T. Boone Pickens and Steve Forbes debate the future of energy prices.
Mr. Pickens, who had often correctly predicted the movement of oil markets, argued that global oil production was near its peak, making higher prices inevitable.
Mr. Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine and a former Republican candidate for the presidential nomination argued that politics, not technology, impeded oil production that with proper incentives could stabilize markets.
They also answer questions from the audience.
Bio
Steve Forbes
Steve Forbes is President and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in economics from Stevenson University on April 30, 2009.
Since Mr. Forbes assumed his position in 1990, the company has launched a variety of new publications and businesses. They include: Forbes FYI, the irreverent lifestyle supplement; Forbes Global, the magazine's international publication; and Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian, Russian, Arabic and Hebrew editions of the magazine. Forbes also publishes the Gilder Technology Report, as well as a number of investment newsletters.
In 1997 Forbes entered the new media arena with the launch of Forbes.com. The site now attracts over seven million unique visitors a month and has become the leading destination site for business decision-makers and investors.
T. Boone Pickens
Mr. Boone Pickens is the founder of BP Capital.
Pickens is active in the management of both the BP Capital Equity Fund and the BP Capital Commodity Fund. Specifically, Pickens is principally responsible for the formulation of the energy futures investment strategy of the BP Capital Commodity Fund and the BP Capital Equity Fund.
Pickens frequently utilizes his wealth of experience in the oil and gas industry in the evaluation of potential equity investments and energy sector themes. He also participates in the marketing of the BP Capital Equity Fund to certain groups of potential investors. Pickens was the founder of Mesa Petroleum in its various forms beginning in 1956. Pickens' career at Mesa spanned four decades.
Under his leadership, Mesa grew to become one of the largest and most well-known independent exploration and production companies in the U.S.
Complex mixture of hydrocarbons derived from the geologic transformation and decomposition of plants and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. As a technical term, petroleum encompasses the liquid (crude oil), gaseous (natural gas), and viscous or solid (bitumen, asphalt) forms of hydrocarbons that occur in the Earth, but the meaning is often restricted to the liquid oil form. Crude oil and natural gas are the most important primary fossil fuels. Asphalt has been used since ancient times to caulk ships and pave roads. In the mid 1800s petroleum began to replace whale oil in lamps, and the first well specifically to extract it was drilled in 1859. The development of the automobile gave petroleum a new role as the source of gasoline. Petroleum and its products have since been used as fuels for heating, for land, air, and sea transport, and for electric power generation and as petrochemical sources and lubricants. Crude oil and natural gas, produced mostly in Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and Russia, now account for about 60% of world energy consumption; the U.S. is by far the largest consumer. At present rates of consumption, the known supply will be exhausted by the mid 21st century. Petroleum is recovered from drilled wells, transported by pipeline or tanker ship to refineries, and there converted to fuels and petrochemicals.
A spoiled rich guy who is basically rich because his father and a man who spent his entire life in oil drilling. Gee, I wonder who is right. Duh.
And the massive price increases in 2008 showed who called it right.
Go Forbes.
In the end, we really will have to move on to some other type of energy. Nuclear is here, we just need people to accept it. When we continue using it we will develop better methods of disposing and reducing, but we need the money to flow to nuclear companies and they will develop.