(RTTNews) - Greenpeace, a non-governmental environmental organization, has in their latest report exposed how three of the largest cloud technology companies in the world are helping oil corporations to discover, extract, refine, and distribute oil and gas.
This was revealed in a new Greenpeace USA report titled "Oil in the Cloud - How Tech Companies are Helping Big Oil Profit from Climate Destruction."
The report states that Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have got lucrative contracts for cloud computing and other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for aiding major oil and gas companies such as Shell, BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil boost production.
Despite earning billions of dollars in profits from these contracts, the carbon emissions related to these contracts are not reflected in any of the tech companies' published footprint data, the report said.
This is all being undertaken while the three tech companies undermine their own public commitments made to address climate change goals to cut their carbon emissions. They are supporting the very industry which is being blamed for global warming.
As the oil and gas industry confronts the end of the oil age and deteriorating earnings, the energy giants have turned to these tech giants to use high powered computing capabilities to help find and extract more oil and gas, which will also help reduce production costs.
Energy companies are already spending billions on cloud computing and advanced analytics and this spending is expected to increase to over $15 billion in the next decade. Cloud computing and AI software aid the discovery, extraction, distribution, refining, and marketing of oil and gas.
Cloud companies are facilitating data-driven innovations to build on these advances by identifying efficiencies and boosting oil and gas production.
Accenture has estimated that advanced analytics and modeling could generate as much as $425 billion in value for the oil and gas sector by 2025.
Through the report, Greenpeace also seeks a commitment from the big three cloud companies to publicly commit to no longer offer solutions to the oil and gas sector to find, extract, refine, or distribute fossil fuels.
Microsoft appears to have the most contracts with oil and gas companies, offering AI capabilities in all phases of oil production. It can never truly achieve its recent pledge to be carbon negative by 2030, while continuing to aid the oil and gas sector with exploration and production.
Amazon continues to market its cloud services to help oil and gas firms boost production despite rebranding its website to target the more palatable "Energy Sector." It has made a Climate Pledge to be carbon neutral by 2040.
Google has undergone personnel and structural changes that show it is deprioritizing contracts, stating recently it will no longer "develop custom AI/ML solutions to facilitate upstream extraction" for the oil and gas industry.
The report calls for rapid deployment of clean energy solutions, while implementing a managed decline for the fossil fuel industry.
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