Big oil profits
 

If you ran a company that made huge profits, and whose industry had a finite lifespan, wouldn't you use some of the profits to develop a replacement for your current product? Since big oil has so much capital, shouldn't they be leaders in alternative fuels / power sources?

A finite lifespan, perhaps, but less finite than the terms of the current CEOs.

The current CEOs have to please the wall street wolves, especially the fund managers, every damn quarter. If Wall Street is displeased, the stock goes down and along with it, the CEO's pay goes down. Long range plans are six months and play second fiddle to this quarter's plans.

Consequently, there is no corporate leadership worrying about the long term health of the company......or the country. :(

BP said they were going in that direction.

Honestly the answer is no. The oil companies should concentrate on delivering oil as efficiently as possible - there's no compelling reason to think that they would be good at anything else.

The oil companies are the railroad companies of old. Try tho ye may, you can't turn a train into a plane.

Interesting way to put that. When should we dump our oil stock?

I wouldn't get rid of it yet. As oil gets more and more [Golum] precious [/Golum] the value might/should increase.

Then again, some Jimmy Neutron might engineer cold fusion in a Mountain Dew can tomorrow making the oil companies worthless overnight.