The end is nigh for oil

Fossil fuel merchants including oil companies are living on borrowed time, argues a new book

Transition is energy's new buzzword. Benign as it sounds, for oil companies and many utilities it means the game is up. Or will be. Sometime. A consensus about when hasn't emerged. But predictions of the end are legion these days. Dieter Helm's new book, Burn Out, is the latest. It's long on hunches, short on detail. Helm's thesis is straightforward. Three "predictable surprises" are in store: the end of the commodity super-cycle and the fall in oil and gas prices over the long term; decarbonisation; and technological revolution. The oil companies that dominate today are doomed, though they don't realise it. Their businesses simply can't exist alongside the climate imperative. There is a "ba