He called it a fraction of the money the companies spent on stock buybacks and dividend payments, much less on oil exploration.

“They were making unprecedented profits last year and the year before,” said Kert Davies, research director for Greenpeace. “That should have made them think more broadly. Instead, they doubled down on oil.”

Kretzman said that while the public may want the oil companies to be more broad-based energy companies, there are sound business reasons for them to stick to their core business: oil. The oil companies are judged by Wall Street on their profits, and they’re analyzed based on how much oil analysts think they can pull out of the ground—and at what price.

“For them, they don’t see anything in their core business” in the alternative-energy game, said Kretzman.

Jacobs acknowledged as much in the press conference announcing Exxon’s algae investment.

“If you compare this program to our capital investments in exploring for oil, then it’s small,” he said. “If you compare it to other research and development programs that we’ve got within Exxon Mobil—looking at our refining industry, our chemical industry, our other businesses—this is a large R&D investment. It depends on what you’re comparing it to.”

Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer, when asked about Exxon’s investment in Synthetic Genomics, was blunt about the amount. “That’s a rounding error in their budget,” he said. “Remember, this is business in which they really have no experience.” The oil companies, he said, aren’t really interested in creating new ideas or new sources of energy. But they might someday be interested in companies like Venter’s that do create new sources of energy—as acquisition targets.

“They have the wallet,” he said. “You come with the original recipe, and they take it from there.”