Daniel Yergin
Daniel Yergin
Daniel Howard Yerginis a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, speaker, and economic researcher. Yergin is the co-founder and chairman of the Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy research consultancy that is now part of IHS Inc. He is best known as author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power and The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World. He received his PhD from Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth6 February 1947
CountryUnited States of America
Ethanol is mandating additional diversity to the pool of motor fuels. The definition of oil is being widened.
We're expecting another 20 cents more than where we are,
So the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology.
The Russians are turning east to the Chinese - to the Europeans' surprise. It always seemed to me that the relationship between Russia and China would shift from being based in Marx and Lenin to being based in oil and gas.
People always underestimate the impact of technology. To give you an example: In the 1970s the frontier for offshore development was 200 meters, today it is 4,000 meters.
But that's not enough: To maintain energy security, one needs a supply system that provides a buffer against shocks. It needs large, flexible markets. And it's important to acknowledge the fact that the entire energy supply chain needs to be protected.
According to one study by the United States Geological survey, 86 percent of oil reserves in the United States are the result not of what is estimated at the time of discovery but of the revisions and additions that come with further development.
In the mid-1980s, operating problems took [nuclear] plants off-line so often that, on an annual basis, they operated at only about 55 percent of their rated total generating capacity. Today, as a result of several decades of experience and an intense focus on performance ... nuclear plants in the United States operate at over 90 percent of capacity. That improvement in operating efficiently is so significant in its impact that it can almost be seen as a new source in electric power itself.
The North Sea was supposed to run out in the 1980s. Then in the 1990s. And now production is still on-line.
First, we have to find a common vocabulary for energy security. This notion has a radically different meaning for different people. For Americans it is a geopolitical question. For the Europeans right now it is very much focused on the dependence on imported natural gas.
Even Silicon Valley investors have put well over a $1 billion in new energy technologies.
In a couple of years, the Chinese will be seen as regular participants in international industry. Their companies have to report to shareholders as well as to the Chinese authorities. They need to make money, they have to be efficient.
We have high crude prices. We have low inventories. We have strong demand. All of that would be a recipe for a taut market even with refineries (running at full capacity).
When you adjust it for inflation, a year ago we were looking at gasoline prices that were cheaper than they had been during the Great Depression. So it was an extraordinary bargain.