How has the nonrenewable nature of fossil fuels affected its supply? How has business and industry tried to control the supply to prevent shortages?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: Fossil fuels are a limited resource. Exploration kept pace with demand for oil throughout the twentieth century, but people kept feeling the nagging worry that stocks would run out. Competition for oil caused or exacerbated wars. Countries with major oil fields in their territories or offshore waters combined to control the price of fuel. In 1973, for instance, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an alliance of major oil producers, hiked the price and plunged the world into crisis. After a brief spell of energy rationing in the industrialized world and endangered revenues for the oil producers, a new era of cooperation between producers and consumers began in the 1980s. Exploitation of alternative energy sources, especially natural gas, diluted oil producers' power in the marketplace, while the producers themselves realized that they would sell a lot more oil if they stopped trying to restrain global economic growth. When price stability resumed, so did high levels of production and consumption.