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The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year In this gripping account of the quest for the energy that our world needs, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Prize. A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change. It is a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. From the jammed streets of Beijing to the shores of the Caspian Sea, from the conflicts in the Mideast to Capitol Hill and Silicon Valley, Yergin takes us into the decisions that are shaping our future.
The drama of oil-the struggle for access, the battle for control, the insecurity of supply, the consequences of use, its impact on the global economy, and the geopolitics that dominate it-continues to profoundly affect our world.. Yergin tells the inside stories of the oil market and the surge in oil prices, the race to control the resources of the former Soviet empire, and the massive mergers that transformed the landscape of world oil. He tackles the toughest questions: Will we run out of oil? Are China and the United States destined to come into conflict over oil? How will a turbulent Middle East affect the future of oil supply?
Yergin also reveals the surprising and sometimes tumultuous history of nuclear and coal, electricity, and the "shale gale" of natural gas, and how each fits into the larger marketplace. He brings climate change into unique perspective by offering an unprecedented history of how the field of climate study went from the concern of a handful of nineteenth- century scientists preoccupied with a new Ice Age into one of the most significant issues of our times.
He leads us through the rebirth of renewable energies and explores the distinctive stories of wind, solar, and biofuels. He offers a perspective on the return of the electric car, which some are betting will be necessary for a growing global economy.
The Quest presents an extraordinary range of characters and dramatic stories that illustrate the principles that will shape a robust and flexible energy security system for the decades to come. Energy is humbling in its scope, but our future requires that we deeply understand this global quest that is truly reshaping our world.
The drama of oil-the struggle for access, the battle for control, the insecurity of supply, the consequences of use, its impact on the global economy, and the geopolitics that dominate it-continues to profoundly affect our world.. Yergin tells the inside stories of the oil market and the surge in oil prices, the race to control the resources of the former Soviet empire, and the massive mergers that transformed the landscape of world oil. He tackles the toughest questions: Will we run out of oil? Are China and the United States destined to come into conflict over oil? How will a turbulent Middle East affect the future of oil supply?
Yergin also reveals the surprising and sometimes tumultuous history of nuclear and coal, electricity, and the "shale gale" of natural gas, and how each fits into the larger marketplace. He brings climate change into unique perspective by offering an unprecedented history of how the field of climate study went from the concern of a handful of nineteenth- century scientists preoccupied with a new Ice Age into one of the most significant issues of our times.
He leads us through the rebirth of renewable energies and explores the distinctive stories of wind, solar, and biofuels. He offers a perspective on the return of the electric car, which some are betting will be necessary for a growing global economy.
The Quest presents an extraordinary range of characters and dramatic stories that illustrate the principles that will shape a robust and flexible energy security system for the decades to come. Energy is humbling in its scope, but our future requires that we deeply understand this global quest that is truly reshaping our world.
805 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
About the author
Daniel Yergin
29 books649 followersDaniel Yergin is the author of the new bestseller The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World which has been hailed as “a fascinating saga” about the “quest for sustainable resources of energy,” and “the book you must read to understand the future of our economy and our way of life,” not to mention “necessary reading for C.E.O.’s, conservationists, lawmakers, generals, spies, tech geeks, thriller writers. . . and many others.”
He received the Pulitzer Prize for The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil Money and Power, which became a number one New York Times best seller and has been translated into 17 languages.
Dr. Yergin is Vice Chairman of IHS and Founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and serves as CNBC’s Global Energy Expert.
Other books by Dr. Yergin include Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy. Dr. Yergin has also written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, and many other publications.
Both The Prize and Commanding Heights were made into award winning documentaries. The eight-hour miniseries The Prize was aired on PBS, BBC, and NHK and viewed by 20 million viewers in the United States alone. The 6-hour documentary Commanding Heights that Dr. Yergin produced received three Emmy nominations, and the New York Festivals Gold World Medal for best documentary.
Dr. Yergin serves on the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and chaired the US Department of Energy’s Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development. He is a Trustee of the Brookings Institution, on the Board of the New America Foundation, and on the Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative.
Dr. Yergin holds a BA from Yale University and a PhD from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.
He received the Pulitzer Prize for The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil Money and Power, which became a number one New York Times best seller and has been translated into 17 languages.
Dr. Yergin is Vice Chairman of IHS and Founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and serves as CNBC’s Global Energy Expert.
Other books by Dr. Yergin include Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy. Dr. Yergin has also written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, and many other publications.
Both The Prize and Commanding Heights were made into award winning documentaries. The eight-hour miniseries The Prize was aired on PBS, BBC, and NHK and viewed by 20 million viewers in the United States alone. The 6-hour documentary Commanding Heights that Dr. Yergin produced received three Emmy nominations, and the New York Festivals Gold World Medal for best documentary.
Dr. Yergin serves on the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and chaired the US Department of Energy’s Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development. He is a Trustee of the Brookings Institution, on the Board of the New America Foundation, and on the Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative.
Dr. Yergin holds a BA from Yale University and a PhD from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 418 reviews
December 6, 2011
This book is a very comprehensive treatment of all the issues related to energy. The book systematically describes the history, economics, development, transportation, security, and future of the main sources of energy; oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, electricity, renewable (wind, solar, hydroelectric, plant-based), and "conservation". The danger of greenhouse gas causing climate change is also described in detail. After reading this book, I finally understand why we keep hearing predictions that fossil fuels will be exhausted in 20-30 years, but production keeps increasing, year after year. The choices that countries make for supplying their energy needs are complicated, inter-connected, and never straight-forward. The multitude of stories and anecdotes help keep the narrative interesting.
June 28, 2016
As I understand it, the author was an academic who earned his Ph.D. in International Relations at Cambridge. Based on his academic work, he wrote a Pulitzer prize winning book titled 'The Prize' in 1990, which was about the global oil industry and its effect on global economics and politics. This book (The Quest) picks up where 'The Prize' left off. It also goes beyond oil to incorporate every other major and minor form of energy, both renewable and non-renewable. Tying all of that in to the evolution of global economics and politics during the last few decades is no easy task, but I can't imagine anyone could have done it better. The book is very informative, very educational, very comprehensive, and could serve as the text for a very interesting course on the topic.
So much has happened in the last few decades that makes for interesting subject matter. Wars in the middle east, the Arab spring, the advent of fracking, the rise of renewables, the electric car, etc. All of these events are discussed in the book in the context of the big picture that includes energy, politics, and economics. The first lesson I took away from this is that nothing happens in a vacuum. It is a bit scary how much the global economy is built on energy of one form or another.
For me, I can honestly say this book was dense and it took me a long time to complete. In true academic style, it is full of references and footnotes for each chapter. But it was not dry, and the author did make efforts to follow a narrative through each chapter so that it at least had some flow. I did find it enjoyable to read. I thought the author did a great job of telling the story of Edison and Tesla, DC vs. AC, and how those event shaped our present. Similarly, the author did well to incorporate many other histories that are less well-known, but equally relevant to the current state of various energy sources.
So much has happened in the last few decades that makes for interesting subject matter. Wars in the middle east, the Arab spring, the advent of fracking, the rise of renewables, the electric car, etc. All of these events are discussed in the book in the context of the big picture that includes energy, politics, and economics. The first lesson I took away from this is that nothing happens in a vacuum. It is a bit scary how much the global economy is built on energy of one form or another.
For me, I can honestly say this book was dense and it took me a long time to complete. In true academic style, it is full of references and footnotes for each chapter. But it was not dry, and the author did make efforts to follow a narrative through each chapter so that it at least had some flow. I did find it enjoyable to read. I thought the author did a great job of telling the story of Edison and Tesla, DC vs. AC, and how those event shaped our present. Similarly, the author did well to incorporate many other histories that are less well-known, but equally relevant to the current state of various energy sources.
October 5, 2017
الكتاب ضخم يقع في 800 صفحة في نسخته الانجليزية
و أكثر من 1100 صفحة في نسخته العربية
وحوالي 30 ساعة في النسخة الصوتية
الكتاب يشمل تاريخ صناعة الطاقة ومصادرها وكيف تشكل الاقتصاد العالمي حولها
كيف تتأثر سياسات الدول العظمى تجاه بعضها بسبب اسعار النفط أو طرق التصدير
كما تطرق إلى موضوع الطاقة المتجددة والصعوبات التي توجهها لتحل محل مصادر الطاقة الاحفورية (الفحم، النفط، والغاز الطبيعي)
يتميز دانييل ييرغن بأسلوب سردي بديع وسلس ومبسط. لذلك نجح في جذب شريحة كبيرة من القراء حتى من غير المختصين بالنفط والاقتصاد
أنا استمعت للنسخة الصوتية عبر تطبيق Audible
النسخة العربية بعنوان "السعي بحثاً عن الطاقة والأمن وإعادة تشكيل العالم الحديث" صادرة عن منتدى العلاقات العربية والدولية
و أكثر من 1100 صفحة في نسخته العربية
وحوالي 30 ساعة في النسخة الصوتية
الكتاب يشمل تاريخ صناعة الطاقة ومصادرها وكيف تشكل الاقتصاد العالمي حولها
كيف تتأثر سياسات الدول العظمى تجاه بعضها بسبب اسعار النفط أو طرق التصدير
كما تطرق إلى موضوع الطاقة المتجددة والصعوبات التي توجهها لتحل محل مصادر الطاقة الاحفورية (الفحم، النفط، والغاز الطبيعي)
يتميز دانييل ييرغن بأسلوب سردي بديع وسلس ومبسط. لذلك نجح في جذب شريحة كبيرة من القراء حتى من غير المختصين بالنفط والاقتصاد
أنا استمعت للنسخة الصوتية عبر تطبيق Audible
النسخة العربية بعنوان "السعي بحثاً عن الطاقة والأمن وإعادة تشكيل العالم الحديث" صادرة عن منتدى العلاقات العربية والدولية
April 6, 2017
Daniel Yergin’s Superb New Book: A Brilliant Survey of Energy Issues
Some two centuries ago a profound economic shift upset the traditional relations of East and West. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, Western Europe and the United States began to overtake the great civilizations of China and India, the planet's wealthiest and most sophisticated societies throughout most of recorded history.
Now those two centuries of increasing imbalance are coming to an end, the result of the combined effects of five centuries of globalization beginning with Columbus; advances in transportation and communication in the 19th and 20th Centuries; the rapid spread of literacy, especially in the years following World War II; and major improvements in healthcare, which dramatically extended life expectancy across the globe. As the 21st Century continues to unfold, we may yet see today's wealthiest economies -- those of Europe and the United States -- fall behind the Asian giants, as they tap the potential of billions of increasingly healthy, well-educated citizens.
This tectonic shift in geopolitical relations lends great urgency to energy politics today. The rise of the East is as great a factor in the sourcing and distribution of energy resources as climate change. Both factors loom large in economic researcher Daniel Yergin's superb new book, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World.
In 1991 Yergin published The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, which gained the #1 spot on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list, won the Pulitzer Prize, and established his firm, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, as the country's most sought-after voice on energy issues. Two decades later, The Quest broadens and updates the earlier book, relating the monumental changes in energy markets wrought by technological innovation, historic geopolitical shifts, and our changing views of energy and climate.
"Three fundamental questions shape this narrative," Yergin writes in the introduction. "Will enough energy be available to meet the needs of a growing world, and at what cost, and with what technologies? How can the security of the energy system on which the world depends be protected? What will be the impact of environmental concerns, including climate change, on the future of energy -- and how will energy development affect the environment?"
Approaching the topic more specifically, he asks, "Will resources be adequate not only to fuel today's $65 trillion global economy but also to fuel what might be a $130 trillion economy in just two decades? To put it simply, will the oil resources be sufficient to go from a world of almost a billion automobiles to a world of more than two billion cars?" Later the author emphasizes the significance of this question: "Despite growth in emerging markets, one out of every nine barrels of oil used in the world every day is burned as motor fuel on American roads."
The Quest is a big book, gushing with information. Yergin surveys virtually every significant aspect of energy in today's world. He touches on every energy source, every significant energy-related technological development of recent decades, and every major location of energy resources, and he briefly relates the history of each element. For a nonspecialist, The Quest is an immersion course in the nature and politics of energy. It's fascinating.
Ever the dispassionate analyst, Yergin treats highly controversial issues with a simple, fact-based approach. However, despite its ill treatment by much of the oil industry, he takes on the issue of global climate change in detail and with dead seriousness, leaving little doubt that the more rational leaders in the energy sector have no question about the potential world-changing effects of rising global temperatures.
But Daniel Yergin is no pessimist. Tackling the issue of "peak oil," for example, he says, "the world is clearly not running out of oil. Far from it. The estimates for the world's total stock of oil keep growing."
(From www.malwarwickonbooks.com)
Some two centuries ago a profound economic shift upset the traditional relations of East and West. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, Western Europe and the United States began to overtake the great civilizations of China and India, the planet's wealthiest and most sophisticated societies throughout most of recorded history.
Now those two centuries of increasing imbalance are coming to an end, the result of the combined effects of five centuries of globalization beginning with Columbus; advances in transportation and communication in the 19th and 20th Centuries; the rapid spread of literacy, especially in the years following World War II; and major improvements in healthcare, which dramatically extended life expectancy across the globe. As the 21st Century continues to unfold, we may yet see today's wealthiest economies -- those of Europe and the United States -- fall behind the Asian giants, as they tap the potential of billions of increasingly healthy, well-educated citizens.
This tectonic shift in geopolitical relations lends great urgency to energy politics today. The rise of the East is as great a factor in the sourcing and distribution of energy resources as climate change. Both factors loom large in economic researcher Daniel Yergin's superb new book, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World.
In 1991 Yergin published The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, which gained the #1 spot on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list, won the Pulitzer Prize, and established his firm, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, as the country's most sought-after voice on energy issues. Two decades later, The Quest broadens and updates the earlier book, relating the monumental changes in energy markets wrought by technological innovation, historic geopolitical shifts, and our changing views of energy and climate.
"Three fundamental questions shape this narrative," Yergin writes in the introduction. "Will enough energy be available to meet the needs of a growing world, and at what cost, and with what technologies? How can the security of the energy system on which the world depends be protected? What will be the impact of environmental concerns, including climate change, on the future of energy -- and how will energy development affect the environment?"
Approaching the topic more specifically, he asks, "Will resources be adequate not only to fuel today's $65 trillion global economy but also to fuel what might be a $130 trillion economy in just two decades? To put it simply, will the oil resources be sufficient to go from a world of almost a billion automobiles to a world of more than two billion cars?" Later the author emphasizes the significance of this question: "Despite growth in emerging markets, one out of every nine barrels of oil used in the world every day is burned as motor fuel on American roads."
The Quest is a big book, gushing with information. Yergin surveys virtually every significant aspect of energy in today's world. He touches on every energy source, every significant energy-related technological development of recent decades, and every major location of energy resources, and he briefly relates the history of each element. For a nonspecialist, The Quest is an immersion course in the nature and politics of energy. It's fascinating.
Ever the dispassionate analyst, Yergin treats highly controversial issues with a simple, fact-based approach. However, despite its ill treatment by much of the oil industry, he takes on the issue of global climate change in detail and with dead seriousness, leaving little doubt that the more rational leaders in the energy sector have no question about the potential world-changing effects of rising global temperatures.
But Daniel Yergin is no pessimist. Tackling the issue of "peak oil," for example, he says, "the world is clearly not running out of oil. Far from it. The estimates for the world's total stock of oil keep growing."
(From www.malwarwickonbooks.com)
November 25, 2018
A massive overarching summary of the history of everything energy related. Seriously, it covers an absolutely enormous amount. It was published in 2011, and renewables have changed so quickly since then that some parts are already badly out of date, and the Chinese obsession with coal has reduced slightly since it was published also (although it's largely been transferred to developing countries by Chinese companies instead).
Fascinating, although it covered a lot of ground of things I already knew, as it was clearly written for an audience that doesn't work on energy professionally.
Fascinating, although it covered a lot of ground of things I already knew, as it was clearly written for an audience that doesn't work on energy professionally.
January 21, 2018
Everything you could ever want to know about how energy affected the success and failure, and growth, in various countries and the globe at large (How did Russia become a superpower in energy/oil supply; how did that affect the power dynamics in other countries) as well as what are the consequences of different energy sources. Conflicts over how useful energy is v. how harmful its waste products are (think about pollution in Beijing-- the place that other countries outsource their jobs to in order to get around the pesky laws that require the use of filters that are better for health and environment. Yergin also examines our historic and current ideas about how sustainable each energy source is. Will we run out of fossil fuels? There is also much discussion of climate change.
May 20, 2023
"The Quest" is a book written by Daniel Yergin, an American author and energy expert. It was published in 2011 and explores the global energy landscape, focusing on the search for sustainable energy sources in the 21st century. The book delves into various aspects of the energy industry, including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power, renewable energy, and the geopolitical challenges associated with energy production and consumption. Yergin analyzes historical trends, technological advancements, and policy considerations to provide insights into the future of energy and its implications for the world.
GPT
GPT
April 4, 2020
2019.07.27–2019.08.02
Contents
Yergin D (2011) (29:26) Quest, The - Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Introduction
Prologue
• “Not So Fast”
• Desert Storm
• A New Age of Globalization
• The Fading of Renewables?
• A Stable Middle East
• Containment
• New Horizons and the “Quiet Revolution”
Part I: The New World of Oil
01. Russia Returns
• “Things Are Bad with Bread”
• “Dear John—Help!”
• A New Russia: “No One’s at the Controls”
• Reconstructing the Oil Industry
• Lukoil and Surgut
• Yukos: The Sale of the Century
• Opening Up
• The Peripheries
• In the Heartland
• “A Great Economic Power”
• TNK-BP “50/50”
• Yukos
• “Strategic Resources”
• Oil and Russia’s Future
02. The Caspian Derby
• The New Great Game
• The Players
• “The Oil Kingdom”
• History on Display
• “All Roads Are There”
• “The Native Son”
• “The Deal of the Century”
• What Route for Early Oil?
• The Two-Track Strategy: “Offend No One”
• What Route for the Main Pipeline?
• “Now Is the Moment”
• “Our Major Goal”: Petroleum and the Nation-State
03. Across the Caspian
• Kazakhstan and the “Fourth Generation” of Oil
• Tengiz: “A Perfect Oil Field”
• The Pipeline Battle
• “The Main Thing Is That the Oil Comes Out”
• Kashagan
• One More Deal
• Turkmenistan and the Pipeline That Never Was
• TAP and CAOP
• Turmoil En Route
• The “Turkmenbashi”
• Hope and Experience
• “No Policy”
• Which Scenario?
• The End of the Road
04. “Supermajors”
• The “Asian Economic Miracle”
• Jakarta: “OPEC’s Economic Stars”
• “Essentially All Gone”: The Asian Financial Crisis
• The Jakarta Syndrome
• The Shock
• “Were He Alive Today . . .”
• The Merger That Wasn’t
• The Breakout: BP and Amoco
• Too Good to Be True
• “Easy Glum, Easy Glow”: Exxon and Mobil
• The Ghost of John D. Rockefeller
• The Alarms
• The French Reconnection: Total and Elf
• “We Had to Consolidate”: Chevron and Texaco
• The Last Ones Standing: Conoco and Phillips
• Standing Aside: Shell
05. The Petro-State
• Crisis for the Exporters
• The “Reversed Midas Touch”
• “We Couldn���t Lose Time”
• “It Is a Trap”
• The Coup
• Hugo Chávez
• La Apertura
• Painting the Picture
• The Oil War
• The Election: Not Even “The Remotest Chance”
• Chávez in Power
• The Recovery of Oil
06. Aggregate Disruption
• The Day That Changed Everything
• “Alo Presidente”—Venezuela
• “Call Fidel!”
• The General Strike
• Nigeria: “You’re a Petro-State”
• Ethnic Conflict
• Violence in the Delta
• “The Boys”
• Natural Disaster
07. War in Iraq
• Why the War?
• “Oil”
• “Beyond Nation Building”
• Not a Cakewalk
• The Oil Industry: “Dilapidated and Deplorable”
• “De-Baathification” and the Army’s Dissolution
• Rampant Looting
• Insurgency and Civil War
• The Industry Under Attack
• The Iraqi Disruption
• What Did You Learn?
08. The Demand Shock
• The Surge
• The Tightest Market
• Where Are the Petroleum Engineers?
• “Financialization”
• The Rise of Oil Trading
• From Eggs to Oil: The Paper Barrel
• Hedgers versus Speculators
• The “BRICs”: The Investment Opportunity of a Generation
• Trading Places
• Over the Counter
• The Belief System
• Does Price Actually Matter?
• “Going to Explode”
• “You Need Buyers”
• “Oil Dot-com”
• “It Needs to Stop”
• China in 2014
• Jeddah versus Bonga
• Break Point
• Changing the Car Fleet
• The Great Recession
• Sovereign Wealth
• The Peak
• “A Cold Wind from Nowhere”
09. China’s Rise
• “China Risk”
• “The Build-Out of China”
• Growth and Anxiety
• “Poor in Oil”
• Daqing: The “Great Celebration”
• “Iron Man” Wang
• Red Guards
• “Export as Much Oil as We Can”
• Workshop of the World
• The End of Self-Sufficiency
• The “Go Out” Strategy: Using Two Legs to Walk
• “Like Throwing a Match”
• “INOCs”
• Proportion
10. China in the Fast Lane
• Petro-Rivalry?
• “Responsible Stakeholders”
• The Fast Lane
• Going Out—on Wheels
• The Price of Success
• Power Surge
• Energy and Foreign Policy
• The Overlap of Interests
Part II: Securing the Supply
11. Is the World Running Out of Oil?
• Aboveground Risks
• Running Out Again—and Again
• The Fifth Time
• M. King Hubbert
• At the Peak
• Why Supplies Continue to Grow
• The Supergiant
• Discoveries versus Additions
• How Much Oil?
12. Unconventional
• Liquids with Gas
• Out of Sight of Land
• The North Sea and the Birth of Non-OPEC
• To the Frontier
• Deepwater Horizon
• “We Have a Situation”
• The Race to Contain
• “Fighting the Spill”
• The Government and the Company
• The Presalt: The Next Frontier
• From Fringe to Mainstream: Canadian Oil Sands
• Mega-Resource
• Aboveground Risks
• Mother Nature’s Pressure Cooker
• Tight Oil
13. The Security of Energy
• The Return of Energy Security
• The Dimensions
• The Limits of “Energy Independence”
• Strategic Significance
• Toward an International Regime
• Emergency Stocks
• Operating Systems
• Cyberattack: “A Bad New World”
• Bringing China and India “Inside”
• Securing the Supply Chain
14. Shifting Sands in the Persian Gulf
• “The Center of Gravity of World Oil”
• One Quarter of World Reserves
• The “Hinges” of the World Economy
• A Critical Node
• The Social Foundations
• Iraq’s Potential
• Seeking Hegemony
• “The Great Satan”
• Normalization?
• Renewed Militancy
• The Strait of Hormuz
• The Game Changer
• The Balance of Power
• Incentives and Sanctions
15. Gas on Water
• Cabot’s Cryogenics
• Killer Fog
• The “Fuel Non-Use Act”
• “The Crown Jewels”
16. The Natural Gas Revolution
• “Figure a Way”
• Breakthrough
• The “Shale Gale”
• Global Gas
• “Wounded by a Friend”
• The Emergence of Gazprom
• Ukraine versus Russia
• Diversification
• A Fuel for the Future
Part III: The Electric Age
17. Alternating Currents
• The Wizard of Menlo Park
• “The Subdivision of Light”
• “Battle of the Currents”
• The Meter Man
• “Natural Monopoly”: The Regulatory Bargain
• Elektropolis: Technology Transfer across the Seas
• “Aim for the Top”
• “I Have Erred”: Too Much Debt
• The New Deal: Completing the Electrification of America
• “Live Better Electrically”
18. The Nuclear Cycle
• The Admiral
• The Nuclear Navy
• The Reactor at Obninsk
• “Too Cheap to Meter”
• The Great Nuclear Bandwagon
• “The Buddha Is Smiling”: Proliferation
• Three Mile Island
• The Aftermath
• France’s Transformation
• “Black Stalks”
• The Exceptions
• What Fuel for the Future?
19. Breaking the Bargain
• Rate Shock
• Toward Market
• Enter the Merchant Generators
• California’s Strange Restructuring
• The Iron Curtain
• “It Was Madness”
• “Pirates” and “Plunder”: California at Sea
• “Crisis by Design”
• In the Aftermath
20. Fuel Choice
• Making Power
• Coal and Carbon
• Capturing the Carbon
• “Big Carbon”
• The Return of Nuclear
• A New Lease on Life
• “We Are Going to Restart”
• “Deep Geologic Storage”
• Proliferation
• Nuclear Renaissance
• Fukushima Daiichi
• Power and the Shale Gale
• But How Much?
Part IV: Climate and Carbon
21. Glacial Change
• “A Sentiment of Wonder”
• The New Energy Question
• The Rise of Carbon
• Why Not Too Hot or Too Cold?
• The Alpine “Hot Box”
• “Great Sheets of Ice”
• The Atmosphere: “As a Dam Built across a River”
• Arrhenius: The Great Benefit of a Warming Climate
• The Effect of Guy Callendar: Calculating Carbon
22. The Age of Discovery
• “A Large-Scale Geophysical Experiment”
• The Unexpected Impact of the International Geophysical Year
• “Okay, Let’s Go”: The Strategic Importance of Weather
• The Meeting at Woods Hole
• Keeling and His Curve
• “Global Cooling”: The Next Ice Age?
• Modeling the Climate
• “Boy, If This Is True”: The Rise of Climate Activism
• Revelle’s Exile
23. The Road to Rio
• The Hole in The Ozone: The Role Model
• James Hansen’s “Venus Syndrome”
• The Hot Summer of 1988 and the “White House Effect”
• Mrs. Thatcher
• The IPCC and the “Indispensable Man”
• Shoot-Out at Sundsvall
• Getting Ready for Rio
• To Go or Not to Go
• “A Major Harangue Down There”
• “The Diplomatic Free-for-All”
• What the Framework Convention Set in Motion
24. Making a Market
• The “Scribbler in Chief”
• “The War on Pollution”
• “Old Enough to Remember”
• The Acid Test of Acid Rain
• “Least-Cost Solutions”
• “The Grand Policy Experiment”
• “A Discernible Human Influence on Climate”
• Developed versus Developing Countries
• Rising Stakes—and Rising Clash
• Battles at Kyoto
• Europe versus the United States
• Developing versus Developed Countries
• “Cost, Cost, and Cost”
• How Realistic?
25. On the Global Agenda
• The “K” Word
• Twenty-One Questions
• The Foot-and-Mouth Panic
• Making a Market in Carbon
• The Power of Images
• Green Credentials
• The Nobel Prize
• Massachusetts versus EPA: The Supreme Court Steps In
26. In Search of Consensus
• Carrots and Sticks
• China: “Win-Win”
• India: “The Climate Agnostic”
• “Hopenhagen”
• “The Health of the Himalyas”
• “Extreme Weather”
• Making the Pledge at Cancún
• It’s Up to the EPA
• The Legacy of the Glaciers
Part V: New Energies
27. Rebirth of Renewables
• What Does “Renewables” Mean?
• Earth Day
• “You Will Learn”
• The “Moral Equivalent of War”
• “PURPA Machines”
• Good-Bye Sunshine
• “Production, Production, Production”
• The Epitaph?
• Japan: Staying Alive
• The “Bureaucrat-Novelist”
• Feeding into Germany
• From “Solar” to “Renewables”: Recovery and Rebranding
• The States as Laboratories
• Cleantech
• The “Three Denchi Brothers”
• Green Dragon
• “No Area’s More Ripe”
28. Science Experiment
• The Great Bubbling
• Not Merely “Good Science”
• The Prime Driver
• The Public Good
• Enter the Venture Capitalists
• Georges Doriot: Prophet of the “Start-Up Nation”
• Go West
• “Career Suicide”
• The $6 Trillion Opportunity
• “MIT Is Doing Energy”
• “The Only Way to Break Out”
• The Nature of the Experiment
29. Alchemy of Shining Light
• Ten Weeks That Shook the World
• Solar Cells
• “Thorough Investigation”
• The Race into Space
• Down to Earth
• The Research Program
• Sunshine Project
• The German Boom
• China Enters
• Thin Film
• The Solar Menu
• Concentrating the Sun
• Grid Parity?
• All the Roofs?
30. Mystery of Wind
• “The Free Benefit of Wind”
• The Electrification of Wind
• On Grandpa’s Knob with Palmer Putnam
• The Modern Industry
• “California Wind Rush”
• Sturdy Danes
• The Slump
•��The Return of Wind
• A Mainstream Technology
• “On the Cusp”
• But How Big?
• The Challenge of “Intermittency”
• “Marinized”: The Offshore Frontier
31. The Fifth Fuel—Efficiency
• Real Efficiency Gains
• Jieneng Jianpai
• Industry: How Low the Fruit?
• “Aspirations”
• The “Game Changer”
• Which “20 Percent”?
• The Ribbon
32. Closing the Conservation Gap
• Patent Number 808897: “Manufactured Weather”
• Going Mainstream
• The Gadgiwatts
• Efficiency by Design
• Mottainai: “Too Precious to Waste”
• A Smarter Grid
Part VI: Road to the Future
33. Carbohydrate Man
• The Biofuel Vision
• The First Flex-Fuel Vehicle
• Birth of Gasohol
• The Making of an Ethanol Boom
• Brazil’s “Alcohol”
• Food versus Fuel
• A Promising Fungus
• “Switch—What?”
• The Forgotten Challenge
• “Tougher than People May Have Expected”
• Algae: The Little Refineries
• What Is Possible for Biofuels
34. Internal Fire
• Fuel for the Future?
• The Steam Engine
• Herr Otto
• The Race
• Electric or Gasoline?
• Nature’s Secret
• The New Fuel
• The Halcyon Days
• Getting Mobbed
• The Japanese Arrive
• The New Passion
• Remaking of Automobile
• What about Plan B?
• New Standards
35. The Great Electric Car Experiment
• The Race Resumes
• “The Valley of Smokes”
• City under Siege
• The Air Resources Board
• The Return of the EV
• The Road Map
• Electric Drive
• Taking a Leaf
• Charge It
• Where Will the Electricity Come From?
• “Thermal Runaway”?
• Asia First?
• The Hydrogen Highway
• What about Natural Gas?
• The Cars of the Future
• To the Future
Conclusion: “A Great Revolution”
Acknowledgements
Credits
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Contents
Yergin D (2011) (29:26) Quest, The - Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Introduction
Prologue
• “Not So Fast”
• Desert Storm
• A New Age of Globalization
• The Fading of Renewables?
• A Stable Middle East
• Containment
• New Horizons and the “Quiet Revolution”
Part I: The New World of Oil
01. Russia Returns
• “Things Are Bad with Bread”
• “Dear John—Help!”
• A New Russia: “No One’s at the Controls”
• Reconstructing the Oil Industry
• Lukoil and Surgut
• Yukos: The Sale of the Century
• Opening Up
• The Peripheries
• In the Heartland
• “A Great Economic Power”
• TNK-BP “50/50”
• Yukos
• “Strategic Resources”
• Oil and Russia’s Future
02. The Caspian Derby
• The New Great Game
• The Players
• “The Oil Kingdom”
• History on Display
• “All Roads Are There”
• “The Native Son”
• “The Deal of the Century”
• What Route for Early Oil?
• The Two-Track Strategy: “Offend No One”
• What Route for the Main Pipeline?
• “Now Is the Moment”
• “Our Major Goal”: Petroleum and the Nation-State
03. Across the Caspian
• Kazakhstan and the “Fourth Generation” of Oil
• Tengiz: “A Perfect Oil Field”
• The Pipeline Battle
• “The Main Thing Is That the Oil Comes Out”
• Kashagan
• One More Deal
• Turkmenistan and the Pipeline That Never Was
• TAP and CAOP
• Turmoil En Route
• The “Turkmenbashi”
• Hope and Experience
• “No Policy”
• Which Scenario?
• The End of the Road
04. “Supermajors”
• The “Asian Economic Miracle”
• Jakarta: “OPEC’s Economic Stars”
• “Essentially All Gone”: The Asian Financial Crisis
• The Jakarta Syndrome
• The Shock
• “Were He Alive Today . . .”
• The Merger That Wasn’t
• The Breakout: BP and Amoco
• Too Good to Be True
• “Easy Glum, Easy Glow”: Exxon and Mobil
• The Ghost of John D. Rockefeller
• The Alarms
• The French Reconnection: Total and Elf
• “We Had to Consolidate”: Chevron and Texaco
• The Last Ones Standing: Conoco and Phillips
• Standing Aside: Shell
05. The Petro-State
• Crisis for the Exporters
• The “Reversed Midas Touch”
• “We Couldn���t Lose Time”
• “It Is a Trap”
• The Coup
• Hugo Chávez
• La Apertura
• Painting the Picture
• The Oil War
• The Election: Not Even “The Remotest Chance”
• Chávez in Power
• The Recovery of Oil
06. Aggregate Disruption
• The Day That Changed Everything
• “Alo Presidente”—Venezuela
• “Call Fidel!”
• The General Strike
• Nigeria: “You’re a Petro-State”
• Ethnic Conflict
• Violence in the Delta
• “The Boys”
• Natural Disaster
07. War in Iraq
• Why the War?
• “Oil”
• “Beyond Nation Building”
• Not a Cakewalk
• The Oil Industry: “Dilapidated and Deplorable”
• “De-Baathification” and the Army’s Dissolution
• Rampant Looting
• Insurgency and Civil War
• The Industry Under Attack
• The Iraqi Disruption
• What Did You Learn?
08. The Demand Shock
• The Surge
• The Tightest Market
• Where Are the Petroleum Engineers?
• “Financialization”
• The Rise of Oil Trading
• From Eggs to Oil: The Paper Barrel
• Hedgers versus Speculators
• The “BRICs”: The Investment Opportunity of a Generation
• Trading Places
• Over the Counter
• The Belief System
• Does Price Actually Matter?
• “Going to Explode”
• “You Need Buyers”
• “Oil Dot-com”
• “It Needs to Stop”
• China in 2014
• Jeddah versus Bonga
• Break Point
• Changing the Car Fleet
• The Great Recession
• Sovereign Wealth
• The Peak
• “A Cold Wind from Nowhere”
09. China’s Rise
• “China Risk”
• “The Build-Out of China”
• Growth and Anxiety
• “Poor in Oil”
• Daqing: The “Great Celebration”
• “Iron Man” Wang
• Red Guards
• “Export as Much Oil as We Can”
• Workshop of the World
• The End of Self-Sufficiency
• The “Go Out” Strategy: Using Two Legs to Walk
• “Like Throwing a Match”
• “INOCs”
• Proportion
10. China in the Fast Lane
• Petro-Rivalry?
• “Responsible Stakeholders”
• The Fast Lane
• Going Out—on Wheels
• The Price of Success
• Power Surge
• Energy and Foreign Policy
• The Overlap of Interests
Part II: Securing the Supply
11. Is the World Running Out of Oil?
• Aboveground Risks
• Running Out Again—and Again
• The Fifth Time
• M. King Hubbert
• At the Peak
• Why Supplies Continue to Grow
• The Supergiant
• Discoveries versus Additions
• How Much Oil?
12. Unconventional
• Liquids with Gas
• Out of Sight of Land
• The North Sea and the Birth of Non-OPEC
• To the Frontier
• Deepwater Horizon
• “We Have a Situation”
• The Race to Contain
• “Fighting the Spill”
• The Government and the Company
• The Presalt: The Next Frontier
• From Fringe to Mainstream: Canadian Oil Sands
• Mega-Resource
• Aboveground Risks
• Mother Nature’s Pressure Cooker
• Tight Oil
13. The Security of Energy
• The Return of Energy Security
• The Dimensions
• The Limits of “Energy Independence”
• Strategic Significance
• Toward an International Regime
• Emergency Stocks
• Operating Systems
• Cyberattack: “A Bad New World”
• Bringing China and India “Inside”
• Securing the Supply Chain
14. Shifting Sands in the Persian Gulf
• “The Center of Gravity of World Oil”
• One Quarter of World Reserves
• The “Hinges” of the World Economy
• A Critical Node
• The Social Foundations
• Iraq’s Potential
• Seeking Hegemony
• “The Great Satan”
• Normalization?
• Renewed Militancy
• The Strait of Hormuz
• The Game Changer
• The Balance of Power
• Incentives and Sanctions
15. Gas on Water
• Cabot’s Cryogenics
• Killer Fog
• The “Fuel Non-Use Act”
• “The Crown Jewels”
16. The Natural Gas Revolution
• “Figure a Way”
• Breakthrough
• The “Shale Gale”
• Global Gas
• “Wounded by a Friend”
• The Emergence of Gazprom
• Ukraine versus Russia
• Diversification
• A Fuel for the Future
Part III: The Electric Age
17. Alternating Currents
• The Wizard of Menlo Park
• “The Subdivision of Light”
• “Battle of the Currents”
• The Meter Man
• “Natural Monopoly”: The Regulatory Bargain
• Elektropolis: Technology Transfer across the Seas
• “Aim for the Top”
• “I Have Erred”: Too Much Debt
• The New Deal: Completing the Electrification of America
• “Live Better Electrically”
18. The Nuclear Cycle
• The Admiral
• The Nuclear Navy
• The Reactor at Obninsk
• “Too Cheap to Meter”
• The Great Nuclear Bandwagon
• “The Buddha Is Smiling”: Proliferation
• Three Mile Island
• The Aftermath
• France’s Transformation
• “Black Stalks”
• The Exceptions
• What Fuel for the Future?
19. Breaking the Bargain
• Rate Shock
• Toward Market
• Enter the Merchant Generators
• California’s Strange Restructuring
• The Iron Curtain
• “It Was Madness”
• “Pirates” and “Plunder”: California at Sea
• “Crisis by Design”
• In the Aftermath
20. Fuel Choice
• Making Power
• Coal and Carbon
• Capturing the Carbon
• “Big Carbon”
• The Return of Nuclear
• A New Lease on Life
• “We Are Going to Restart”
• “Deep Geologic Storage”
• Proliferation
• Nuclear Renaissance
• Fukushima Daiichi
• Power and the Shale Gale
• But How Much?
Part IV: Climate and Carbon
21. Glacial Change
• “A Sentiment of Wonder”
• The New Energy Question
• The Rise of Carbon
• Why Not Too Hot or Too Cold?
• The Alpine “Hot Box”
• “Great Sheets of Ice”
• The Atmosphere: “As a Dam Built across a River”
• Arrhenius: The Great Benefit of a Warming Climate
• The Effect of Guy Callendar: Calculating Carbon
22. The Age of Discovery
• “A Large-Scale Geophysical Experiment”
• The Unexpected Impact of the International Geophysical Year
• “Okay, Let’s Go”: The Strategic Importance of Weather
• The Meeting at Woods Hole
• Keeling and His Curve
• “Global Cooling”: The Next Ice Age?
• Modeling the Climate
• “Boy, If This Is True”: The Rise of Climate Activism
• Revelle’s Exile
23. The Road to Rio
• The Hole in The Ozone: The Role Model
• James Hansen’s “Venus Syndrome”
• The Hot Summer of 1988 and the “White House Effect”
• Mrs. Thatcher
• The IPCC and the “Indispensable Man”
• Shoot-Out at Sundsvall
• Getting Ready for Rio
• To Go or Not to Go
• “A Major Harangue Down There”
• “The Diplomatic Free-for-All”
• What the Framework Convention Set in Motion
24. Making a Market
• The “Scribbler in Chief”
• “The War on Pollution”
• “Old Enough to Remember”
• The Acid Test of Acid Rain
• “Least-Cost Solutions”
• “The Grand Policy Experiment”
• “A Discernible Human Influence on Climate”
• Developed versus Developing Countries
• Rising Stakes—and Rising Clash
• Battles at Kyoto
• Europe versus the United States
• Developing versus Developed Countries
• “Cost, Cost, and Cost”
• How Realistic?
25. On the Global Agenda
• The “K” Word
• Twenty-One Questions
• The Foot-and-Mouth Panic
• Making a Market in Carbon
• The Power of Images
• Green Credentials
• The Nobel Prize
• Massachusetts versus EPA: The Supreme Court Steps In
26. In Search of Consensus
• Carrots and Sticks
• China: “Win-Win”
• India: “The Climate Agnostic”
• “Hopenhagen”
• “The Health of the Himalyas”
• “Extreme Weather”
• Making the Pledge at Cancún
• It’s Up to the EPA
• The Legacy of the Glaciers
Part V: New Energies
27. Rebirth of Renewables
• What Does “Renewables” Mean?
• Earth Day
• “You Will Learn”
• The “Moral Equivalent of War”
• “PURPA Machines”
• Good-Bye Sunshine
• “Production, Production, Production”
• The Epitaph?
• Japan: Staying Alive
• The “Bureaucrat-Novelist”
• Feeding into Germany
• From “Solar” to “Renewables”: Recovery and Rebranding
• The States as Laboratories
• Cleantech
• The “Three Denchi Brothers”
• Green Dragon
• “No Area’s More Ripe”
28. Science Experiment
• The Great Bubbling
• Not Merely “Good Science”
• The Prime Driver
• The Public Good
• Enter the Venture Capitalists
• Georges Doriot: Prophet of the “Start-Up Nation”
• Go West
• “Career Suicide”
• The $6 Trillion Opportunity
• “MIT Is Doing Energy”
• “The Only Way to Break Out”
• The Nature of the Experiment
29. Alchemy of Shining Light
• Ten Weeks That Shook the World
• Solar Cells
• “Thorough Investigation”
• The Race into Space
• Down to Earth
• The Research Program
• Sunshine Project
• The German Boom
• China Enters
• Thin Film
• The Solar Menu
• Concentrating the Sun
• Grid Parity?
• All the Roofs?
30. Mystery of Wind
• “The Free Benefit of Wind”
• The Electrification of Wind
• On Grandpa’s Knob with Palmer Putnam
• The Modern Industry
• “California Wind Rush”
• Sturdy Danes
• The Slump
•��The Return of Wind
• A Mainstream Technology
• “On the Cusp”
• But How Big?
• The Challenge of “Intermittency”
• “Marinized”: The Offshore Frontier
31. The Fifth Fuel—Efficiency
• Real Efficiency Gains
• Jieneng Jianpai
• Industry: How Low the Fruit?
• “Aspirations”
• The “Game Changer”
• Which “20 Percent”?
• The Ribbon
32. Closing the Conservation Gap
• Patent Number 808897: “Manufactured Weather”
• Going Mainstream
• The Gadgiwatts
• Efficiency by Design
• Mottainai: “Too Precious to Waste”
• A Smarter Grid
Part VI: Road to the Future
33. Carbohydrate Man
• The Biofuel Vision
• The First Flex-Fuel Vehicle
• Birth of Gasohol
• The Making of an Ethanol Boom
• Brazil’s “Alcohol”
• Food versus Fuel
• A Promising Fungus
• “Switch—What?”
• The Forgotten Challenge
• “Tougher than People May Have Expected”
• Algae: The Little Refineries
• What Is Possible for Biofuels
34. Internal Fire
• Fuel for the Future?
• The Steam Engine
• Herr Otto
• The Race
• Electric or Gasoline?
• Nature’s Secret
• The New Fuel
• The Halcyon Days
• Getting Mobbed
• The Japanese Arrive
• The New Passion
• Remaking of Automobile
• What about Plan B?
• New Standards
35. The Great Electric Car Experiment
• The Race Resumes
• “The Valley of Smokes”
• City under Siege
• The Air Resources Board
• The Return of the EV
• The Road Map
• Electric Drive
• Taking a Leaf
• Charge It
• Where Will the Electricity Come From?
• “Thermal Runaway”?
• Asia First?
• The Hydrogen Highway
• What about Natural Gas?
• The Cars of the Future
• To the Future
Conclusion: “A Great Revolution”
Acknowledgements
Credits
Notes
Bibliography
Index
December 4, 2019
This is THE authoritative book on energy - be it oil, gas, electricity, wind, solar... You name it. From the Caspian shores of Azerbaijan to the brownouts of 90s California, Yergin covers literally the entire globe and explains the entire timeline of energy consumption. This is a must-read for anyone who wants a comprehensive understanding of the most fundamental factor in the world economy - energy. I felt this book was much better than Yergin's more popular prequel, the Pulitzer winning "The Prize".
March 25, 2013
A bird's-eye survey of today's world of energy. Most of the discussion is centered on oil, which is Yergin's specialty. The world seems to have used up 1 trillion barrels of the stuff since the modern oil industry appeared in the late 19th century; there are 4 more to go. Much of the oil is hard to obtain: in Canada and Venezuela it is mixed with sand; off the shore of Brazil, it is under 2 kilometers of water and 5 kilometers of salt. Yet Yergin is dismissive of peak oil theorists: each decade, new technologies have appeared to both discover new oil fields and extract more oil from the already discovered ones, and this innovation does not seem to be ending. There is also natural gas, which is mostly used for heating and not transportation; it is liquefied at the well, transported in tankers, and converted back to gas on arrival; a field under the Persian Gulf between Qatar and Iran has a quadrillion cubic feet of the stuff. Improvements in hydraulic fracturing technologies have led to a boom in natural gas in the United States. Yergin thinks that on the whole, this technique is safe for the environment; others are not so sure. The 2008 spike of oil prices was caused by an increase of Chinese demand for oil; problems with supply in Nigeria (where insurgents attacked foreign-owned oil platforms); shortages of petroleum engineers, geologists, and materials necessary to build new oil platforms. Yergin gives "financialization" as another cause, but does not give a convincing explanation of how contracts to buy and sell oil at a given price in the future affect its price in the present.
The remaining parts of the book talk about nuclear power, wind power, electric and hybrid cars, and other energy-related topics. There is nothing there that is not in hundreds of other books and blogs. The leitmotif is that as the formerly poor countries are becoming middle-income, they want to consume more energy. The prime example is China; the Chinese have been buying more new automobiles than the Americans for a few years now. So the world's engineers, who are mostly concentrated in the rich countries, have to figure out how to run the civilization: manufacture chemicals, transport people to work and back, on less energy, as indeed they have been doing.
The remaining parts of the book talk about nuclear power, wind power, electric and hybrid cars, and other energy-related topics. There is nothing there that is not in hundreds of other books and blogs. The leitmotif is that as the formerly poor countries are becoming middle-income, they want to consume more energy. The prime example is China; the Chinese have been buying more new automobiles than the Americans for a few years now. So the world's engineers, who are mostly concentrated in the rich countries, have to figure out how to run the civilization: manufacture chemicals, transport people to work and back, on less energy, as indeed they have been doing.
December 22, 2014
The sequel of "The Prize", which focuses on the history of oil. The author deals in "The Quest" with the short period about oil that was left uncovered in the "The Prize", starting from the second Gulf War (invasion of Kuwait). In the meanwhile, oil has further dominated world politics: Chavez, Saddam Hussein, Nigeria and Iran. Next to that, the oil industry got involved in several mergers & acquisitions: Conocco Phillips, BP Amoco, Exxon Mobil and Total Elf to name a few.
Contrary to Fukuyama's illusion, China and USA have been working further on their goal to be energy independent. The latter seems to be harder than expected, although coal and nuclear energy benefit China, shale gas and shale oil favor USA, energy conservation both. There is still a long way to go, but the growing non-OPEC share leaves opportunities for geopolitical diversification.
What about Japan and Europe? Notwithstanding the Fukushima tragedy, the country has little more options than nuclear energy (taking into account a 80% import dependency on Middle Eastern oil). The same goes for Europe. It is OK to think green, but eliminating nuclear energy leaves no European option than to heavily rely on Arab oil. What if the US decides to retreat from that area? Europe lacks both the political courage and military means to protect its energy sources.
Obviously, Yergin also spends quite some time on green energy and energy conservation. Solar cells, electric cars, biofuel,... Whether or not humans caused the climate change, it is never wrong to use energy more efficiently and to diversify its energy sources. To save the planet and also to be more self-dependent from a geopolitical point of view. Any European politician could learn from this double lesson.
Contrary to Fukuyama's illusion, China and USA have been working further on their goal to be energy independent. The latter seems to be harder than expected, although coal and nuclear energy benefit China, shale gas and shale oil favor USA, energy conservation both. There is still a long way to go, but the growing non-OPEC share leaves opportunities for geopolitical diversification.
What about Japan and Europe? Notwithstanding the Fukushima tragedy, the country has little more options than nuclear energy (taking into account a 80% import dependency on Middle Eastern oil). The same goes for Europe. It is OK to think green, but eliminating nuclear energy leaves no European option than to heavily rely on Arab oil. What if the US decides to retreat from that area? Europe lacks both the political courage and military means to protect its energy sources.
Obviously, Yergin also spends quite some time on green energy and energy conservation. Solar cells, electric cars, biofuel,... Whether or not humans caused the climate change, it is never wrong to use energy more efficiently and to diversify its energy sources. To save the planet and also to be more self-dependent from a geopolitical point of view. Any European politician could learn from this double lesson.
December 23, 2012
Narrated by Robert Petkoff
29 hrs and 31 mins
Publisher's Summary
In this gripping account of the quest for the energy that our world needs, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Prize.
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change. It is a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. From the jammed streets of Beijing to the shores of the Caspian Sea, from the conflicts in the Mideast to Capitol Hill and Silicon Valley, Yergin takes us into the decisions that are shaping our future. The drama of oil - the struggle for access, the battle for control, the insecurity of supply, the consequences of use, its impact on the global economy, and the geopolitics that dominate it - continues to profoundly affect our world.
Yergin tells the inside stories of the oil market and the surge in oil prices, the race to control the resources of the former Soviet empire, and the massive mergers that transformed the landscape of world oil. He tackles the toughest questions: Will we run out of oil? Are China and the United States destined to come into conflict over oil? How will a turbulent Middle East affect the future of oil supply?
29 hrs and 31 mins
Publisher's Summary
In this gripping account of the quest for the energy that our world needs, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Prize.
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change. It is a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. From the jammed streets of Beijing to the shores of the Caspian Sea, from the conflicts in the Mideast to Capitol Hill and Silicon Valley, Yergin takes us into the decisions that are shaping our future. The drama of oil - the struggle for access, the battle for control, the insecurity of supply, the consequences of use, its impact on the global economy, and the geopolitics that dominate it - continues to profoundly affect our world.
Yergin tells the inside stories of the oil market and the surge in oil prices, the race to control the resources of the former Soviet empire, and the massive mergers that transformed the landscape of world oil. He tackles the toughest questions: Will we run out of oil? Are China and the United States destined to come into conflict over oil? How will a turbulent Middle East affect the future of oil supply?
September 15, 2013
As with The Prize, this is a difficult subject to be enthused about, but I left with what I wanted: a slew of interesting facts to use in my upcoming Masters presentation.
To be honest, the biggest environmental lesson I learned was that here is a man who is more aware than any of us about global warming and the energy crisis, and yet he still thinks its appropriate to have large print runs of his book and cut down trees everywhere and use energy to create all these objects, so... my brothers and sisters, the time to panic is not just yet! What a relief :-)
To be honest, the biggest environmental lesson I learned was that here is a man who is more aware than any of us about global warming and the energy crisis, and yet he still thinks its appropriate to have large print runs of his book and cut down trees everywhere and use energy to create all these objects, so... my brothers and sisters, the time to panic is not just yet! What a relief :-)
May 2, 2021
Well written book, in a very informative and understandable fashion. The Quest presents the complex story of energy in a historical context. The significance of major scientific discoveries in the field of energy is well explained. Most of these discoveries still have their influence today’s world. The relationship between the political, financial, economic, social and cultural aspects that shape the energy policy is very well explained. I recommend it to anyone who’s interested in researching and understanding the complexity of the energy system.
October 9, 2020
I have encountered parts of the book for some time but never got around to reading the whole thing. Then I realized he had a new book out that builds upon this so I decided to work through this. This is a book that provides a fairly comprehensive history of macro economic and macro political issues related to energy (taken broadly) from the end of the Soviet Union until around 2010. The focus is on the policy issues related to energy at the national and regional levels of analysis.
Think about that. A book like this rapidly morphs into a policy-oriented history of the world since 1990 with a focus on energy (oil, natural gas, LNG, nuclear, wind, etc.). So it is a focused history of the modern world from the standpoint of energy related products and services. Each chapter is about a different area of energy concern. Each area is immensely complex and, beyond the technical details of products and services, is filled with economic and political issues that have their own logics and yet interact importantly on a continuing basis.
This is an absolutely essential book for anyone who works in areas tied to energy. How do oil markets work? What in LNG? Which Persian Gulf states are which and who cares? What does China have to do with energy markets? I could go on, but that misses the point. There is a lot of material here. Every chapter in this book is well constructed and thoughtful and the different stories vary widely across the book. They are all complex but also represent the “tip of the iceberg” of the history and issues associated with each area covered in the book. Have an ipad or PC handy to look up the different lines of referral.
The book is fairly straightforward to read and follow, although it can be a bit of a slog, with not many areas where skimming will be rewarding. The book is well written and organized and there is not that much wasted text. This is a chore to work through and it can serve as a background reference - it is a lot to read at one time. Anyone interested in energy should try to work through it. It is well worth the effort.
Think about that. A book like this rapidly morphs into a policy-oriented history of the world since 1990 with a focus on energy (oil, natural gas, LNG, nuclear, wind, etc.). So it is a focused history of the modern world from the standpoint of energy related products and services. Each chapter is about a different area of energy concern. Each area is immensely complex and, beyond the technical details of products and services, is filled with economic and political issues that have their own logics and yet interact importantly on a continuing basis.
This is an absolutely essential book for anyone who works in areas tied to energy. How do oil markets work? What in LNG? Which Persian Gulf states are which and who cares? What does China have to do with energy markets? I could go on, but that misses the point. There is a lot of material here. Every chapter in this book is well constructed and thoughtful and the different stories vary widely across the book. They are all complex but also represent the “tip of the iceberg” of the history and issues associated with each area covered in the book. Have an ipad or PC handy to look up the different lines of referral.
The book is fairly straightforward to read and follow, although it can be a bit of a slog, with not many areas where skimming will be rewarding. The book is well written and organized and there is not that much wasted text. This is a chore to work through and it can serve as a background reference - it is a lot to read at one time. Anyone interested in energy should try to work through it. It is well worth the effort.
January 2, 2021
Full and detailed description of people’s quest for energy that covered so many important aspects and really opened my eyes on energy problems: economics and politics around oil and gas, phenomenon of oil countries, connection between global politics and oil hunt, era of electricity, negative and positive sides of nuclear energy, and, of course, climate change. The science of climate change is explained in a very comprehensive way: greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, UV and infrared waves, climate modeling. The book also covered different types of sustainable energy (solar and wind), biofuels and competition between EVs and ICE cars that started not in XXI century, but back in times of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.
August 26, 2023
Uma leitura tanto penosa como útil. Para perceber o estado atual dos sistemas de energia é preciso perceber a sua evolução tecnológica e geopolítica. Daniel Yergin consegue contar toda a história energética mundial de uma "forma resumida", em 800 páginas. Pergunto-me se estaremos a perder este perfil denso da divulgação científica... Hoje em dia temos uma elevada variedade de obras bastante superficiais que devem certamente agraciar as massas, tendências e agendas que são cada vez mais exigentes. Temos autores como Vaclav Smil a largar o estilo denso, penoso e informativo por livros muito mais fáceis de digerir.
January 10, 2018
This book is vast- in the sense of both the timeline where the narrative is set and the breadth of topics covered. It really gives a feeling of what it takes to run the world. The author is a great storyteller. There were only one or two instances where I felt a little drag in the writing, which is actually great considering the size of the book.
There was so much to learn and some of the stories of the people and institutions involved in "the quest" are downright fascinating-the chapters on China's rise, the oil-politics in the Caspian sea, the development of nuclear power and the rise of the world automotive market to name a few.
Highly recommended!
There was so much to learn and some of the stories of the people and institutions involved in "the quest" are downright fascinating-the chapters on China's rise, the oil-politics in the Caspian sea, the development of nuclear power and the rise of the world automotive market to name a few.
Highly recommended!
April 21, 2017
A tour through the history of energy from oil, to natural gas, to nuclear, to climate change, and renewables. If you want an overview of global energy, how it works, and where it might be headed this is a good read. It is not sensational and does not demonize any one method of approaching energy but clearly lays out the pros and cons of each method and the history leading up to their development and integration.
April 21, 2021
Fantastic book. The book provides everything you need to know about energy and how it shapes politics in the modern world.
November 26, 2023
Interesting overall but the first half is far too long and ought to be integrated with the rest for better chronoloigcal cohesion.
May 12, 2018
Very informative, comprehensive view of energy and the challenges facing various industries. A bit verbose at times, but still a good overview.
May 1, 2022
Fantastic but already out of date. It got depressing reading “by 2020” over and over, knowing none of it came to pass the way we hoped. But definitely valuable for its history. Definitely going to read his newer book!
Read
June 21, 2022Well I’m definitely not stupider
May 22, 2023
Yergin gives an incredibly detailed overview of the history of energy infrastructure, as well as the people behind it. As a friend once told me, “you cannot understand a subject until you understand it’s history”. Just so, we cannot understand the full scope and degree of the clean energy transition, and it’s geopolitical implications, until we understood what it took to get to where we are today.
One clear theme for me from Yergins overview is that energy, and energy prices, are like interest rates - they are the foundation that shapes the entire economy that runs on top of it. The littered remains of false starts like the first EVs by Ford, biofuels, and climate tech 1.0 all tell the story of energy prices that unexpectedly changed. Similarly, players and technologies behind the clean energy transition will also reshape how energy prices fluctuate and who controls them.
One clear theme for me from Yergins overview is that energy, and energy prices, are like interest rates - they are the foundation that shapes the entire economy that runs on top of it. The littered remains of false starts like the first EVs by Ford, biofuels, and climate tech 1.0 all tell the story of energy prices that unexpectedly changed. Similarly, players and technologies behind the clean energy transition will also reshape how energy prices fluctuate and who controls them.
July 14, 2023
This is like a dictionary on oil and energy.
All men are created equal. But prosperity is unequal. Oil and energy in general dictates prosperity and gives an advantage to some countries.
India is an oil dependent nation which undergoes economic stress when oil price changes.
The story of energy and the impact on economic prosperity of nations and its peoples is a fascinating read for all those who are interested in energy, international policy, science, finance, foreign policy, economics and growth.
The span of this book is mind boggling. It covers history, technology, climate change, policies, economics and politics of energy in staggering detail.
This is a book to be referenced again and again to understand the key developments of the past in the energy sector so that our understanding of the present and the future might be better informed.
All men are created equal. But prosperity is unequal. Oil and energy in general dictates prosperity and gives an advantage to some countries.
India is an oil dependent nation which undergoes economic stress when oil price changes.
The story of energy and the impact on economic prosperity of nations and its peoples is a fascinating read for all those who are interested in energy, international policy, science, finance, foreign policy, economics and growth.
The span of this book is mind boggling. It covers history, technology, climate change, policies, economics and politics of energy in staggering detail.
This is a book to be referenced again and again to understand the key developments of the past in the energy sector so that our understanding of the present and the future might be better informed.
April 3, 2017
No one can doubt Daniel Yergin’s ability to bring together seemingly disparate phenomena in order to create sweeping narratives. In the case of the Quest, readers can’t help but compare it to its Pulitzer Prize winning predecessor, the Prize, and in that comparison it falls short for two reasons: First, Yergin’s strong suit is oil and gas, which becomes apparent in the final sections of the Quest. Second, and perhaps this happens to all award winning authors who loom so large in their field, but the Quest could have used a more ruthless editor to keep Yergin’s narrative in check and help consolidate a few subsections with names like “Game Changer” that reach only two to three paragraphs in length.
Nevertheless, this is the best book I’ve found to date for an update on global energy markets from the fall of the Soviet Union to the Arab Spring and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. Beginning right where The Prize left off, Yergin traces the consolidation of the post-Soviet oil and gas industry, particularly the emergence of Rosneft as a major world player and the geopolitical impacts of that consolidation across the globe, not the least of which is the re-emergence of Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a major disruptive force among the western democracies.
Where Yergin truly shines is when he shifts from the 30,000 ft view to the street level, and when he does this well the full implications of the butterfly effect knock you over. One of my favorite instances of this narrative technique in the Quest occurs in chapter 4, when he zooms in on the 1998 Bangkok real estate crash and explains how it rocked global oil markets, ultimately forcing the major oil producers such as Exxon and Mobile, Chevron and Texaco, Conoco and Phillips, Total and Petrofina to consolidate or die.
Another great example of this technique occurs in Section 2, when he focuses on the story of George Mitchell and his engineering team in the Barnett Shale of north central Texas (and my birthplace). By tracing an obscure federal production subsidy from the Reagan era through a decade of trial and error by one very determined wildcatter, Yergin masterfully retells the now well-known story of the origins of the hydraulic fracturing boom in the United States.
There are many such examples of this technique throughout the book and I would encourage anyone who wants to learn more about the 20 year history of oil and gas from 1991 to 2011 to read the first three sections of the book. However, by the fourth section, which is admittedly still very good, the grand narrative started to unravel for me and I was disappointed that he ultimately chose to go in this direction. As someone who is passionate about the development of renewable energy and distributed generation, I felt like Yergin wasn’t the right author to tell that story. Without belaboring the point, it becomes clear that Yergin goes from undisputed expert and insider in the first sections, which concern oil, gas, and power markets, to someone looking in from the outside in the later sections, which largely concern climate change, renewable energy, and electric cars.
I completely understand why he structured The Quest this way though, which is why I still gave the book 4 stars. Writing in 2012, Yergin explains in the introduction that he wanted to continue the narrative from the Prize and explain why the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the Arab Spring where such critical events in the history of global energy markets. In many ways, he was correct. The Syrian civil war, the ongoing chaos in Iraq, and the flood of refugees into Europe are THE geopolitical story of our decade. Conversely, political opposition to nuclear energy, the cleanest, gigawatt-scale, low-carbon fuel source yet developed, seems to fly in the face of the recently signed Paris Climate Agreement and global commitments to low carbon power generation which began in Rio in 1992. However, the pace of events in 2011 forced Yergin to end the story of our 21st century fuel sources not with an exclamation point like the Kuwait War, which served as the conclusion to the Prize, but with unfinished narratives such as the electric car and biofuels.
In the final reckoning, what Yergin attempted to do in 700+ pages was the first serious attempt I’ve seen yet to tell the whole story of post-cold war global energy markets. While it’s not the masterpiece that the Prize was, it’s still a very interesting read for energy nerds who believe, like I do, that the quest for fuel sources is the chief narrative underpinning our modern world.
Nevertheless, this is the best book I’ve found to date for an update on global energy markets from the fall of the Soviet Union to the Arab Spring and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. Beginning right where The Prize left off, Yergin traces the consolidation of the post-Soviet oil and gas industry, particularly the emergence of Rosneft as a major world player and the geopolitical impacts of that consolidation across the globe, not the least of which is the re-emergence of Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a major disruptive force among the western democracies.
Where Yergin truly shines is when he shifts from the 30,000 ft view to the street level, and when he does this well the full implications of the butterfly effect knock you over. One of my favorite instances of this narrative technique in the Quest occurs in chapter 4, when he zooms in on the 1998 Bangkok real estate crash and explains how it rocked global oil markets, ultimately forcing the major oil producers such as Exxon and Mobile, Chevron and Texaco, Conoco and Phillips, Total and Petrofina to consolidate or die.
Another great example of this technique occurs in Section 2, when he focuses on the story of George Mitchell and his engineering team in the Barnett Shale of north central Texas (and my birthplace). By tracing an obscure federal production subsidy from the Reagan era through a decade of trial and error by one very determined wildcatter, Yergin masterfully retells the now well-known story of the origins of the hydraulic fracturing boom in the United States.
There are many such examples of this technique throughout the book and I would encourage anyone who wants to learn more about the 20 year history of oil and gas from 1991 to 2011 to read the first three sections of the book. However, by the fourth section, which is admittedly still very good, the grand narrative started to unravel for me and I was disappointed that he ultimately chose to go in this direction. As someone who is passionate about the development of renewable energy and distributed generation, I felt like Yergin wasn’t the right author to tell that story. Without belaboring the point, it becomes clear that Yergin goes from undisputed expert and insider in the first sections, which concern oil, gas, and power markets, to someone looking in from the outside in the later sections, which largely concern climate change, renewable energy, and electric cars.
I completely understand why he structured The Quest this way though, which is why I still gave the book 4 stars. Writing in 2012, Yergin explains in the introduction that he wanted to continue the narrative from the Prize and explain why the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the Arab Spring where such critical events in the history of global energy markets. In many ways, he was correct. The Syrian civil war, the ongoing chaos in Iraq, and the flood of refugees into Europe are THE geopolitical story of our decade. Conversely, political opposition to nuclear energy, the cleanest, gigawatt-scale, low-carbon fuel source yet developed, seems to fly in the face of the recently signed Paris Climate Agreement and global commitments to low carbon power generation which began in Rio in 1992. However, the pace of events in 2011 forced Yergin to end the story of our 21st century fuel sources not with an exclamation point like the Kuwait War, which served as the conclusion to the Prize, but with unfinished narratives such as the electric car and biofuels.
In the final reckoning, what Yergin attempted to do in 700+ pages was the first serious attempt I’ve seen yet to tell the whole story of post-cold war global energy markets. While it’s not the masterpiece that the Prize was, it’s still a very interesting read for energy nerds who believe, like I do, that the quest for fuel sources is the chief narrative underpinning our modern world.
October 2, 2014
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Making of the Modern World by Daniel Yergin
This book was on a recommended reading list produced by the State Department under the "(Geographic) Area Studies" subheading. I would not recommend it as informational about any particular region in the world. I did not find it nearly as enjoyable as Yergin and Stanislaus' Commanding Heights, which I was surprised is not on the State Department's reading list. The first 1/3 is on the history of energy and development of oil and natural gas exploration from the early 20th century to today. (I imagine this to be taken mostly from Yergin's The Prize, although I have not read it). The book opens with a brief look at the collapse of USSR. Yergin delves into the history of Azerbaijani politics in both in the 1920s and 1990s, which I enjoyed from having lived in Azerbaijan and being familiar with the history. Yergin recounts the "Caspian Derby" for oil in the 1990s and the rise of Heydar Aliyev; the "Deal of the Century" worked out with an international consortium of oil companies and the battle to build the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
The story of exploration of the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan is reminiscent of events in Syriana. The book covers the 90's mergers of BP-Amaco-Arco, Conoco-Phillips, and others as companies dealt with downturns in the oil market. I enjoyed looking at the Asian financial crisis through the lens of its effects on the oil market.
There is a large divergence to explain the 2003 Iraq war. There was mention of the hopes of Iraqi oil paying for the war, but through interviews with those on the ground Yergin explains how the Iraqi oil industry was outdated with 1950s technology and how hard it was to get up to 3 million barrels of output a day, far from the 6 million hoped for before the invasion.
Economist James Hamilton is mentioned in talking of how the oil boom in the 2000s mirrored the housing boom, and Bob Shiller is also profiled.
The rise of Qatar with liquid natural gas is contrasted with Iran's history of being unable to develop its own fields. The history of shale gas, fracking, horizontal digging, and other technological advances are outlined. The natural disasters such as BP and the Gulf Coast, Fukashima Daichi, and more are covered.
J.P. Morgan's funding of Edison is held up by Yergin as probably the first example of modern capitalism, and the author explains the politics and economics behind the battle between Edison and Tesla. He chronicles the exploits of Enron, the California energy crisis, Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, nuclear engineering, and more.
The second 1/3 of the book is a history of climate change research, policy debates, politics of global warming & climate change. John Tyndall, perhaps the first climatologist, is chronicled as Yergin gives a near complete history of atmospheric science and the debate over climate change. As late as 1972 there was a large body of scientists arguing that "global cooling" was a grave danger. Yergin handles this section very well, just the facts and the history laid out chronologically. Yergin documents the fight over international agreements such as the one George Bush '41 signed in Rio and the later Kyoto Protocols.
The last 1/3 is renewables and new technology (photovoltaics, smart grids, etc). Yergin highlights all the latest advances and what is needed for renewables to dominate the market, and the challenges of the international politics. It reads like a compilation of articles found in recent issues of Time and The Atlantic.
I give this book 4 stars out of five, it's really three books in one and draws out too much. It is filled with too many repeated cliches, especially at the end. Yergin keeps hedging his bets talking about new technology "this is no silver bullet," "there is no guarantee," etc. If you work in or are deeply interested in energy, technology, and climate change then this is your book. Otherwise, you'll find it boring.
This book was on a recommended reading list produced by the State Department under the "(Geographic) Area Studies" subheading. I would not recommend it as informational about any particular region in the world. I did not find it nearly as enjoyable as Yergin and Stanislaus' Commanding Heights, which I was surprised is not on the State Department's reading list. The first 1/3 is on the history of energy and development of oil and natural gas exploration from the early 20th century to today. (I imagine this to be taken mostly from Yergin's The Prize, although I have not read it). The book opens with a brief look at the collapse of USSR. Yergin delves into the history of Azerbaijani politics in both in the 1920s and 1990s, which I enjoyed from having lived in Azerbaijan and being familiar with the history. Yergin recounts the "Caspian Derby" for oil in the 1990s and the rise of Heydar Aliyev; the "Deal of the Century" worked out with an international consortium of oil companies and the battle to build the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
The story of exploration of the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan is reminiscent of events in Syriana. The book covers the 90's mergers of BP-Amaco-Arco, Conoco-Phillips, and others as companies dealt with downturns in the oil market. I enjoyed looking at the Asian financial crisis through the lens of its effects on the oil market.
There is a large divergence to explain the 2003 Iraq war. There was mention of the hopes of Iraqi oil paying for the war, but through interviews with those on the ground Yergin explains how the Iraqi oil industry was outdated with 1950s technology and how hard it was to get up to 3 million barrels of output a day, far from the 6 million hoped for before the invasion.
Economist James Hamilton is mentioned in talking of how the oil boom in the 2000s mirrored the housing boom, and Bob Shiller is also profiled.
The rise of Qatar with liquid natural gas is contrasted with Iran's history of being unable to develop its own fields. The history of shale gas, fracking, horizontal digging, and other technological advances are outlined. The natural disasters such as BP and the Gulf Coast, Fukashima Daichi, and more are covered.
J.P. Morgan's funding of Edison is held up by Yergin as probably the first example of modern capitalism, and the author explains the politics and economics behind the battle between Edison and Tesla. He chronicles the exploits of Enron, the California energy crisis, Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, nuclear engineering, and more.
The second 1/3 of the book is a history of climate change research, policy debates, politics of global warming & climate change. John Tyndall, perhaps the first climatologist, is chronicled as Yergin gives a near complete history of atmospheric science and the debate over climate change. As late as 1972 there was a large body of scientists arguing that "global cooling" was a grave danger. Yergin handles this section very well, just the facts and the history laid out chronologically. Yergin documents the fight over international agreements such as the one George Bush '41 signed in Rio and the later Kyoto Protocols.
The last 1/3 is renewables and new technology (photovoltaics, smart grids, etc). Yergin highlights all the latest advances and what is needed for renewables to dominate the market, and the challenges of the international politics. It reads like a compilation of articles found in recent issues of Time and The Atlantic.
I give this book 4 stars out of five, it's really three books in one and draws out too much. It is filled with too many repeated cliches, especially at the end. Yergin keeps hedging his bets talking about new technology "this is no silver bullet," "there is no guarantee," etc. If you work in or are deeply interested in energy, technology, and climate change then this is your book. Otherwise, you'll find it boring.
August 21, 2018
This is a monumental tour of the economical, political and technical history of energy and oil. Daniel Yergin is one of the world’s premier energy policy experts. After being a lecturer at Harvard he in 1984 co-founded Cambridge Energy Research Associates that in 2004 was acquired by IHS, of which he’s now Vice Chairman. His 1991 bestseller The Price: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power was turned into a TV-series seen by more than 20 million viewers. The Quest is in many ways a sequel to The Price. In his review of a vast array of energy related topics the author never really argues a thesis but is more descriptive. However, it’s pretty clear that he’s not an advocate of peak oil theories, as generally formulated.
The book covers a lot of ground, not only is the history and politics of oil covered in full but also most other energy sources, plus Yergin gives a tour of electric utilities and automotives. There are six sections to The Quest; first a run-through of the geopolitical history of oil in all corners of the world but focusing on Russia and the former Soviet countries, on the Middle East and China, then a discussion on energy security and the diversification of supply. Thirdly, an account of electricity and how the electric utilities came to be what they are today is presented, next the author turns to the history of climate research that naturally extends to a section on renewable energy sources and to finish of a text on the history of vehicles ending with Tesla and Elon Musk.
Every section is in itself divided into a mass of smaller chapters (35 in total and of quite varying length) which often follow a structure where a number of recent facts are presented on a topic setting the stage. Then Yergin goes back to the beginnings of what’s being discussed only to work his way through history to give the background to the initial situation.
It’s a true privilege to be guided through the geopolitics of oil and gas by such an expert. The author is extremely well researched. As a reader you feel at times that Yergin must have been present at the negotiating table, at the oil discovery or in the lab inventing a technology only to realize that what he describes happened a hundred years ago or so. The writing is elegant, fluid and the text filled with interesting trivia as well as important facts.
The section on climate research is popular science history writing of the best kind á la Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything (this is the best section together with the first one). As much as anything I’m through the book struck by the tension between sudden and large shifts in the relative pricing of various energy sources, the on- and-off nature of public subsidies, taxes and support and the need to make investments with very long time horizons.
It’s impressive to keep the reader’s interest for a massive 725 pages but at times Yergin goes to far. Just because venture capitalists amongst other things invest in “CleanTech” doesn’t mean that the full history of the VC-industry has to be described, just because it was Albert Einstein who first explained the photovoltaic effect that provides the basis for solar panels it doesn’t mean that the author has to disclose an amount of details on the upbringing of the great physicist and so on.
The author brings together all you knew about the history of oil and a lot you didn’t know to a coherent whole. Oil and energy impacts most of what goes on in the world and there are few sectors harboring equally powerful political interests. In the ending paragraph the author puts his faith in technological innovation: For that resource – creativity – will be critical for meeting the challenges and assuring the security and sustainability of the energy for a prosperous, growing world.
After reading Yergin’s book you will be wiser, a lot more knowledgeable and a bit exhausted.
The book covers a lot of ground, not only is the history and politics of oil covered in full but also most other energy sources, plus Yergin gives a tour of electric utilities and automotives. There are six sections to The Quest; first a run-through of the geopolitical history of oil in all corners of the world but focusing on Russia and the former Soviet countries, on the Middle East and China, then a discussion on energy security and the diversification of supply. Thirdly, an account of electricity and how the electric utilities came to be what they are today is presented, next the author turns to the history of climate research that naturally extends to a section on renewable energy sources and to finish of a text on the history of vehicles ending with Tesla and Elon Musk.
Every section is in itself divided into a mass of smaller chapters (35 in total and of quite varying length) which often follow a structure where a number of recent facts are presented on a topic setting the stage. Then Yergin goes back to the beginnings of what’s being discussed only to work his way through history to give the background to the initial situation.
It’s a true privilege to be guided through the geopolitics of oil and gas by such an expert. The author is extremely well researched. As a reader you feel at times that Yergin must have been present at the negotiating table, at the oil discovery or in the lab inventing a technology only to realize that what he describes happened a hundred years ago or so. The writing is elegant, fluid and the text filled with interesting trivia as well as important facts.
The section on climate research is popular science history writing of the best kind á la Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything (this is the best section together with the first one). As much as anything I’m through the book struck by the tension between sudden and large shifts in the relative pricing of various energy sources, the on- and-off nature of public subsidies, taxes and support and the need to make investments with very long time horizons.
It’s impressive to keep the reader’s interest for a massive 725 pages but at times Yergin goes to far. Just because venture capitalists amongst other things invest in “CleanTech” doesn’t mean that the full history of the VC-industry has to be described, just because it was Albert Einstein who first explained the photovoltaic effect that provides the basis for solar panels it doesn’t mean that the author has to disclose an amount of details on the upbringing of the great physicist and so on.
The author brings together all you knew about the history of oil and a lot you didn’t know to a coherent whole. Oil and energy impacts most of what goes on in the world and there are few sectors harboring equally powerful political interests. In the ending paragraph the author puts his faith in technological innovation: For that resource – creativity – will be critical for meeting the challenges and assuring the security and sustainability of the energy for a prosperous, growing world.
After reading Yergin’s book you will be wiser, a lot more knowledgeable and a bit exhausted.
December 26, 2020
I'm glad to have read The Quest -- it taught me a lot about the sources of energy, how they have driven the currents of politics throughout history, and the technology behind them. But boy did I take a long time to finish, and I do think the book could have benefitted from more rigorous editing for greater impact from a sharper focus.
The book is divided into six parts:
1. The New World of Oil: this series focuses on the role that oil has played in nations like Russia, the Caspian (or ex USSR nations), the Middle East, Venezuela, Nigeria, USA, and China. These countries were specifically covered for the outsized impact of oil on their economies and politics, whether as a major producer or consumer. Corporations feature significantly as well; Yergin outlines the politics at play in the formation and mergers of petroleum companies including BP, Exxon-Mobile, and other big names.
I found the section on petro-states illuminating -- petro-states are economies that are highly dependent on oil, and as such birth what is termed "rent-seeking behaviour", where people compete for a share for the pie (the rent) rather than engage in productive activities like entrepreneurship and innovation. The economies are also afflicted with the Dutch disease, a phenomenon whereby the national currency becomes overvalued due to the influx of wealth from oil, rendering exports and domestic business uncompetitive in the face of cheap imports. This can be mitigated by absorbing sudden large flows of revenue into sovereign wealth funds. The other effect of an oil economy is more difficult to tackle: the volatility of oil prices leads to variability of government revenues, and whichever government is in power faces public pressure to increase spending during the good times. The public expects the spending to continue even when oil prices go down, and, coupled with their expectation of enjoying cheap oil and natural gas, means governments are locked in an ever-increasing spending spiral. The reliance on state spending also makes economies more rigid and unresponsive. Yergin considers the heavy dependence on oil a significant factor in the collapse of the USSR: for years, the high oil prices allowed the Soviet economy to finance its military and food shortages without undergoing crucial reformation; the end of USSR came when oil prices collapsed and food shortages became catastrophic.
Another section I enjoyed was the explanation for the demand shock that hit the world oil market in 2004. Prior to this, oil prices were only shaken due to supply shocks, for instance the oil embargo in the 1973 October War or the Gulf crisis of 1990-91. Usually the oil industry operates with a few million barrels of shut-in capacity as a security cushion to manage sudden surges in demand, but the rise of developing economies like China's shrank spare capcity to less than a million barrels a day. The industry previously had tried to rein in spending in response to the 1998 price collapse, and its capital-intensive nature makes it harder to pivot in response to demand changes. This combined with the rapid increase in futures and options trading in oil led oil prices to balloon, only collapsing with the 2008 financial crisis.
2. Securing the Supply: this series examines the pervasive fear of running out of oil, and gives a historic overview of the significant discoveries of oil supplies, as well as technological advancements allowing for their more efficient use, that have thus far kept this fear hypothetical. Nevertheless, it is still in everyone's interest to diversify their sources of energy; the series goes on to cover natural gas liquids, oil sands, shale oil, and the technological advancements that have allowed their extraction and processing into energy. Nations have also banded together to form the International Energy Agency (IEA) to coordinate an emergency sharing of supplies in the event of a supply shock; this was put into use during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and in response to the loss of supply from the Libyan civil war.
Of interest to the Singaporean would be the chokepoint for trading routes that has played a significant role in our fortunes, otherwise called the Melacca Strait. Some 80% of Japan and South Korea's oil, and 40% of China's total supply traverse this strait. Security is obviously a concern to all the players involved, but beyond that, as a Singaporean, it gives food for thought about how much it would affect us if/when a canal is built above us, rerouting sea traffic, as well as what happens when energy sources pivot away from oil.
3. The Electric Age: this series gives us a history of the rise of electricity. In my mind as a software engineer, electricity is life-changing because it abstracts the source of energy away from energy itself, that is, it doesn't matter whether it's oil or gas or a wind turbine, as long as it gets converted into electricity that can then power our appliances. The series also covers nuclear energy -- the public perception of it at various points in time in different nations, especially influenced by the various reactor accidents, and the ease of making nuclear weapons after acquiring the capabilities for a reactor. (Feels like this would have fit better in the previous series, as an examination into alternative sources of energy.)
I liked learning about the development of the electric grid -- it isn't enough to just have invented the light bulb; the infrastructure has to be in place to democratize it as well. The economic model is marvellous: it transitioned from charging by the bulb to charging for the energy used, which involved the invention of a meter to measure usage (another form of abstraction! Tie prices not to the material good but the underlying thing powering it!) Another invention: the regulatory bargain, where government worked with the private sector to form a "natural monopoly" that gave fair prices, whatever that meant, in order to take advantage of economies of scale much needed because of the capital overlay.
4. Climate and Carbon: this series gives an overview of the history of the discovery of the negative effects, namely greenhouse gases, from the generation of energy, a cause-and-effect one takes for granted now, and the seesawing attitudes of politicians towards the climate. Included too is the process of inventing a free market solution for taking into account the negative externality of carbon generation, that is, carbon credits, as opposed to using the blunt instrument of government regulation. This approach was initially not well-received due to the moral resistance agaisnt selling pollution credits, and it went down to the last day of the Kyoto Protocol for European countries to come on board.
5. New Energies: this series covers clean energy, including the history of the technological advancements in solar and wind energy, as well as how the increase in efficiency of energy use is another way of tackling the energy problem. It also goes into how countries like Japan and Germany have previously pushed the envelope on this with government subsidies due to their anxieties relating to energy independence, the entry of venture capitalists into cleantech, and its challenges. There's an interesting paragraph on an unsual niche market found by solar cells: illegal marijuana growers realised their activity was being detected through the big surges of electricity used by the lights they installed indoors, and solar arrays allowed them to detach from the electricity grid.
6. Road to the Future: this series covers newer tech such as biofuel and electric cars and their challenges. I enjoyed learning about the tech in hybrid cars, like the Prius which uses its electric motor in stop-and-go city driving and its internal combustion engine for higher speeds, recharging its electric battery through both the gasoline engine as well as the kinetic energy from the heat generated from cars braking, or cars that accept flex-fuel, a mixture of gasoline and ethanol, adjusting the engine according to the proportion of ethanol in the fuel.
The ambition of the book is obvious, with its coverage of so many forms of energy in so many polities. I feel that it could have sacrificed some detail especially in messy negotiation processes between companies and countries, which, while providing for human interest, tended to get tedious and lost in a sea of names as the book unfolded. Its choice to divide the book into forms of energy meant it ended up repeating sections especially relating to political attitudes. Nevertheless, it was valuable learning broadly how the different sources of energy were extracted and employed, and the rise and fall of political fortunes according to how well governments juggled the cost of and revenues from consuming or producing energy.
The book is divided into six parts:
1. The New World of Oil: this series focuses on the role that oil has played in nations like Russia, the Caspian (or ex USSR nations), the Middle East, Venezuela, Nigeria, USA, and China. These countries were specifically covered for the outsized impact of oil on their economies and politics, whether as a major producer or consumer. Corporations feature significantly as well; Yergin outlines the politics at play in the formation and mergers of petroleum companies including BP, Exxon-Mobile, and other big names.
I found the section on petro-states illuminating -- petro-states are economies that are highly dependent on oil, and as such birth what is termed "rent-seeking behaviour", where people compete for a share for the pie (the rent) rather than engage in productive activities like entrepreneurship and innovation. The economies are also afflicted with the Dutch disease, a phenomenon whereby the national currency becomes overvalued due to the influx of wealth from oil, rendering exports and domestic business uncompetitive in the face of cheap imports. This can be mitigated by absorbing sudden large flows of revenue into sovereign wealth funds. The other effect of an oil economy is more difficult to tackle: the volatility of oil prices leads to variability of government revenues, and whichever government is in power faces public pressure to increase spending during the good times. The public expects the spending to continue even when oil prices go down, and, coupled with their expectation of enjoying cheap oil and natural gas, means governments are locked in an ever-increasing spending spiral. The reliance on state spending also makes economies more rigid and unresponsive. Yergin considers the heavy dependence on oil a significant factor in the collapse of the USSR: for years, the high oil prices allowed the Soviet economy to finance its military and food shortages without undergoing crucial reformation; the end of USSR came when oil prices collapsed and food shortages became catastrophic.
Another section I enjoyed was the explanation for the demand shock that hit the world oil market in 2004. Prior to this, oil prices were only shaken due to supply shocks, for instance the oil embargo in the 1973 October War or the Gulf crisis of 1990-91. Usually the oil industry operates with a few million barrels of shut-in capacity as a security cushion to manage sudden surges in demand, but the rise of developing economies like China's shrank spare capcity to less than a million barrels a day. The industry previously had tried to rein in spending in response to the 1998 price collapse, and its capital-intensive nature makes it harder to pivot in response to demand changes. This combined with the rapid increase in futures and options trading in oil led oil prices to balloon, only collapsing with the 2008 financial crisis.
2. Securing the Supply: this series examines the pervasive fear of running out of oil, and gives a historic overview of the significant discoveries of oil supplies, as well as technological advancements allowing for their more efficient use, that have thus far kept this fear hypothetical. Nevertheless, it is still in everyone's interest to diversify their sources of energy; the series goes on to cover natural gas liquids, oil sands, shale oil, and the technological advancements that have allowed their extraction and processing into energy. Nations have also banded together to form the International Energy Agency (IEA) to coordinate an emergency sharing of supplies in the event of a supply shock; this was put into use during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and in response to the loss of supply from the Libyan civil war.
Of interest to the Singaporean would be the chokepoint for trading routes that has played a significant role in our fortunes, otherwise called the Melacca Strait. Some 80% of Japan and South Korea's oil, and 40% of China's total supply traverse this strait. Security is obviously a concern to all the players involved, but beyond that, as a Singaporean, it gives food for thought about how much it would affect us if/when a canal is built above us, rerouting sea traffic, as well as what happens when energy sources pivot away from oil.
3. The Electric Age: this series gives us a history of the rise of electricity. In my mind as a software engineer, electricity is life-changing because it abstracts the source of energy away from energy itself, that is, it doesn't matter whether it's oil or gas or a wind turbine, as long as it gets converted into electricity that can then power our appliances. The series also covers nuclear energy -- the public perception of it at various points in time in different nations, especially influenced by the various reactor accidents, and the ease of making nuclear weapons after acquiring the capabilities for a reactor. (Feels like this would have fit better in the previous series, as an examination into alternative sources of energy.)
I liked learning about the development of the electric grid -- it isn't enough to just have invented the light bulb; the infrastructure has to be in place to democratize it as well. The economic model is marvellous: it transitioned from charging by the bulb to charging for the energy used, which involved the invention of a meter to measure usage (another form of abstraction! Tie prices not to the material good but the underlying thing powering it!) Another invention: the regulatory bargain, where government worked with the private sector to form a "natural monopoly" that gave fair prices, whatever that meant, in order to take advantage of economies of scale much needed because of the capital overlay.
4. Climate and Carbon: this series gives an overview of the history of the discovery of the negative effects, namely greenhouse gases, from the generation of energy, a cause-and-effect one takes for granted now, and the seesawing attitudes of politicians towards the climate. Included too is the process of inventing a free market solution for taking into account the negative externality of carbon generation, that is, carbon credits, as opposed to using the blunt instrument of government regulation. This approach was initially not well-received due to the moral resistance agaisnt selling pollution credits, and it went down to the last day of the Kyoto Protocol for European countries to come on board.
5. New Energies: this series covers clean energy, including the history of the technological advancements in solar and wind energy, as well as how the increase in efficiency of energy use is another way of tackling the energy problem. It also goes into how countries like Japan and Germany have previously pushed the envelope on this with government subsidies due to their anxieties relating to energy independence, the entry of venture capitalists into cleantech, and its challenges. There's an interesting paragraph on an unsual niche market found by solar cells: illegal marijuana growers realised their activity was being detected through the big surges of electricity used by the lights they installed indoors, and solar arrays allowed them to detach from the electricity grid.
6. Road to the Future: this series covers newer tech such as biofuel and electric cars and their challenges. I enjoyed learning about the tech in hybrid cars, like the Prius which uses its electric motor in stop-and-go city driving and its internal combustion engine for higher speeds, recharging its electric battery through both the gasoline engine as well as the kinetic energy from the heat generated from cars braking, or cars that accept flex-fuel, a mixture of gasoline and ethanol, adjusting the engine according to the proportion of ethanol in the fuel.
The ambition of the book is obvious, with its coverage of so many forms of energy in so many polities. I feel that it could have sacrificed some detail especially in messy negotiation processes between companies and countries, which, while providing for human interest, tended to get tedious and lost in a sea of names as the book unfolded. Its choice to divide the book into forms of energy meant it ended up repeating sections especially relating to political attitudes. Nevertheless, it was valuable learning broadly how the different sources of energy were extracted and employed, and the rise and fall of political fortunes according to how well governments juggled the cost of and revenues from consuming or producing energy.
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