Editor’s Note: Meeting the Challenge is an open-ended series from EnergytechStocks.com intended to build a blueprint for how the world can meet the incredible increase in all forms of energy that will be needed by 2030 without endangering the environment or nations’ security. In the coming weeks and months, recognized experts will share their ideas, and important new investment themes (including some that could turn out to be worth many billions of dollars) should emerge.

Posted: September 17, 2007

Much as the world was riveted by the recent collapse of a highway bridge in the U.S. state of Minnesota, Matthew Simmons fears it may soon be riveted by an energy pipeline or refinery disaster.

Simmons, one of the critical thinkers whose innovative ideas form the basis of EnergyTechStocks.com’s new series on how to meet the challenge of rising global energy demand, said the United States needs to wake up – and fast – to the fact that much of its energy infrastructure is in as bad shape as many of its bridges.

The Houston investment banker said he believes that 85% to 90% of the U.S.’s energy infrastructure is as bad off as the nation’s bridges, a much smaller percentage of which is deemed by officials to be structurally deficient. “We have to act now, before we have the equivalent of a catastrophic bridge collapse,” he said.

Not only would such an event be catastrophic in terms of lives lost, it also would be a potential catastrophe for the U.S. economy, according to Simmons. Simmons noted that so severely stretched is America’s energy infrastructure network that every small refinery fire this summer has led to oil prices rises and, in some cases, fear of gasoline shortages.

Still, to fix the U.S.’s energy infrastructure – much of which is old and, in many cases, suffering from corrosion and other problems – could be a $1 trillion undertaking. Simmons acknowledged that was a lot of money but essentially said it could end up being cheaper than the impact on the overall economy if the problem isn’t addressed in the near future.

Part 6 of Simmons Series will run on Wednesday, September 19