INDEX - ENERGYwww.islandbreath.org ID# 0517-15
SUBJECT: WORLD OIL PEAK
SOURCE: JUAN WILSON juanwilson@mac.com
POSTED: 3 November 2005 - 9:30pm
Peak Oil Provocateur Matthew Simmons
Twilight in the oilfield
Grist Interview with Matthew Simmons
by Amanda Grissom Little on 3 November 2005 in www.Grist.comMatthew Simmons has been stirring up a lot of angst in energy circles this year. This well-connected industry insider has concluded that some of the world's largest oil beds may be on the verge of production collapse -- and he's willing to bet his much-vaunted career on it.
Author of the recently published Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, Simmons is founder of Simmons & Company International, an investment bank that handles mergers and acquisitions among energy companies, and counts among its clients Halliburton, General Electric, and the World Bank. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, he served as an energy-policy adviser to the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign.
Conservative credentials aside, Simmons has been boggling the minds of people across the political spectrum with his recent prediction that the price of a barrel of oil could hit the high triple digits within a few years. To postpone economic meltdown, he says we should be drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other hotly contested spots. At the same time, he's calling for a massive shift in energy policy, including radical improvements in efficiency, as well as a return to local farming and manufacturing. With his unconventional opinions, he's single-handedly reinventing the image of the post-oil energy crusader. He talked to Grist from his cell phone while dashing between energy lectures.Read the interview in Grist here: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/11/03/simmons/index.html