The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World

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Penguin, Sep 20, 2011 - Business & Economics - 832 pages
“A sprawling story richly textured with original material, quirky details and amusing anecdotes . . .” —Wall Street Journal

“It is a cause for celebration that Yergin has returned with his perspective on a very different landscape . . . [I]t is impossible to think of a better introduction to the essentials of energy in the 21st century. The Quest is . . . the definitive guide to how we got here.” —The Financial Times

This long-awaited successor to Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Prize provides an essential, overarching narrative of global energy, the principal engine of geopolitical and economic change


A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them.

The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising  insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas. He explains how climate change became a great issue and leads readers through the rebirth of renewable energies, energy independence, and the return of the electric car. Epic in scope and never more timely, The Quest vividly reveals the decisions, technologies, and individuals that are shaping our future.

From inside the book

Contents

Breaking the Bargain
382
The Urgency of Fuel Choice
399
The Fuel Mix
401
PART FOUR Climate and Carbon
421
Glacial Change
423
The Age of Discovery
436
Atmospheric CO Levels
446
The Road to Rio
457

The New Geography of Oil and Gas 264
76
Supermajors
84
The PetroState
108
Aggregate Disruption
127
War in Iraq
143
The Demand Shock
161
Crude Oil Prices
186
Chinas Rise
190
China in the Fast Lane
211
U S and China
219
PART TWO Securing the Supply
227
Is the World Running Out of Oil?
229
World Liquids Production 19462011
242
Unconventional
244
The Security of Energy
266
Shifting Sands in the Persian Gulf
285
The Middle East Youth Bulge
296
Gas on Water
312
The Natural Gas Revolution
327
PART THREE The Electric
345
Alternating Currents
347
The Nuclear Cycle
364
Making a Market
475
On the Global Agenda
493
In Search of Consensus
509
PART FIVE
525
Science Experiment
553
Alchemy of Shining Light
569
From Light to Electricity
572
Mystery of Wind
595
Harnessing Wind Power
607
The Fifth FuelEfficiency
620
Closing the Conservation Gap
632
PART
647
Internal Fire
671
The Great Electric Car Experiment
692
The Gap
715
A Great Revolution
718
Acknowledgments
726
Notes
732
Bibliography
770
Index
785
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About the author (2011)

Daniel Yergin is a highly respected authority on energy, international politics, and economics, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for OilMoney & Power, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, and Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War, and coauthor of Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy. He is vice chairman of IHS Markit, one of the leading information and research firms in the world, a member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, a senior trustee of the Brookings Institution, and has served on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board under the last four presidential administrations.




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