Summary

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.

Publisher's Weekly Review

The romance with fossil fuels that the author chronicled in his 1993 Pulitzer-winning The Prize sours in this absorbing survey of the global energy industry and its environmental discontents. Yergin opens with an entertaining account of the last two decades of the oil-industry soap opera, recounting the chaos in the post-Soviet oil industry, the roller-coaster of oil price bubbles and collapses, and the impact of China's voracious appetite on energy markets. Enlivened with piquant historical background and profiles of major industry figures, Yergin's treatment is a canny analysis of terrain he understands well. (His debunking of peak oil anxieties is especially trenchant.) The book's second half examines the rise of global warming politics and the energy sources proposed as alternatives to carbon. Yergin's coverage is evenhanded, encyclopedic, and readable, but his mastery of these complex issues is less confident; his tour of renewables, from wind to cellulosic ethanol and algae, lacks depth and sometimes repeats boosterish claims, while his chapter on energy efficiency focuses more on green gadgetry than on lifestyle patterns. Yergin's perceptive, entertaining guide to the muddled quest for secure and sustainable energy lacks a systematic vision of how we might-or might not-get it. Photos. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

The quest for energy is quite simply the quest for power, argues energy expert Yergin. Unanticipated events manmade and natural, from the coup in Egypt whose ripples threaten to destabilize oil production in the Middle East to the earthquakes that destabilized Japan's nuclear energy plants can pivot the world's economy as more and more emerging nations demand more energy. Yergin, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Prize (1991), begins by detailing how the energy system of oil, gas, and electrical power has fueled the economic growth of the modern world. He goes on to provide a close examination of the concerns about the environment, terrorism, geopolitics, and economics that will affect changes in energy sources. He offers context for growing scientific concern about climate change, China's huge stores of coal reserves that make it self-sufficient but threaten the environment, and new perspectives on energy, from Brazil's rising role as ethanol producer to growing investment across the world in renewable energy sources, including solar and wind power. A comprehensive, accessible look at energy.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2010 Booklist

Choice Review

Building on The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (1991), his acclaimed epic tale of oil, Yergin now turns to the broader spectrum of energy in this exploration of the people, business, and geopolitics of high-stakes energy. Two-thirds of this 800-page account looks beyond oil: to natural gas and coal; to climate and world economic growth (think China) as shapers of conservation and demand; and to key alternatives, including nuclear power, photovoltaics, and wind. Yergin's style remains authoritative and detailed and at times infected with an ideology of inevitability--a recurring narrative that the combined powers of technology, big business, and market forces will provide, even in the face of monstrous difficulties, the energy to fuel the next generation. Those seeking a rigorously empirical and holistic treatment of energy sustainability should look elsewhere, but many more will be informed by the accessible and adequately sourced case studies at the core of this important volume. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers and students at all levels through professionals. J. Booker Siena College

Library Journal Review

Possibly nobody in the world knows more about the staggering geopolitical complexities of global energy than Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and CNBC's global energy expert. His celebrated prior work on the subject, The Prize, won a Pulitzer and was adapted into a PBS/BBC documentary series. The world today is vastly different, though, and there is currently a need for just such a book as his new one, which has equal sweep, depth, and narrative power as its predecessor. In five parts, he examines the rise and fall of "petro states," the future of electrical power, global climate change, renewable and sustainable energy sources, and alternative fuels. The exhaustive primary sources include original research and technical reports, government reports and hearings, and numerous personal interviews. VERDICT This work immediately distinguishes itself as the leader in a somewhat crowded field of recent energy books (including Peter Maas's Crude World and Tom Bower's Oil). Yergin's much-anticipated sequel is an essential purchase. [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/11.]-Gregg Sapp, Olympia, WA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.