If you are approaching retirement with a substantial IRA balance, it might make sense to start structuring annual conversions into a Roth IRA. Read More
It's hard to imagine anyone better suited to covering the energy-investment waterfront than Robert Rapier.
Robert is no armchair analyst—he has two decades of in-the-trenches experience in a wide range of fossil fuel and biofuel technologies, including refining, natural gas production, gas-to-liquids, ethanol production and butanol production.
During a six-year stretch at ConocoPhillips, Robert ran a team of engineers in Scotland working on oil and gas projects in the North Sea.
For two years, Robert was an efficiency expert in a Texas petrochemical plant. The process changes he implemented saved the facility $9 million a year. He later worked as the Engineering Director for a Dutch environmental-technology company and provided engineering support for a Chinese facility the company was constructing.
Robert was also a butanol engineer in Germany for the Celanese Corporation, where he designed a novel butanol unit that cut production costs by $5 million per year.
In all, Robert has spent more than a dozen years working on liquid fuels technologies. Along the way he's picked up five patents, including one for a breakthrough way to convert ethane into ethylene (U.S. Patent 7,074,977).
Now, in addition to guiding readers to timely investments in Utility Forecaster and Rapier's Income Accelerator, Robert travels the world evaluating startup energy companies for deep-pocketed investors. After grilling management and assessing the technology on-site, he makes a go/no-go investment decision. His wealthy private investors and hedge fund backers trust him to make the right choice for the same reason we do: his vast real-world experience in just about every facet of the energy industry. If Robert votes thumbs-up, millions of dollars flow into these cutting-edge outfits.
Robert earned his master of science in chemical engineering and a bachelor of science in chemistry and mathematics (double major) at Texas A&M University. He tells us he was "this close" to finishing his Ph.D. before he decided he was having a lot more fun making money in energy stocks.
A prolific writer, Robert's articles have appeared in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor -- and he has been a featured expert on 60 Minutes and The History Channel. His new book, Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil (Apress, 2012), helps investors sort through doom and gloom, hype and misinformation to understand the true costs, benefits and trade-offs for each of our major energy options.
In what little spare time he has left, Robert consults for a number of energy projects, including biodiesel, ethanol, butanol and biomass gasification facilities.
Analyst Articles
At a cannabis event hosted by the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris blasted the nation’s cannabis prohibition. Read More
During this bull market, many stocks have been priced for perfection, especially in the frothy technology sector. We're overdue for a pullback. Read More
Your guide to understanding what the heck the Bitcoin halving is and how it affects the overall crypto market Read More
The latest surveys show consumers in a downbeat mood. And yet, spending and the economy remain resilient. We explain the contradiction. Read More
This REIT is a low risk play on artificial intelligence as it converts its storage facilities to cloud computing. Read More
We spoke with a top analyst on our team about the moves investors should (and shouldn’t) make to reap market-beating gains. Read More
The crypto market is scorching hot so far in 2024. What can we expect from the market leaders moving forward and are we still bullish? Read More
We explore ramifications of inflation and monetary trends on various stock sectors, particularly those sensitive to interest rate changes. Read More
The performance of marijuana stocks can be volatile and puzzling. Here’s a look at the pot sector's problematic past and promising future. Read More