Thinking about it this way.... my grandmother did this with Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of California in the *early 1950s*. I only sold those positions circa 2008. (You always need an exit strategy *eventually*....) She and her brother were given shares of Coca-Cola even earlier (in the 1920s IIRC) and her brother held them forever. She always kicked herself for selling her shares early... but at the time, she just didn't understand why anyone would want sugar water when they could drink gin. ;-)
There we go - two more examples. And it seems to me that "all you need" (see how easy it is?) is the ability to see the major trends in society and civilization during one's life, and invest in leaders of those trends, and ride 'em roughly forever.
From the beginning of the 1900's, we have a big new energy source enabling all kinds of new activities and standard of living for civilization (oil). One of those big trends being consumerization (sugar water among others). I can see not getting the sugar water thing - she was operating from the wrong paradigm (gin is way better than sugar water!).
It seems to me that the big trend of today and the coming century is how we replace our dependence on our new found energy source (oil), with a new energy source that won't be used up - ever (ish). That will manifest in our production of energy (solar, wind, etc..). That will manifest in our storage of energy (batteries, pumped hydro - other ideas that have been kicked around elsewhere), and how we consume energy. Transportation is the biggie to get started, with personal transport the easiest.
Bigger scale logistics will need to follow.
I see agriculture as a smaller consumer by volume, but an industry that is wholly dependent on the energy we get from oil. Those vehicles will need to change.
And of course, air travel will eventually need to follow.
I foresee new energy consumption patterns of the future that are ridiculous in today's context. The two ideas I can think of, neither of which I know if they are feasible, affordable, or profitable or not, are desalination plants at a scale that beggars description (I'm thinking enough water being desalinated in California, to pump it uphill to the mountains and pour it out into the headwaters of different rivers, as a means of maintaining river levels and providing fresh clean water for agricultural purposes).
And plants - maybe today's refineries can be repurposed for this - that take excess renewable energy and use the
Sabatier reaction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia to take carbon out of the air and turn it into Methane. Either as a form of energy storage, or even as a way to directly reduce carbon in the atmosphere and sequester it (by pumping it back into wells and closing them back up).
These trends will be occurring worldwide, with people outside of North America afforded the opportunity to bypass big hunks of infrastructure that we've built over the last century. And of course, the adoption of consumerization that we've already done, will be happening among a bigger and bigger population.
And we'll be coasting up to a population of 11B people from 7B today (
Don’t Panic – The Facts About Population). Can we feed, water, clothe, and shelter that many people? Good thing that energy is getting cheaper within the world economy - maybe the left over economic activity that won't be going to produce the energy we use, can instead be taken up with the necessities of the additional 4B people we have coming.
I find that I am most of the time, excited to see what we do, and what marvels we accomplish in the coming decades of my life. I am occasionally dismayed and fearful of what we will do, but mostly positive that we will be excellent, and do amazing things.
