You cannot find stronger confirmation of the revolutionary character of shale in our energy economy than Kinder Morgan's $21 billion bid to swallow El Paso Corp.

The deal is being heralded in the financial press as needed consolidation of the natural gas and oil pipeline sector - now a stitched together mishmash of 50 pipelines.

The exploitation of shale deposits through new drilling technology is extending to virtually half of America.

The pipeline system out there today was deployed to serve a very different energy economy. We need a smart pipeline constellation - like we need a smart grid.

The Kinder Morgan deal with cobble together 67,000 miles of pipe that can carry 1 million barrels a day.

Kinder Morgan's ambitions have been tall for many years. We talked to Scott Parker, then president of Kinder Morgan Natural Gas, several years ago, about the company's ambitions to build out a $4 billion Rockies Express Pipeline. It was a meaningful time in the company's history,

Company king Richard Kinder had recently been named CEO of the year by Morningstar, which lauded him for making "key long-term contrarian decisions."

Kinder orchestrated a management-led $13.5 billion buyout of the pipeline company, then the largest deal of its kind, in the spring of 2006 one week after Ken Lay was convicted for fraud in the collapse of Enron. A tale of two men - one whose legacy evaporated before his eyes and another who continues to build a sound business.

So what did Parker tell me and the readers of EnergyBiz back five years ago? I asked him if Kinder Morgan aspired to be the nation's largest pipeline. "No," he replied. "We want to be the smartest." Read the interview.

It is good to read about smarts in the business news this fall.