Peter Fusaro's thoughts, and potential oil price spikes

For those who are following the world of cleantech investing with some interest, Peter Fusaro provides one man's thoughts about the market and current investment strategies in this provocative column. Many may agree or disagree strongly with some of Peter's comments, but either way it's well worth reading, given his expertise in the market... Readers of this site are invited to comment and provide their reactions.

In terms of drivers of cleantech investing, Tyler Hamilton's Clean Break page today points out this very interesting press release, describing a recent scenario analysis of oil prices under a moderate disruption of oil supply -- a removal of 3.5M barrels out of the world market of 83M barrels per day, which is not that inconceivable (see this Department of Energy list of historic oil disruptions for examples). As the study concluded, such a scenario could realistically drive gas prices up to $5.74 per gallon, and oil prices up above $150 per barrel. Were that to happen, the impacts for clean technology investments, particularly those targeting energy generation or efficiency, would be tremendous. For anyone looking to make a case for cleantech investing, this is more ammunition: The cleantech investment thesis isn't just a long-horizon assumption of increasing energy prices, it's also the near-term very real possibility of significant energy price spikes.