oil gobs
buddy of mine claims there's gobs of oil and/or oil like substances buried all over the earth. some folks think he's nuts. but technically, he's right. there are gobs of hydrocarbons down there. the problem he glosses over is the ease with which we can get it. saying there's gobs of oil makes it sound like all of it is equally easy to get to. which clearly isn't exactly true. otherwise there'd never be shortages. opening the taps to the next reserve takes longer and is more expensive than it was for the previous reserves. and it's faster and cheaper than what it'll cost to tap the reserves after that. as long as reserve size times delay is bigger than the growth of demand, prices are low. but eventually you get to a reserve that is so big and so inaccessible that it can't keep up with growing demand. and prices go up. i suppose you can call it economics if you wish. but it's really just math.