ExxonMobil chair says transition from oil “100 years away”; more biofuels investment seen from XOM; Chevron pledges to calculate carbon content of fuels

In Texas, shareholders at the Exxon Mobil annual meeting solidly rejected measures to create an independent chairman of the board, increase investment in renewable energy and set greenhouse gas emissions goals, while Bloomberg reports that ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson said “the transition away from oil-derived fuels is probably 100 years away.”

Tillerson also criticized the proposed cap-and-trade system and called for a carbon tax, saying “The oil-gas-refining side of the business received a very, very small amount of the [proposed carbon emission] allocations, which means that sector will bear more of the costs more immediately. If we’re going to place a price on carbon, let’s do that in the most efficient way. A carbon tax is more efficient than a tax that’s applied by way of a cap-and-trade mechanism.”

Meanwhile, Chevron, which also held its annual meeting yesterday, pledged to track and report carbon content of its fuels and other products, agreeing with a proposal put forward by faith-based investors The Sisters of St. Dominic.

However, in good news that came out just before the ExxonMobil meeting, the company released its 2008 Corporate Citizens Report in which the company pledged to make long-term investments in advanced biofuels and gasification technologies.

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