

  5. The message of “oil and gas will be the primary energy source through 2030/50 THEN nuclear will dominate” is also prominent in the petroleum engineering magazines as well. My guess is that the oil/gas companies will get back into nuclear once the real builidng starts.