Charles C. Mann Quote
It is commonly asked, when will the world’s supply of oil be exhausted? wrote the MIT economist Morris Adelman. The best one-word answer: never. On its face, this seems ridiculous—how could a finite stock be inexhaustible, when a constantly renewed flow can run out? But more than a century of experience has shown it to be true. As a practical matter, we know only that there is more than enough for the foreseeable future. That is, fossil-fuel supplies have no known bounds. In strict technical terms, this means they are infinite. Hardly anyone who is not an economist believes this, though.
Charles C. Mann
It is commonly asked, when will the world’s supply of oil be exhausted? wrote the MIT economist Morris Adelman. The best one-word answer: never. On its face, this seems ridiculous—how could a finite stock be inexhaustible, when a constantly renewed flow can run out? But more than a century of experience has shown it to be true. As a practical matter, we know only that there is more than enough for the foreseeable future. That is, fossil-fuel supplies have no known bounds. In strict technical terms, this means they are infinite. Hardly anyone who is not an economist believes this, though.
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