These investments won’t be recouped unless the companies that made them are able to keep extracting for decades, since the up-front costs are amortized over the life of the projects. Chevron’s Australia project is expected to keep producing natural gas for at least thirty years, while Shell’s floating gas monstrosity is built to function on that site for up to twenty-five years. Exxon’s Alberta mine is projected to operate for forty years, as is BP/Husky Energy’s enormous Sunrise project, also in the tar sands. This is only a small sampling of mega-investments taking place around the world in
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