貝薩尼?麥克萊恩是一名專門研究財務可持續性問題的專家，安然事件、2008年金融危機和美國的“兩房”危機都是她研究的課題。麥克萊恩曾在《財富》供職、現任《名利場》特約編輯。在她的新書《沙特美國：頁巖氣的真相以及它如何改變了世界》中，她指出，美國的頁巖氣革命和所謂的能源自主很可能是個偽命題?！敦敻弧方詹稍L了這位明星作家。

你曾經寫過很多方面的書，包括安然欺詐案、金融危機的根源、住房金融體系的缺陷等等，現在你又在寫頁巖氣方面的內容。你為什么選擇這個話題？

我覺得在主流媒體上，頁巖氣沒有得到足夠的報道。硅谷里有很多改變世界的發明，但水力壓裂技術是一項對我們的未來至關重要的發明。如果水力壓裂法真的有效，美國將成為一個石油和天然氣的生產大國，那么這甚至有可能改變美國的制造業基礎和地緣政治體系。當媒體報道水力壓裂技術時，他們通常是從環境的角度來報道，這個角度很有趣，也很重要。但我知道很多人之所以看空水力壓裂技術，首先是因為那些公司的經濟狀況不佳，而媒體從未從財務角度對這個問題予以足夠的報道。而我是一個相信數據的人。

你用大量細節論證了頁巖氣革命的影響和意義，并稱它可能使美國進入一個能源充足的新時代。但你也表示，頁巖氣革命很可能被炒得過熱了，有可能最終成為一個“紙牌屋”。為什么這么說？

有幾個原因。一是整個行業還沒有盈利。造成這個現象的原因有很多，比如低利率，比如相信未來總會有回報，等等，否則華爾街為什么還要持續向水力壓力技術公司投入資金呢？但你不能確定這種情況會永遠持續下去。如果現在沒有新的資金注入，油氣公司只能用自己的現金流去重復投資，那么他們至少得生產多少油氣？更何況他們還需要給股東創造一些利潤。

其二，所謂的“能源自主”是一個偽命題。有一種觀點認為，如果我們不再需要中東的能源，我們就可以在某種程度上忽略中東了。但在全球經濟中，這種觀點是非?；闹嚨摹Ｎ以跁幸昧艘恍┓治鰯祿?，說明了我們的科技產業有多少比例的零部件需要在亞洲生產——這些零部件都依賴中東地區的石油。那種認為只要我們自己能鉆油，就可以讓沙特滾蛋的看法，是非常愚蠢的。

另外，我曾經和幾個私募大佬交流過，他們的看法讓我非常震驚。他們都想知道什么時候能看見石油時代的終結，因為他們認為，過不了太久，石油價格就會永遠陷入衰退（就像當年的煤炭一樣）。而中國等國正在瘋狂地投資可再生能源。美國如果沉迷在虛幻的“石油大國”的迷夢里，而不去發展可再生能源，結果就會喪失在這一領域成為全球領導者的機會。

你指出，最該為“頁巖氣泡沫”負責的，不是新技術和新發現，而是華爾街。你還把頁巖氣公司的高估值比作當年的“互聯網泡沫”。你能解釋一下嗎？

造成這種現狀的原因，是頁巖氣公司的估值并不取決于其收益，其高管的薪資也不與股東回報率掛鉤。現在的頁巖氣公司不管盈利與否，其估值都已達到了他們所擁有的油田價值和產量水平的好幾倍，各家頁巖氣公司CEO的薪資水平也主要取決于產量。這都讓我們想起了“互聯網泡沫”時代的“眼球估值”。這些估值聽起來是合乎邏輯的，但實際上并不合理。

你為什么選擇奧布里?麥克倫登作為主要人物，來講述美國頁巖氣的故事？

麥克倫登是位幾十年一遇的人才。他改變了世界——但卻是以一種很有爭議的方式。早在大家知道水力壓裂法會帶來環保問題之前，就有很多人不看好他的公司了。我大概從2010年左右開始注意他。我的一名長期“線人”約翰?亨普頓跟我說，麥克倫登是美國最重要的一個人（當然這話有些夸張），因為如果他的商業模式成功了，那么美國將成為全球能源成本最低的國家之一。這次對我們的制造業基礎產生巨大影響，并將極大地沖擊地緣政治格局。但當時我們還不知道他的商業模式是否管用。

然而到了2015和2016年，美國的頁巖氣一度到了岌岌可危的境地。2016年，麥克倫登死于一場慘烈的車禍，頁巖氣的命運更是跌到了谷底。但是后來，頁巖氣卻無視所有懷疑論者，浴火重生了。美國石油和天然氣的預期產量再次開始飆升。

我想知道，麥克倫登是否是這個行業的一個象征？他的故事能否解答一個至關重要的問題：水力壓裂法在經濟上和環境上是否具有可持續性？

在你寫這本書的過程中，你走了很多地方，采訪了很多人物。是否有哪次旅程或采訪讓你覺得特別豐富多彩或是有啟發性？

有很多，印象最深的一次是去得克薩斯州的米德蘭。你極目遠眺，看見的只有油井和風車，這真是一種奇怪的組合。我也采訪了一些老石油工人，其中有些人對水力壓裂法持懷疑態度，但也有些人對其深信不疑。它給米德蘭甚至休斯頓等地帶來了相當驚人的經濟復蘇。要看當地經濟是繁榮和蕭條，只要看在奧德薩的一家脫衣舞俱樂部里點一次大腿舞的價格就知道了。

有一次我和一位搞水力壓裂的企業家坐在一起，他指著我的iPhone說：“你喜歡這個東西嗎？要知道，如果沒有我們在做的事，也就不會有它了?！彼囊馑际?，現代世界中，很多東西的運行都離不開能源。能源就像我們呼吸的空氣，我們認為它的存在是理所當然的。這也是環保主義者為什么那么討厭油氣公司。我并不是評價誰對誰錯，只是說跳出這個維度看事物是很有趣的。

在書的結尾，你引用了查理?芒格的話說：“進口石油不是你的敵人，而是你的朋友?！彼麨槭裁匆@么說？你同意他的意見嗎？

他說，石油和天然氣之所以被稱為不可再生能源，是有其原因的。頁巖氣給了我們更多的時間，但它不能永遠解決問題。芒格認為，在化肥等產品中，碳氫化合物仍然是一種必不可少且不可替代的元素，也就是說如果沒有它們，我們根本無法養活這樣巨大的人口。當然，有一天我們也許會發現能代替石油的東西，但至少現在我們還沒有發現有什么能代替石油。那么既然我們還沒有找到石油的替代品，我們為什么還要強撐面子高喊能源自主呢？我們為什么不從其他國家那些購買我們需要的東西，把自己的原油儲備用在以后的艱難的日子呢？我很贊同這種看法。（財富中文網）

譯者：樸成奎

Bethany McLean has made a career out of shining a light on the financially unsustainable, from Enron to the 2008 financial crisis to U.S. mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In her latest book, Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How it’s Changing the World, McLean—previously of Fortune and now a contributing editor at Vanity Fair—suggests that just like Enron, the U.S. fracking boom and America’s much-heralded hope for energy independence may be too good to be true. Fortune recently spoke with its former star writer.

You’ve written about— among many other things—the fraud of Enron, the root causes of the financial crisis, the flaws in homeownership finance, and now fracking. Why did you choose this topic?

I always felt fracking wasn’t covered enough in the mainstream media. For all the world-changing things that are happening in Silicon Valley, what’s happening in places like the Permian Basin is every bit as important to our future – arguably more so. If fracking is real, and America is an oil and gas powerhouse, that changes everything from our manufacturing base to geopolitics. When fracking was covered, it was usually from an environmental perspective. That’s interesting and important, but I knew many short sellers who were skeptical of fracking companies due to their bad economics, and the financial angle never got the press I felt it deserved. I’m a numbers girl at heart!

You chronicle in great detail the scope and significance of the current shale oil boom, and how it’s led to the promise of a new era of American energy abundance. But you also say the shale revolution might be overhyped and potentially a house of cards. Why?

There are a few reasons. One is that the industry, as a whole, has yet to make money. There are a bunch of reasons, from low interest rates to a belief that returns lie ahead, why Wall Street has continued to throw capital at fracking companies. But you can’t be sure that will continue forever. It’s unclear how much oil and gas companies would produce if they could only reinvest their own cash flow, let alone if they had to produce a decent return for shareholders.

The second reason is that the whole notion of “energy independence” is very fraught. There’s this idea that if we don’t need energy from the Middle East, we’ll somehow be able to ignore the Middle East. But in a global economy, that’s absurd. For instance, I cite some analysis showing what percentage of the components our technology industry needs are made in Asia – which in turn is dependent on oil from, you guessed it, the Middle East. The idea that we’d be able to tell Saudi Arabia to go to hell if we didn’t need their oil is pretty silly once you drill (no pun intended) into it.

Lastly, I was really struck by conversations I had with several private equity players. They are all trying to figure out when we’ll be able to see the end of the oil age, because as soon as that happens, the price of oil will go into secular decline (as it did with coal.) Other countries, namely China, are frantically investing in renewables. For us to crow about our oil wealth, and not focus on renewables, is for us to miss the opportunity to be leaders in the world as it’s going to be.

You argue that the entity most responsible for the fracking boom is not new technology or new discoveries, but rather Wall Street, and you compare the way fracking companies are valued to the first dot-com boom. Can you explain that?

What’s made this whole thing work is that fracking companies aren’t valued on earnings. Nor are executives compensated for producing returns for shareholders. Fracking companies have been valued as a multiple of the acreage they own, or on their level of production, regardless of whether it’s profitable or not. CEOs have been compensated based primarily on production. It’s analogous to the way dotcom companies were valued on multiples of eyeballs. It all sounds logical until it doesn’t.

Why did you choose Aubrey McClendon as the main character through which to tell the story of fracking in the U.S.?

McClendon is one of those rare, larger than life characters who come along every so often. He was changing the world—but in ways that were very controversial. Long before everyone knew fracking was an environmental concern, short sellers were all over McClendon’s company. I started paying attention to him around 2010 or so. A longtime source of mine, a guy named John Hempton, would tell me that Aubrey was the most important man in America (with some degree of hyperbole) because if his business model worked, it meant that America had one of the lowest costs for energy around the world. That has huge implications for our manufacturing base, and it affects geopolitics enormously.But it wasn’t clear his business model did work.

All of that was before the 2015-16 bust that looked like it would destroy American fracking—and before McClendon’s spectacular death in a car crash in the spring of 2016, right at the bottom. It seemed like the punctuation mark underscoring the end of fracking. And then, like the proverbial phoenix, fracking came back, defying all the skeptics. And the projections for U.S. oil and natural gas production began to soar again.

I wanted to figure out if McClendon was or wasn’t emblematic of the industry as a way of getting at a question that I think is key for our future: How sustainable—financially, not environmentally—is fracking?

You traveled far and wide and spoke with many characters as you reported this book. Was there a trip you took or a conversation you had that stands out for being particularly colorful or enlightening?

There were so many, but I really enjoyed getting to see Midland, Texas. As you fly in, there’s nothing but drilling rigs and windmills as far as the eye can see. It’s an odd juxtaposition. I also met some old time oil men, some of whom were skeptical of fracking, and some of whom were total believers. The economic revitalization it has brought to places like Midland and even Houston is pretty stunning, and one way to chronicle boom and bust is the price of a lap dance at the strip club in Odessa.

I remember sitting with one fracking entrepreneur who tapped my iPhone and said, “You like that thing? You realize that it wouldn’t exist without what we do,” by which he meant that so much of our modern world literally runs on energy. But energy is like the air we breathe: We take it for granted. All that helps explain why the oil and gas industry can be so irked by environmentalists. I’m not arguing that that’s right, just that it’s interesting to get outside our bubble.

Toward the end of the book you quote Charlie Munger saying, “Imported oil isn’t your enemy. It’s your friend.” Why does he say that—and do you agree with him?

He says that because oil and gas are called non-renewables for a reason! Shale has bought us more time, but it doesn’t buy us forever. Munger’s argument is that hydrocarbons are still an essential and irreplaceable element in products like fertilizers, meaning that we wouldn’t be able to feed our population without them. Sure, there might be a replacement one day. But there isn’t yet. So the security of our nation depends on the continued availability of oil. Why, in the absence of any certainty about what will replace hydrocarbons, should we continue to burn through our existing supply so that we can beat our chest over the mythical notion of energy independence? Why not import what we need from others, and save our supply for the proverbial rainy day? It makes perfect sense to me.