Matthew Simmons, major investment banker to the oil business for decades, on peak oil and the need for alt energy.
“Many alternative energy sources are energy intensive,” he said. “Corn-based energy is a scam; it’s very energy-intensive.” Simmons also pointed out that nuclear power plants must run for 15 years before they can produce enough energy to replace the energy used to build the plant itself.
“New supply sources are important, but they cannot fill the energy gap,” Simmons added.
His views on corn-based energy and nuclear are, too put it mildly, enlightening.
He says the oil industry got blindsided by peak oil because they refused to believe it could happen.
“It was a religion that was faith-based, not fact based,” Simmons said. “We’re flying blind. Since we don’t have the data we stay in the dark.”
Simmons says the US has been living in an “energy dream,” that we face “a real crisis,” and “have no Plan B.” This from one of the heaviest hitters in energy investment and banking. Too bad Congress and the White House are still sleep walking in the dream world.
Nuclear energy also faces that pesky problem of nuclear waste– which must be kept safe for a mere 250,000 years. That’s 50 times longer than we’ve had written records! The arrogance our leaders display in suggesting that any culture will survive that long, much less remain willing and able to protect the deadly waste from acts of God and man (with no income stream to pay for it) is astounding.
Nuclear is just one more case of selling the public short-term benefits without factoring in the long-term cost.