Private ownership of a mineral resource as we know it now, however, could not exist. It is not a matter of human rights. It is an invention of government, of the state. The most important justification for private control over minerals or fossil fuel resources is the speed and efficiency of development and production. A government bureaucracy is generally not a dependable mechanism for getting resources produced efficiently and rapidly.
Private interests are.
Examples are available everywhere. The question to be asked is whether it is still desirable, as it was often in the past, to develop and produce our fossil fuels as fast as possible when the end of the resource begins to be in sight. We should probably begin to limit production and use, not to encourage it. I consider it a catastrophe. See comments on Hotelling's model by Dr. Anthony Patt, Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Department of Geography, Boston University.