Letters to the Editor
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Never trust an oil company
I wonder if there is a way to really know if Exxon is unable to increase production or doesn't really want to. If the future price of oil were expected to decline, then there is an incentive to sell as much now as possible, but if the long term expectation is an increase in real price, then there is incentive to hold back current production. Holding back production both saves more to sell at the higher price and can also cause the price to rise faster. I suspect intentional holding back is easy to hide.
The argument that I like best for developing alternative sources of energy is the sort of auto-regulatory effect it has on current energy costs. But just like everything else, there is a bad side effect, and it is not just that cheaper prices reduce the incentive for alternative development. It is that if you do not timely find effective alternatives, the day of real oil shortages comes sooner.