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

by Daniel Yergin

  5 Wen Jiabao, speech, National Teleconference on Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction, April 27, 2007.

  6 Erica Downs, “China’s Energy Rise,” in China’s Rise in Historical Perspective, ed. Brantly Womack (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), p. 181 (Jieneng Jianpai).

  7 Wen Jiabao, speech, National Teleconference on Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction, April 27, 2007.

  8 BBC Worldwide Monitoring, March 5, 2010.

  9 Joanna I. Lewis, “Decoding China’s Climate and Energy Policy Post-Copenhagen,” German Marshall Fund Policy Brief, June 2010; Hongyan H. Oliver, Kelly Sims Gallagher, Donglian Tian, and Jinhua Zhang, “China’s Fuel Economy Standards for Passenger Vehicles,” Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, March 2009.

  10 Interview with Chinese mayor; Financial Times, October 27, 2010 (“iron fist”); New York Times, August 10, 2010.

  11 Allison Hannon, Ying Liu, Jim Walker, Changhua Wu, Delivering Low Carbon Growth: A Guide to China’s 12th Five Year Plan (The Climate Group with HSBC: March, 2011).

  12 Neal Elliott and Anna Shipley, “Impacts of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy on Natural Gas Markets,” American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, April 2006, pp. 11, 21.

  13 Andrew Liveris, speech, CERAWeek, March 11, 2010.

  14 Dow Corporation, “Dow Sustainability—Energy Efficiency and Conservation,” at http://www.dow.com/commitments/goals/energy.htm.

  15 Andrew Liveris, speech, CERAWeek, March 11, 2010; interview with Richard Wells; Andrew Liveris, Wall Street Journal 2008 Eco-Nomics Conference; interview with Andrew Liveris.

  16 International Energy Agency, Tracking Industrial Energy Efficiency and CO2 Emissions: In Support of the G-8 Plan of Action (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2007), pp. 19, 34.

  17 Jeffery Smisek, speech, CERA Week, March 11, 2011; John Heimlich, “The Economic Climbout for US Airlines,” ATA Economics, June 2, 2011, presentation, January 24, 2007 (higher fuel efficiency).

  18 U.S. International Air Passenger and Freight Statistics, Federal Communications Commission, 2007 (sharp ascent); David Nielson, chief engineer for Airport Strategy at Boeing, “Boeing’s Contribution to Aviation Sustainability,” Pacific Basin Development Council, August 27, 2007 (By 2026); Jeffery Smisek, speech, CERA Week, March 11, 2011.

  19 Observer, January 29, 2006 (“negative effects”); Rough Guides, press release, March 1, 2006; Times (London), July 23, 2006; Lonely Planet: Discover Europe (2010), p. 790.

  20 Interview with Andris Piebalgs.

  Chapter 32: Closing the Conservation Gap

  1 Chicago Tribune, July 16, 1878 (“Apprehension”).

  2 Leon Glicksman, “Energy Efficiency in the Built Environment,” Physics Today 61, no. 7 (2008), p. 2.

  3 Gail Cooper, Air-Conditioning America: Engineers and Controlled Environment, 1900–1960 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 9–10; Mechanical Engineering, May 2000 (jackets).

  4 Claude Wampler, “Dr. Willis H. Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning,” The Newcomen Society of England, 1949; Margaret Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning (Louisville: Fetter Printing Company, 1991), pp. 33–34 (“manufactured weather”).

  5 Ingels, Willis Haviland Carrier, pp. 63–79 (Madison Square Garden); “The Milam Building,” American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1991 (high-rise); Popular Mechanics, July 1939 (Damascus and Baghdad).

  6 New York Times, June 2, 2002.

  7 Interview with Leon Glicksman.

  8 Gary Simon to author.

  9 Interview with Lee Schipper.

  10 National Association of Home Builders, Housing Facts, Figures, and Trends, May 2007, p. 13; National Petroleum Council, “Residential Commercial Efficiency,” July 18, 2007, p. 12.

  11 Jone-Lin Wang, “Why Are We Using More Electricity?” Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2010 (“gadgiwatts”); The Climate Group, “Smart 2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age,” 2008 (120 million); G. I. Meijer, “Cooling Energy-Hungry Data Centers,” Science 328, no. 5976 (2010), pp. 318–19.

  12 Lawrence Makovich, “Meeting the Power Conservation Investment Challenge,” IHS CERA, 2007 (“conservation gap”); World Economic Forum and IHS CERA, Energy Vision Update 2010: Towards a More Energy Efficient World, 2010, p. 4 (“investment grade”).

  13 Interview with George Caraghiaur.

  14 Glicksman, “Energy Efficiency in the Built Environment,” pp. 3–6 (“high-tech versions”); interview with Leon Glicksman; U.S. Green Buildings Council Web site, http://www.usgbc.org.

  15 Interview with Naohiro Amaya.

  16 Interview with Yoriko Kawaguchi.

  17 Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Top Runner Program, rev. ed., March 2010, at http://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/policy/saveenergy/toprunner2010.03en.pdf.

  18 Kateri Callahan, “Building the Infrastructure for Energy Efficiency,” in World Economic Forum and IHS CERA, Energy Vision Update 2010: Towards a More Energy Efficient World, 2010, p. 24 (“public policy support”); James Rogers, speech, CERAWeek, February 15 2008.

  19 IHS CERA, Smart Grid: Closing the Gap Between Perception and Reality (2010); Brookings Institution Center for Technology and Innovation, “Smart Grid Future: Evaluating Policy Opportunities and Challenges after the Recovery Act,” forum, July 14, 2010.

  20 Scientific American, August 13, 2008.

  21 Sewart Baker, Natalie Filipiak, and Katrina Timlin, “In the Dark: Crucial Industries Confront Cyberattacks,” (CSIS and McAfee: 2011).

  Chapter 33: Carbohydrate Man

  1 Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther, My Life and Work (Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1923), pp. 188–200; Henry Ford, “Automobiles and Soybeans: An Interview with Arthur van Vlissingen, Jr.,” Rotarian, September 1933.

  2 Steven R. Weisman, The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln—Teddy Roosevelt—Wilson: How the Income Tax Transformed America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002); Hal Bernton, William Kovarik, and Scott Sklar, The Forbidden Fuel: Power Alcohol in the Twentieth Century (New York: Boyd Griffin, 1982), p. 10 (“made from cornstalks”) .

  3 Bernton, Kovarik, and Sklar, The Forbidden Fuel, pp. 1–13 (“wonderfully clean-burning,” “rapidly depleted,” “direct route,” “potential speakeasy”); Reynold Wik, Henry Ford and Grass-roots America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973), p. 249 (secretary).

  4 Washington Post, October 13, 1977 (Birch Bayh); Fortune, October 1, 1990.

  5 Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), pp. 46–52; Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), p. 382 (“sharpest message”); Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation, January 4, 1980.

  6 New York Times, January 7, 1980 (Warren Christopher); Bernton, Kovarik, and Sklar, The Forbidden Fuel, p. 105 (high scenario); Washington Post, August 3, 1986 (“very inefficient”).

  7 Interview with Richard Lugar; Brent D. Yacobucci, “Fuel Ethanol: Background and Public Policy Issues,” Congressional Research Service, March 3, 2006 (E10); Richard G. Lugar and R. James Woolsey, “The New Petroleum,” Foreign Affairs 78, no. 1 (1999), pp. 88–102 (mandatory targets).

  8 New York Times, November 7, 2005 (“good old-fashioned”); “President Bush and President Lula Discuss Biofuel Technology,” White House, March 9, 2007 (“truly obsessed,” “couldn’t have lunch”); George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 31, 2006 (“addicted to oil”); “Bush, da Silva Deliver Joint Remarks,” CNN, November 6, 2005; Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2006 (“kind of startled”).

  9 Interview with José Goldemberg; Frederick Johnson, “Sugar in Brazil: Policy and Production,” The Journal of Developing Areas 17, no. 2 (1983), pp. 243–56 (prices collapsed); William S. Saint, “Farming for Energy: Social Options under Brazil’s National Alcohol Programme,” World Development 10, no. 3 (1982), pp. 223�
��38 (“wartime economy”); Werner Baer and Claudio Paiva, “Brazil,” in The Political Economy of Latin America in the Postwar Period, ed. Laura Randall (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), pp. 70–110 (no prospects); Marc Weidenmier, Joseph Davis, and Roger Aliaga-Diaz, “Is Sugar Sweeter at the Pump? The Macroeconomic Impact of Brazil’s Alternative Energy Program,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 14362, October 2008; U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Energy Development and Applications, 96th Congress, Venezuela and Brazil Visit—January 13–20, 1980 (Washington, DC: GPO), January 1980.

  10 Interview with José Goldemberg; José Goldemberg, “Ethanol for a Sustainable Energy Future,” Science 315, no. 5813 (2007), pp. 808–10; UNICA Sugarcane Industry Association Web site, at http://english.unica.com.br/dadosCotacao/estatistica/ (flexfuel).

  11 The sometimes intense debate about the energy balance for ethanol has been going on since the late 1970s. John Deutch, Energy Policy in Crisis: The Godkin Lecture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), ch. 5.

  12 Corn Farmers Coalition, “Factbook,” at http://www.cornfarmerscoalition.org/fact-book/; U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, “U.S. Domestic Corn Use,” at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Corn/Gallery/Background/CornUseTable.html.

  13 Interview with Georgina Kessel Martínez; Washington Post, January 27, 2007.

  14 International Energy Agency, Technology Roadmap: Biofuels for Transportation (Paris: OECD/IEA, 2011), pp. 16–20.

  15 Bernton, Kovarik, and Sklar, The Forbidden Fuel, pp. 74–75 (Leo Spano); Washington Post, Outlook, “Some Trash Can Be Really Sweet,” November 11, 1975, p. 1011 (“lowly fungi”); Norm Augustine to author (“quantum leap”).

  16 Nightline, ABC, aired January 23, 2007 (Bransby); Bush, State of the Union Address, January 31, 2006.

  17 Government of Canada, “Iogen—Canada’s New Alchemists,” Innovation in Canada Series, February 15, 2005.

  18 Tiffany Groode, “Breaking through the Wall: Identifying the Main Barriers to Increasing Biofuels Production,” IHS CERA, 2009 (“daunting logistics,” “local nature”); Paul A. Willems, “The Biofuels Landscape: Through the Lens of Industrial Chemistry,” Science 325, no. 5941 (2009), pp. 707–10.

  19 Interview with Richard Hamilton; Newsweek, October 27, 1980.

  20 Interview with Steven Koonin.

  Chapter 34: Internal Fire

  1 William Adams Simonds, Edison: His Life, His Work, His Genius (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1934), pp. 273–75; Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress (New York: Viking, 2003), pp. 25–26; Henry Ford (with Samuel Crowther), Edison as I Knew Him (New York, Cosmopolitan, 1930), pp. 1–12.

  2 David A. Kirsch, The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press: 2000), p. 1 (“five different methods”).

  3 C. Lyle Cummins, Internal Fire: The Internal Combustion Engine, 1673–1900 (Wilsonville, OR: Carnot Press, 1976); David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe, from 1750 to Present, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 102 (“within reach”); “The Lotus Leaf: Evolution and Standardization of the Automobile Source,” Lotus Magazine 7, no. 4 (1916), pp. 183–92 (Cugnot).

  4 Cummins, Internal Fire, pp. 138–72.

  5 Chicago Tribune, August 8, 1892 (“a wagon propelled”); James Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1990), p. 2 (Red Flag Act).

  6 Flink, The Automobile Age, p. 13.

  7 Brinkley, Wheels for the World, p. 32; Akron Beacon Journal, June 20, 1999 (first police car); Carl Sulzberger, “An Early Road Warrior: Electric Vehicles in the Early Years of the Automobile,” IEEE Power and Energy Magazine 2, no. 3 (2004), pp. 66–71.

  8 U.S. Department of Energy, “History of Electric Vehicles: The Early Years (1890 to 1930)” (Phaeton, steamers); James Flink, America Adopts the Automobile, 1895–1910 (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1970), pp. 242, 273.

  9 Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1992), pp. 407–14.

  10 Brinkley, Wheels for the World, pp. 114–15 (“useless nuisance”).

  11 John B. Rae, American Automobile Manufacturers: The First Forty Years (Philadelphia: Chilton Company, 1959), p. 33 (“fever”); Flink, America Adopts the Automobile, 1895–1910, pp. 50, 64 (“god to the women”).

  12 Brinkley, Wheels for the World, p. 100 (“greatest need today”); Ford Corporation, “Model T Facts,” at http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=858.

  13 Josephson, Edison: A Biography, p. 423 (“electric Pigs”).

  14 National Petroleum News, February 5, 1936 (“dump”).

  15 Robert Stobaugh and Daniel Yergin, eds., Energy Future: A Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979), p. 183 (“handouts”); Henry Ford II, speech, White House Conference on Balanced National Growth and Economic Development, January 30, 1978 (“moved us faster”); Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1979 (“give up”).

  16 Interview with Philip Sharp.

  17 Popular Science, July 1992; Amory Lovins, “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?,” Foreign Affairs 55, no. 1 (1976), pp. 65–96.

  18 David Halberstam, The Reckoning (New York: Avon Books, 1994), p. 304; Daniel Sperling and Deborah Golden, Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 19, Toyota Web site.

  19 Interview with Rick Wagoner (“home run”); Fortune, May 1, 1995; Fortune, April 11, 1994 (“Golden Age”); Fortune, January 10, 1994 (“most successful”).

  20 Interview with Rick Wagoner (“truck capacity”); New York Times, October 20, 1996; New York Times, October 27, 1996.

  21 IHS CERA, “Gasoline and the American People,” November 2006.

  22 David L. Greene, “Policies to Increase Passenger Car and Light Truck Fuel Efficiency,” testimony, U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, January 30, 2007.

  23 Ibid.

  24 Toyota Motor Corporation spells its name differently from the name of the family that founded the company. The motor company was established in 1937 as a spin-off of the family’s weaving concern. Fortune, June 26, 2009; Toyota Motor Corporation, at http://www.toyota.com/html/hybridsynergyview/2005/summer/hybridhistory.html ; Fortune, February 24, 2006 (“global twenty-first century”); Fortune, February 24, 2006 (“really cars”).

  25 Sperling and Golden, Two Billion Cars, p. 170 (missed the point); Fortune, February 24, 2006 (Academy Awards).

  26 Congressional Budget Office, Effects of Gasoline Prices on Driving Behavior and Vehicle Markets (Washington, DC: GPO), January 2008, p. 32.

  27 Time, October 6, 1961 (“vice versa”); International Herald Tribune, March 7, 2007 (“warriors”); National Research Council, Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2002), pp. 4–5 (“marked inconsistency”).

  28 New York Times, December 19, 2007.

  29 Associated Press, December 20, 2007 (“slap in the face”); Sperling and Golden, p. 65 (“hottest car”); Financial Times, January 11, 2008.

  Chapter 35: The Great Electric Car Experiment

  1 “A. J. Haagen-Smit,” in World of Chemistry (Thomson Gale Publishers, 2005). Arie Haagen-Smit, et al., “A Physiologically Active Principle from Cannabis Sativa (Marihuana),” Science 91, no. 2373 (1940), pp. 602–3.

  2 Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1977 (“stinking cloud,” “not be difficult”).

  3 Los Angeles Times, November 5, 1954.

  4 Tiffany Groode and Levi Tillemann-Dick, “The Race to Build the Electric Car,” Wall Street Journal Special Section, March 9, 2011; Agence France-Presse, October 1, 2009 (“battle”); Reuters, July 30, 2008 (“Industrial Revolution”); Barack Obama, speech, February 19, 2010.

  5 Lo
s Angeles Times, October 14, 1954; Los Angeles Times, October 21, 1954 (“dangerous intensity,” Housewives); Los Angeles Times, October 26, 1954; Los Angeles Times, October 27, 1954 (“City Revels”); Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1954 (“clear, bright skies”).

  6 Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963 (New York: Oxford, 2009), p. 260 (“worst attack ever”); South Coast Air Quality Management District, “Upland, Calif., Had Last Stage III Smog Alert in U.S.,” May 1997, at http://www.aqmd.gov/news1/Archives/History/stage3.html (“auto travel”); Chip Jacobs and William Kelly, Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles (New York: Overlook Press, 2008), p. 162 (“greatest concentration”).

  7 Los Angeles Times, March 22 1977; Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1977.

  8 South Coast Air Quality Management District, The Southland’s War on Smog: Fifty Years of Progress Toward Clean Air, May 1997; Mary Nichols, remarks, Wall Street Journal Eco-Nomics Conference, March 4, 2011.

  9 Daniel Sperling and Deborah Golden, Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 24 (“real culprit”); interview with Tom Stricker.

  10 Bloomberg, July 18, 2008.

  11 Interview with Fred Smith; Fred Smith, testimony, U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, June 22, 2010.

  12 Seth Fletcher, Bottle Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy (New York: Hill and Wang , 2011), pp. 30–35; National Research Council, Transition to Alternative Transportation Technologies: Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2010), p. 9.

  13 Fortune, July 11, 2008.

  14 Fortune, July 1, 2010 (lithium-ion batteries); New Yorker, August 24, 2009 (“hugely underestimated,” “logjam”); Elon Musk, “In the Beginning,” Tesla Blog, June 22, 2009 (“redesigned”); Wired, October 2010; Robert Lutz to author.

  15 Scott Doggett, “32 Hours Needed to Charge at Tesla Roadster Using Common Electrical Outlet,” Edmonds.com, July 7, 2008, at http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2008/07/32-hoursneeded-to-charge-a-tesla-roadster-using-common-electrical-outlet.html.