Well, you probably guessed it: Oil prices sunk even lower on Monday, hitting $28 per barrel — a number not seen since 2003.

Brent crude was driven down to $27.67 per barrel. The benchmark was at $28.59 by 4:21 a.m. ET, down $0.38 from its settlement on Friday.

Let’s put it this way:

A barrel of oil is now cheaper than the actual barrel itself.

Let that sink in.

At this point, producers are losing money on each barrel they produce. The bottle of Grey Goose that Shell’s CEO will be drowning his sorrows in later will cost more than a barrel of oil.

To be honest, I’m not even sure if this is news anymore.

At this point, any more headlines about “shocking” oil prices feel the same as the “breaking news” of Kim Kardashian’s latest manicure.

Even worse, I’m starting to question my own command of the English language, as I slowly run out of adjectives to describe the oil market over the past year and a half.

Disaster, calamity, distress, tragedy… I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here. (No pun intended, really.)

In the last few months alone, prices have fallen more than 40%, down from almost $150 per barrel right before the U.S. recession.

We all should have seen this coming, though. Actually, more than a handful of the researchers here at Angel Publishing have been predicting numbers like Monday’s for weeks, which were expected as a result of Iranian sanctions that were lifted over the weekend.

“Iran’s return to the oil market has been on the agenda for some time and therefore does not really come as any great surprise.” — Commerzbank senior analyst Carsten Fritsch

Those sanctions had cut Iranian oil exports by approximately 2 million barrels per day (bpd), leaving the OPEC country with a production cap of about 1 million bpd.

This would be all fine and well, except for the fact that the oil market is already oversaturated with product. The oversupply has been abundant since the middle of 2014, when North American shale oil production began operating in full force.

Now, the market must brace for the influx of 500,000 additional bpd (to start) from the world’s seventh-largest oil producer.

“Iran has at least a dozen Very Large Crude Carrier super-tankers filled and in place to sell into the market, and traders are betting that oil prices will drop again.” — NBC News

Several oil producers have begun to shut off their pumps, as production fails to be economically beneficial. Canadian Baytex Energy Corp. (TSX: BTE) and Canadian Natural Resources Limited (TSX: CNQ) have both cut back daily production by approximately 35,000 barrels per day.

New Kid(S) on the Block

In fact, the energy sector as whole has been fairly bleak over the past few months, to say the least.

Most analysts predicted that the slump in oil would permeate the rest of the energy market. That’s why recent news from the solar and wind energy markets is so incredibly surprising.

While oil prices were (and still are) sinking into unprecedented depths of the abyss, renewables finished 2015 with record-breaking numbers.

The chart below shows the annual progression of investments in clean energy:

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, renewable energy enjoyed $329 billion invested and 121 gigawatts of capacity added to infrastructure — thresholds that have never before been reached.

Before you start drawing assumptions, let’s clarify one important point.

For the first time in the history of renewable energy, the majority of investment did not come from China, Europe, or the U.S.

Instead, it was emerging markets — smaller and developing nations that don’t normally register on major indices — that accounted for more than half of the world’s annual investment in clean energy.

Denmark just set the world record for wind energy production, with more than 40% of the country’s energy generated from wind turbines.

Here’s where the history major in me is going to come out:

In the 19th century, industry depended on wood and lumber.

Then that form of energy was superseded by the coal age of the 20th century.

Then we became reliant on oil.

Out with the old, in with the new, right?

Not anymore.

In the 21st century, oil will face competition from multiple angles: wind, solar, and others. The energy sector will no longer follow a single path, but instead will branch out into several alternative options.

Currently, these different sources of energy have yet to enter into oil’s most prominent spaces: automobiles, airplanes, and other forms of transportation.

In those sectors, oil is still king.

However, as the market for electric cars continues to grow, we’re likely going to witness the end of the oil era.

It won’t happen this year, but the seeds are planted.

Shouldn’t we be looking to the future instead of dwelling on the past?

{$custom_ptt_jessica_signoff}