An article you should read

One of the things that’s so powerful about the energy and water and resource challenges we face are that they touch everyone’s lives on many levels:  As individuals, as communities, as countries, and as a world.  And another powerful fact about these challenges is that we have been now wrestling with them for some time, without making good progress.

In energy in particular, I am constantly hearing about (and learning from) the experiences of those who have been thinking about these issues for a long time.  So many good ideas yet to be executed on.  So much debate recycled from previous debates, without drawing the lessons from what had worked before and what had not.  And so many unfortunate assumptions about what can be accomplished (politically, technically, etc.).

I had lunch today with an investor who pointed me to this article from a long-time veteran of energy and finance.  Theodore W. Noon, Jr. was an oil wildcatter in the 1940s, a petroleum geologist and engineer for 60 years, and an energy investor for several decades.  He was also a bronze star and distinguished service cross recipient, receiving five purple hearts for his service in World War II.

T.W. Noon died last year, but in the final months of his life he wrote two articles full of thoughts and insights on two subjects on which he had a lot of experience—our economic challenges, and our energy challenges. He wrote them while in hospice; he knew they would be his last chance to share the lessons he had learned along the way, and he hoped people would read them.

So please read them.  Some of what he has to say may surprise you.  He doesn’t pull punches, and doesn’t go with the flow.  An oil wildcatter and investor proposing a phased-in energy tax?  Regular readers may recognize that that kind of thinking strikes a chord with me...

I never met T.W. Noon, but I wish I had.  I would have enjoyed the conversations greatly.  I’d like to think he would have been as excited as I am by some of what I’m seeing in the entrepreneurial and policy worlds these days.  But I sure hope we don’t let the opportunity slip by yet again…

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