The higher and faster you grow, the farther and faster you fall, when you’re building up a capital stock dependent on a nonrenewable resource. In the face of exponential growth of extraction or use, a doubling or quadrupling of the nonrenewable resource give little added time to develop alternatives. If your concern is to extract the resource and make money at the maximum possible rate, then the ultimate size of the resource is the most important number in this system.
