I am becoming more and more convinced that there will be a complete collapse in the fossil fuel industry and economy within the next 15 years.
Being an advocate of renewable energy, one could argue that this is merely wishful thinking on my part. However, as a champion of renewables I've historically been gloomy and sadly pessimistic on the subject - especially in light of how corrupted our leadership class is by their connections to the big fossil energy money. Given these immense vested interests in obstructing the rise of the new energy economy, I've never felt very optimistic about the prospect of finally reaching the end of our reliance on fossil fuels.
My recent optimism, however, stems from signs that point to a massive disruption on the horizon. It is looking more and more likely to me that revolutionary innovations and breakthroughs in materials science will make it possible to harness such immense amounts of energy from the sun - especially in desert and semi-arid regions - that the world will lose all interest in an energy source that will have become thoroughly maligned and discredited.
Indeed, I believe that after the new energy tipping point, nobody will care terribly much about oil, coal, natural gas, or any other fossil fuel - or even nuclear, for that matter. Although photovoltaic technologies have existed and have been maturing slowly for many decades now, I believe it has taken the relatively recent exponential growth in computing power to enable the breakthroughs necessary in order to produce energy more cheaply and more cleanly than from fossil fuel sources.
I, therefore, reiterate my belief that when fossil fuel falls, it will fall rapidly and spectacularly, causing massive losses of money by those investors who let their money dally too long as we approach that tipping point. Personally, I don't trust my ability to time the market well enough to want to risk having investments in anything remotely related to fossil fuels - even now, with the cliff possibly still several hundred feet away.