ExxonMobil is a shadow of its former self, but it’s still far from finished. Last Thursday, Exxon announced that it will lay off 14,000 employees, not raise its dividend for the first time in almost four decades, and cut project spending. After more than a century as the biggest corporate America baddie, today, it’s humiliatingly smaller not only than its once-baby brother Chevron, but (gasp) even NextEra Energy, a solar and wind company. But even while licking these wounds, it’s still a powerhouse in an industry that is in a perfect-storm down cycle amid a 100-year bad economy and growing public disdain for fossil fuels. Renewable energy cannot develop fast enough to support human civilization as we know it, so for decades to come, the global economy will require oil, and Exxon is simply better than anyone else at providing it.