The Age of Petroleum Is Ending: What Does That Mean for Beaumont?

DAVE WILLIAMS

Bryan Gross, when he began this panel, mentioned, regrettably, that there were no industry officials here in this entire meeting. The truth was—is—an Exxon employee was on this panel, this particular panel, and he resigned, citing a conflict of interest. There was probably a little more to it than that, but it is interesting that little us frightened mighty ExxonMobil into not appearing with this panel.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the program, my focus is particularly on trying to see the future approximately a generation out or 25 years out in the future. And I think one thing is pretty clear, 25 years from now, is that as one of our other speakers, I think it was

John Beard, just kind of mentioned in passing, as we know, the age of petroleum is over. It’s ending. You read about it in the newspaper every day. California is banning any car that produces a hydrocarbon exhaust for sale after 2035. That means in about 10 years later, 2045, just less than 25 years from now, there are not gonna be any petroleum-burning cars in California, and I think that means in the nation. China: a quarter of the cars that are being sold in China this year—one-quarter of the new cars being sold in China—are electric vehicles.

There are a lot of anecdotes suggesting that yes, the age of petroleum is ending. And it’s not too hard to imagine that, when you think about that in 25 years, there won’t be any gasoline-powered cars. There won’t be any diesel-powered vehicles. It’ll all be electric. And remember that half of a barrel of crude oil today goes into diesel fuel or gasoline. So that means half of what this refinery produces in 25 years, nobody’s gonna need. What does that mean for the future of Beaumont?

Dave Williams was born in Beaumont and grew up here and in Austin. After following his uncle into the oil industry, he worked in investment management for 40 years. He attended Beaumont High School.

This was an incredible gathering; had no idea it would be like this. It’s just been wonderful. As small as we are, just think what we can do when we get a little bigger, and I would love to see this grow and continue.

How do we manage the current situation and long term? I think we have to hold these companies accountable. I think we have to get involved with the political leaders and make them hold them accountable.

One of the hardest things is getting our membership to support this type of change, right? I mean, it’s all the majority of the people in the area know. Everything revolves around the oil industry and livelihoods—I mean generation after generation of family members working in these plants. All of that plays a factor into how people feel about the oil industry, you know, potentially going away at some point, and I think it’s just a scary, it’s a scary thing and we just have to, I have to keep in mind my members at the same time. So thank you.

I think Gen Z, Gen Alpha have a lot to, kind of come up and take the, even if by way of voting, reins from us. They understand how important climate is in a way that the majority of an older population doesn’t. And so is it going to be rough? Absolutely. Are we going to continue to lose the very bottom of the population? Probably, because we’ve waited for too long to set up systems that will save those people.

Ideas for the future: we’re already seeing some transitional fuels relocate to this area. They’re not perfect: they’re transitional fuels. But they are saying that Southeast Texas has something to offer. We have the ground infrastructure, we have the trains, we have the ports, we have people who are trained in this field. But we just need to see the same energy given to chasing these projects, instead of having some very, very motivated people working with the projects that just happen to like Southeast Texas and forge that bond, as opposed to some of our officials going out and seeking it first.

There is the pursuit of a wind energy project off of our coast coming in the next several years. As much as I went to Texas Tech and it leads wind energy, I couldn’t tell you if the ‘skills’ for the petrochemical industry are similar to the wind energy industry, but it is something that we have and something that is already looking at our area.

What will replace energy in Beaumont? It’s got to come from something we don’t know about today, but an educated person, an educated community, will come up with something. You’ve got to educate this community, you’ve got to bring students who will be able to cope and figure out the future that can help this area survive.

We cannot survive as long as we are lying to ourselves about what the truth is, and the truth is, if a lot of, large part of the community doesn’t believe the earth is warming or climate change, they’re denying the inevitable. If a large part of community don’t believe that President Biden won the election and want to, you know, turn over democracy because they’re denying that, you know, the question becomes very relevant.

How can not only Beaumont, how can the country and democracy prevail with people just denying what’s right in front of their face? I’m living in an area that didn’t flood with the 100-year flood, and now every time it rains, you know, I’m flooding. And I had to give 25 feet so they can, you know, put a ditch to put water around my property. We gave abatements, you know, to these big companies and they made promises. And then we got people who are elected who don’t hold the companies accountable for the promises they made to do hiring, and I look around Beaumont, Texas—and I’m a Beaumonter, born and raised here—and I look at license plates—I don’t even know where these people coming from.