Oklahoma City based Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon has made a fortune, and most of it has come from finding and producing natural gas.
But McClendon has been funding Big Green anti-coal propaganda this year. Whatever his personal views, it seems clear that this Oklahoma Oilie is trying to use enviros to kill off one of his corporation’s main competitors, coal.
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Natural gas prices have been coming down in recent years, largely as a result of increased production made possible by hydraulic fracturing, so corporate titans like McClendon see a great opportunity to displace coal to fuel the hundreds of electricity producing power plans in America. Coal costs more and produces more hydrocarbons than natural gas.
For his efforts to use Big Green to stifle a competitor, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), which represents the interests of all fossil fuel-based energy producers, has given McClendon its 2011 Lump of Coal Award for Christmas.
“Aubrey McClendon just doesn’t get it. America has more than enough natural gas, coal, and oil to supply our needs for the next few centuries. But rather than work collaboratively with America’s other affordable energy producers to beat back regulations that threaten our energy security and stifle job creation, Aubrey turns cannibal,” noted AEA President Tom Pyle in today’s announcement,” said AEA president Tom Pyle.
“In 2007, when anti-coal propaganda was surfacing all over Texas, it turned out that Aubrey McClendon was funding it. In recent days, he’s been at it again. An anti-coal ad campaign sponsored by the American Lung Association that features a coughing baby in a dirty carriage has been airing across the country. The money for the ad, of course, came from Aubrey McClendon,” Pyle said.
There’s a bit of a backstory to this award, too. But to get the rest of Pyle’s comments and that backstory, you’ll have to go here.
