I don't think it's only a question of an industry making profits as to whether they choose to reinvest. If they can continue to make those profits, why would they invest more in R and D? So some industries and some sectors are more R and D intensive than others.
As I said before, where industries won't move--because if they're private sector they have shareholder responsibility and fiduciary responsibility to those shareholders--is back into projects that are such high risk that they cannot see a return. Simply because they have more money doesn't mean they'll go and blow their shareholders' money because they can't think of anything else to do with it. So they will buy more certain production and expand and so on and so forth. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll move into riskier and riskier areas.
The only reason they're going to move into risk is that they have some kind of partner to work with who will share that risk with them and/or they're forced into those risky areas because, in the case of the energy industry, conventional supplies and reserves are running out, and then the risk does come high.