Author Topic: The oilman who loved sustainable energy [Opinion]  (Read 402 times)

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The oilman who loved sustainable energy [Opinion]
« on: May 19, 2019, 12:47:27 pm »
Houston Chronicle by  Loren Steffy May 18, 2019

On Tuesday, George P. Mitchell would have turned 100 years old. After his death at 94 in 2013, this newspaper declared him the “Houstonian of the Century” — not the 20th century, in which he lived most of his life, but the 21st, which his legacy will help define.

The list of words describing Mitchell is lengthy — oilman, philanthropist, developer, sustainability pioneer, environmentalist, entrepreneur, futurist, Renaissance man, visionary. Some of the labels seem contradictory because Mitchell was a man of incongruous passions.

He was an oilman who spent millions protecting whooping crane habitat, a wildcatter who befriended renown physicist Stephen Hawking, the father of 10 children who worried about overpopulation, a businessman who was slow to pay his bills yet who shared his wealth generously with employees and charities, a developer who cared more about solving urban ills than selling big expensive houses, a demanding boss known for shouting matches with his top lieutenants but who most employees saw as approachable and even shy.

If you drive a car or turn on a light switch, you’ve benefited from Mitchell’s persistence. His development of hydraulic fracturing, which unlocked vast new domestic reserves of oil and natural gas, saved every American household more than $2,000 a year in energy costs. If you’ve enjoyed a weekend on the Strand in Galveston, watched a women’s professional tennis match or strolled through the green space of a walkable neighborhood, you’ve been touched by Mitchell’s legacy. In a few years, thanks to his generosity, astronomers will use the most powerful telescope ever built to look for signs of life in the deepest reaches of space.

How could so many different and seemingly conflicting interests reside inside the same man? One thread unites these apparent paradoxes — a love of ideas.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/The-oilman-who-loved-sustainable-energy-Opinion-13855014.php