Profiles in clean energy: Former Shell VP helps create a new way of making clean electricity
At oil and gas giant Shell, Cindy Taff was in charge of drilling wells that are considered unconventional because the oil or natural gas is difficult to access
When Cindy Taff was a vice president at the giant oil and gas company Shell in Houston, her middle schooler Brianna would sometimes look over her shoulder as she worked from home.
“Why are you still working in oil and gas?” her daughter asked more than once. “Is there a future in it? Why aren’t you moving into something clean?”
The words weighed on Taff.
“As a parent you want to give direction, and was I giving her the right direction?” she recalled.
At Shell, Taff was in charge of drilling wells and bringing them into production. She worked on oil and natural gas that's called unconventional in the industry, because the oil or natural gas is difficult to get out of the ground — it doesn't naturally gush out like in movies. It's a term often used for oily shale rock. Taff was somewhat unconventional for the industry, too. Her coworkers used to tease her for driving an efficient hybrid.
“You’re not helping oil and gas prices by driving a Prius," they'd say.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of an occasional series of personal stories from the energy transition — the change away from a fossil-fuel based world that largely causes climate change.
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Taff wanted Shell to pursue the energy that comes from the Earth's natural heat — geothermal. Her team looked into it, but Shell never greenlit any of those projects, saying it would take too much time to recoup the investment.
When Brianna went to college, she was passionate about energy too, but she wanted to work on renewables. After her sophomore year, in the summer of 2020, she got an internship at a
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