A picks, shovels and pipelines play on the energy revolution

Tens of billions of dollars needs to be spent upgrading energy infrastructure. Smart investors who get in now will profit handsomely, says David C Stevenson.

Recently, I've looked for ways in which a contrarian might invest in the energy sector, if they expect oil prices to stay relatively high over the next decade. But whatever your view on oil prices or climate change, one theme emerging from my research is that the developed world faces little choice but to invest a lot of money in renewing and adapting our energy infrastructure.

Consider the impact of the US shale gas and oil revolution. No one wants to build nuclear power stations anymore because gas is so cheap. Demand for coal has plunged too, leaving US coal miners to export to Europe and Asia. But America and Canada have so much unconventional energy we're not even including Canada's tar sands oil that pressure is growing to export shale gas too.

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David C. Stevenson
Contributor

David Stevenson has been writing the Financial Times Adventurous Investor column for nearly 15 years and is also a regular columnist for Citywire. He writes his own widely read Adventurous Investor SubStack newsletter at davidstevenson.substack.com

David has also had a successful career as a media entrepreneur setting up the big European fintech news and event outfit www.altfi.com as well as www.etfstream.com in the asset management space. 

Before that, he was a founding partner in the Rocket Science Group, a successful corporate comms business. 

David has also written a number of books on investing, funds, ETFs, and stock picking and is currently a non-executive director on a number of stockmarket-listed funds including Gresham House Energy Storage and the Aurora Investment Trust. 

In what remains of his spare time he is a presiding justice on the Southampton magistrates bench.