I stumbled across this pretty much by chance. From GoldSeek - The Casey Files.
It's the transcript of an interview between Doug Casey (of Casey Research) and Matt Simmons, one of the world leading authorities on investing in energy businesses, and founder and chair of the world's largest energy investment banking company.
Simmons reckons that Peak Oil was reached in May 2005, and that overall production can at best stay at current levels, rather than increase at all.
On sour, heavy oil (such as from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada - "With the heavy oil out of Canada, you have to expend energy to make it ooze out of the ground, and once it’s oozed out of the ground, you still have totally unusable oil."
On Liquefied Natural Gas - "the problem with LNG is that if we try to develop a spot market out of LNG, the odds of it ending in bankruptcy are about 90%."
On natural gas as a means of generating electricity - "using natural gas for electricity turned out to be an unbelievably stupid decision. Using electricity for heat was equally stupid. Natural gas should be refined to one use and one use only, and that’s creating instantaneous and high-efficiency heat."
On corn based ethanol - "Corn-based ethanol was just a terrible, tragic mistake..........Even worse, it’s a very low-quality source of energy. Low BTU, highly corrosive, you can’t mix it with anything, it was just a terrible idea."
And he introduces the concept of liquid ammonia as a fuel, something novel to me.
Informative, concise, factually packed and thought provoking; thoroughly recommended and well worth the read.
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Oh, and potentially quite useful if you have (unlike Peter and myself) a substantial wallet-full to invest.
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