Forbes Piece: Wood Plc. CEO - ‘No Path To Net-Zero Without Carbon Capture’

[Note: This story also appears at Forbes.com]

Ken Gilmartin, CEO at Wood, Plc. © 2023 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP

One of the most crucial aspects of the energy transition, which relies so heavily on government subsidies for developing technologies, is to somehow ensure the right technologies are being targeted. That concern that was top of mind for Ken Gilmartin, the Chief Executive Officer of Wood Plc., when I had the chance to interview him during the recent CERAWeek conference in Houston.

“What we are concerned about is the potential to end up subsidizing the wrong technologies,” Gilmartin says. “If you end up doing that, you risk creating a situation in which things don’t continue to improve in the right way, you can't get to scale, and then you're always leaning on subsidies. And if you do that, you might actually set the whole thing back maybe a decade in terms of where we're trying to get to. So, we’re always mindful of that.”

“This needs to be an extraordinary transition.”

Gilmartin, whose company is one of the world’s leading engineering and technology consulting firms, says another concern that came to mind while listening to the discussions during the conference has to do with the noticeable re-focus on matters of energy security and a need to step up investments in traditional energy sources like oil and gas in order to continue meeting rising global demand.

“We heard people talking about the trilemma (defined as the need to find balance between energy reliability, affordability, and sustainability and its impact on everyday lives),” he says, “and the piece that we heard on repeat at CERA was about the need for an ‘orderly transition.’ I see that, and I'll be honest, it didn't sit well with me, because it started to sound a little bit like it's business as usual. It's become this kind of validation.”