After years in which $100 oil was the norm, the price of Brent crude is now around a third of that. Assume for a moment that Russia and Saudi Arabia fail in their efforts to get the price back up. Will $30 oil change the world? The answer is yes, of course. Everything is connected to everything else in economics, and that is particularly true when it comes to oil. For all the talk of the weightless economy, we’re not quite so post-industrial as to be able to ignore the cost of energy. Because oil is versatile and easy to transport, it remains the lubricant for the world’s energy system.
在許多年里，每桶石油在100美元以上是常態，如今，布倫特(Brent)原油價格只有那個水平的三分之一左右。假設俄羅斯與沙特阿拉伯短時間內無法讓油價回升，每桶30美元的油價會改變世界嗎？當然，答案是肯定的。在經濟學中，一切因素都彼此關聯——對石油來說就尤其如此了。雖然大家都在談論“無重量經濟”(weightless economy)，但我們的后工業化水平還沒有達到可以忽略能源成本的程度。因為用途廣泛且易于運輸，石油仍是全球能源系統的潤滑劑。