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The
media is reporting that the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may turn into
one of the worst man-made ecological disasters with thousands of miles of Gulf
shore being threatened by potentially tens or even hundreds of millions of
gallons of leaking oil. In a worst case scenario, the
Gulf spill will make Exxon Valdez look like a stage adaptation of “There Will Be Blood” by
kindergardners. On the other hand, the leak might be sealed off in a few days
by some miraculous and desperate application of modern technology or it might
even shut down by itself.
Either
way, several things are certain. One, BP and the rest of the oil industry are
not going to live this down for a long time especially if the allegations
prove true that no contingency plans had been made to deal with oil spills at
BP deepwater rigs (and if that is the case for BP rigs we can pretty much
assume it is the industry standard). There are also reports that BP may have
decided not to install, due to cost saving considerations, a five hundred
thousand dollar remote shutoff valve that might have stopped the leak before
it got this bad. If true, I bet nobody would have thought that Goldman Sachs
could be dethroned so quickly from being the world’s most hated
corporation!
Two,
offshore oil drilling in the United States is effectively dead on arrival
ironically just one month after President Obama disappointed some of his
supporters by including “responsible” offshore oil and gas
exploration as a necessary component of America’s future energy policy.
It seems the definition of responsible has just made a quantum leap in the
direction of impossible while the mantra of “Drill, baby,
drill!” has been discredited as the shortsighted bit of careless idiocy
that it has always been. Not because offshore oil exploration itself is a bad
idea but because the very soul of the drill-now-and-drill-everywhere crowd is
infected by a callous, reckless, cavalier and yes, even maverick, disregard
for sound science and business practices. Lest you mistake us for some
tree-hugging-Earth-hippie hypocrite, we’d also like to point out that
any American who is dead set against offshore oil exploration yet consumes a single drop of oil
either directly or indirectly is an A-hole of the first order, the reason
being simply that we Americans consume plenty of oil produced off the shores
of other countries. Worse than people who don’t care about polluting
their own shores are people who are willing to pollute somebody else’s
shores in the pursuit of selfish liberty and happiness.
Three,
being the greedy and egotistical bastards that we are, we find ourselves
smugly content at this particular moment for not being the “Oil
Augmentor” or the dreaded “Gas Augmentor” (though that last
title sounds like something that would help people with bowel issues, which
would be a very worthwhile cause). In fact, at The Metal Augmentor it is
our job to find the positive in disasters like historic oil spills so that we
can make a bunch of money in fine capitalistic fashion, often as a result of
the suffering of others. Unfortunately sometimes it is our readers who suffer
greatly as they try to wade through our bloviating expositions in a desperate
search for some useful nuggets of information. The worst part is that we do
it purely for entertainment value! Yet even we aren’t totally sadistic
so let’s get to the point of this drivel already.
It has
been stated by observers — both professional and amateur — during
the past several days that the Gulf oil spill will, or at least should,
generate a major and immediate shift in U.S. energy policy and perhaps even
global energy policy. If so, there is only one practical direction toward
which such policy can shift and it has nothing to do with the sun or wind.
You see, the big secret of the solar panel and wind turbine manufacturing
industries (perhaps bigger than the oil industry’s secret of no spill
contingencies that was literally just blown and leaked) is the amount of
energy input required to manufacture so-called renewable power generation
components. Sun and wind can provide us with virtually unlimited energy, if
only we could figure out how to harness that energy without building expensive
and increasingly complicated gizmos. No, we are talking instead about the
cleanest yet dirtiest source of fuel known to man, uranium and its
fissionable friends.
Please
don’t get us wrong, we aren’t naive enough to believe that the
Sierra Club will fall in love with uranium next week or that the public in
general is ready to embrace a nuclear power plant in every neighborhood, but
we sense an inevitable tide of sentiment flowing slowly but surely toward the
only source of energy that can save civilized society from literally
collapsing in a few decades, if not a few years (that is if the banks
don’t get us first). Being optimists, we believe humankind in general
has a strong will to survive. Being pragmatists, we believe uranium will be
permitted to show the way.
And
don’t even get us started on global warming. [Seriously, please don't.]
We don’t have the scientific training to properly debate the subject
and neither do you. What we do have, however, is the ability to assign
probabilities to events. In that regard, it is completely irrelevant what you
or we might believe. What matters is sequence, scenario and outcome. Simply
put, eight billion is the number we need to focus on. That is how many
Earthlings will soon populate this rocky and wet planet. Probably enough
bodies to generate some serious greenhouse gases simply from uncontrolled
flatulence. Another reason why “Gas Augmentor” would be a bad
idea after all, but now we are getting really sidetracked so let’s get
back on point again. The point being that human population has impacted the
climate in the past, is impacting the climate today, and will impact the
climate in the future. It is a matter of degrees
in at least two literal senses of that word. Global warming isn’t a
matter of if but of when.
If we
are right about the above, and yes we are, that means we need to start
seriously taking a look at how we can make some money here. It is said
— usually by boorish people who are not very funny or particularly
intelligent — that when life gives you lemons, you should make some
lemonade. We say when a huge oil spill happens and global warming threatens,
you should invest in uranium stocks. We admit it is simple and obvious,
perhaps even stupidly so. Our defense is that implementation of the idea, not
the idea itself, is key. To that end we have already identified two of the
best uranium exploration stocks in the world and have been following them
religiously on behalf of Metal Augmentor subscribers for just over a year. No
happy ending to report yet but this particular investment thesis requires
patience. Patience that we strongly believe will be amply rewarded down the
road. To us therefore, this latest ecological disaster represents a sign post
declaring that our destination is somewhere dead ahead.
More importantly,
we are in the process of evaluating other uranium exploration and mining
companies while waiting for the right time to pounce on the exclusive list of
uranium stocks that have already passed our rigorous selection process with
flying colors. Sure there are other people out there doing the same thing,
and some of them have more experience than we do, but the nice thing about
our approach is that we don’t favor companies because we have friends
running them (we don’t) or because we participated in a private
placement (we haven’t) or even because we received warrants or some
other type of undisclosed tit-for-tat compensation (we won’t).
Not
only that, but our subscriber platform is easy to access and we are able to
provide commentary in nearly-real-time. No monthly newsletter showing up in
your mailbox to tell you what happened a month ago and how you could have
made a bunch of money had you bought or sold then. Instead, you get to
control how and when you receive our premium content. If you really want an
answer now, you can just ask us and we’ll tell you straight up, right
then and there.
We’d
love to say more about our wonderful investment research service but this is
Crazy Market Thoughts not Narcissistic Market Thoughts and besides that it is
also the end. Not before we point out, however, that perhaps the most
important thing that anybody might have ever done for the environment, on
purpose or otherwise, is to decide against installing a cheap failsafe device
on a deepwater oil rig in order to save a few bucks. Way to go BP, to the
rescue!
Tom Szabo
Silveraxis.com
Tom Szabo
introduces The Metal Augmentor,
which will be the detailed coverage of mining
equities from junior explorers to major mining companies.
Subscription
is US$ 87 per year, and you will receive in addition the Mining
Equities Report: Cash is King?" which includes the following :
- Coverage of over 30 exploration and mining
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companies
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Copyright © SILVERAXIS.COM 2006
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