Shell's Oil Isn't Stranded Today, But Tomorrow Matters More

The 92220 Evening Star was the last steam locomotive built by British Rail, back in 1960. It was retired only five years later, as diesel and electrification consigned the age of steam to history.

Building an engine and using it for only five years is a great way to waste investment. Which is why there's a raging debate today about stranded assets in the fossil-fuels business. Given the planet's diminishing capacity to absorb greenhouse gases without potentially catastrophic environmental effects, there is an implied cap on how much more oil, gas and coal can be used (absent some major breakthrough in carbon-capture technology). And, as happened with the Evening Star, rival ways to power transportation threaten to overturn the internal combustion engine's dominance. So producers increasingly face questions about whether some of their oil and gas reserves will ever actually be produced -- with obvious implications for their stocks.