The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B005V0U4CI | Format: PDF
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World Description
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?
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 29 hours and 31 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Penguin Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: September 20, 2011
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005V0U4CI
Writing massive 700 page historical epics is never an easy task. It requires deep research, broad vision, and great intellectual fortitude. Daniel Yergin demonstrated all of these in his first book, the classic Pulitzer Prize winner, The Prize. Although The Quest is an informative book in its own right, I came away disappointed with some aspects of it. The publishers billed The Quest as the sequel to The Prize. In the first part of the book, Yergin does try to pick up with the grand historical narrative that he left off twenty years ago. This is probably the most successful part of the book. But after devoting roughly 200 pages to this effort, The Quest turns into a series of long vignettes covering topics that Yergin, despite his formidable expertise, never manages to quite tie together.
The five subsequent parts cover: energy security and the future of oil supply, the development and evolution of electric power, the study of climate change and its relationship to energy, the emergence of new energies and renewables, and transportation and the automobile. To say these parts of the book are informative would be an understatement. Yergin has a unique expertise on this topic that few other scholars can match. But in The Quest Yergin can't seem to muster the vision and artistry to unite his coverage of these issues into a more meaningful whole.
Politically, The Quest is a very cautious book. At times, Yergin verges on becoming a lackey for the big oil companies with which he has likely developed ties as the director of a respected energy consulting firm. He tends to be far more critical of those who have challenged big oil than he is of BP, Exxon and the other corporate goliaths that dominate the industry.
We all live fast paced and complex lives. If you are a reader then the key choice you must master is what to read. There is simply too much out there, and you cannot absorb it all. Every now and then a book comes along which is the equivalent of a precious diamond. It is so full of information, presented in such an interesting way that you can't bring yourself to put it down. You couple this characteristic with an author who is a major thinker and what you have when you put it all together is a 1 in a 100 type book. This is a book that changes everything we know about energy.
This is Daniel Yergin
Daniel Yergin is such an author, and this is such a book. It has now been two decades since the he turned the world upside down with his Pulitzer Prize winning "The Prize - The Epic Quest for Oil". To have read it is to understand the world. Its monumental impact affected our economy and Wall Street. In the last few years it became apparent that The Prize needed a badly needed update, not just a chapter added. Instead of completely revamping The Prize, Yergin did one better, he chose to write on the world of energy in general and then incorporate revisions from his previous writings which were necessary. This brings us to "The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World".
We live in world that currently creates $65 trillion per year in gross production of goods and services. Our country does close to $15 trillion of this production, while Europe as a whole does slightly more. Within 20 years the world is expected to produce $130 trillion, that's a doubling in just 2 decades. Now here's the problem as laid out in the book. Yergin clearly spells out that in the developed world today we use about 14 barrels of oil per person per year.
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