How Big Oil Benefits from Global Warming

The Christian Science Monitor called it "The Climate Warming Paradox" -- that oil companies will benefit from a strategy to mitigate global warming. But there's nothing particularly insidious about it.

Around the world, plants are testing strategies for capturing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and other industries, and pumping that gas deep underground, where geologists believe it will remain locked up. Oil companies are pumping carbon dioxide into oil wells to boost the output of oil.

It's a strategy that means more now than ever, as traditional oil sources are showing signs of depletion, and potential new sources -- like oil shale and oil sands -- have yet to be exploited without great expense. Pumping carbon dioxide into oil wells to extract more oil could help bridge the gap between an abundant oil supply and a new energy economy built on renewable fuels.

It would be perfect, if burning oil didn't contribute so much to global warming.

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