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Lowell Tuttle
Sandra, we do know what abundance is, as we have it. As a matter of fact, oil futures were below 0 in the Spring of 2000. Tankers of crude were parked offshore with no where for their loads to be stored. Storage facilities were over stuffed. The pandemic had killed our energy industry which had basically exploded due to new hi tech methods which had grown the Valley, the Permian Basin, the Dakotas...I remember people renting their front yards down in Del Rio so folks could set up trailers.
Banks became afraid again (about the 10th time,) and the smaller independents basically shut down, leaving the huge producers who sit back in their exploration plans watching carefull what OPEC does and also what OPEC + does (which includes Russia)
By the way, I believe it's Exxon enery, BP energy, Chevron energy, Shell energy, Conoco energy, and Phillips energy. Or at least that's they way I see it. I guarantee they are all investing in alternative energy methods and probably even have debates within their boards on how much to go with R&D with either source. Then you add in the takeover financial exports who take down inefficient operations. Exxon employees, since the Pandemic, had their generous 401K matches cut drastically.
The energy markets are driven just like the stock market in my perception. The costs of gasoline and natural gas are dictated by the futures and buyers and sellers in some kind of comodities exchange. Also, politics like California's "special" rules on gas emissions causes their prices to be much much higher.
I am pretty sure oil has been priced at 7.00 or less at least four times since I have been living here in H town. Before Carter, during the S&L melt down of the 1980's, after or during the .com and enron debacle, close to it during at about the default fault swaps financial issues of Bush/Obama, and at the peak of the Pandemic in 2020.
It has always bounced back. Futures dictate a marketplace that is going to become more and more volatile as alternative energy products expand, become cheaper and more broadbased in how they are made efficient for end users.
Also, although it is very agurmentative, eventually this planet's petroleum based energy supply will get tighter and tighter. Not in our or our children's or grand children's lifetime, but over the next 200-300 years.
However red I am, I still believe strongly in our petroleum products industry and all they have done or are doing for a 8 billion populated planet. I don't see going forward economically supportive of all our economies without it. I hope technology in all energy products expand both efficiently and properly priced for all the costs both incurred and potentially (Exxon Valdez, BP explosions) (tax abatements for alternative)...
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