Quotes from Daniel Yergin

Germany's Energiewende, the "energy turn"—which aimed to replace conventional energy with wind and solar. The generous subsidies from the feed-in tariffs speeded renewable deployment, while also leading to the highest residential energy prices in the European Union.

Work need not be concentrated in offices, companies can be run from homes, newspapers can be put out with almost no one in the newsroom; time spent commuting can be reduced; business meetings can be replaced by digital connecting. These impacts will last after lockdowns are well in the past. It took three years after 9/11 and more than seven years after the 2008 financial crisis for air travel in the United States to recover to the previous levels.

Prior to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, nuclear power provided 30 percent of Japan's electricity. By 2020, not much more than 5 percent of the country's electricity came from nuclear. LNG, already significant for electric generation, filled much of the void—in 2020 responsible for almost 40 percent of its electricity generation.

In the autumn of 2018, though it was hardly noted at the time, something historic occurred: The United States overtook both Russia and Saudi Arabia to regain its rank as the world's largest oil producer, a position it had lost more than four decades earlier.

Russia became the largest exporter of wheat in the world—quite a turnaround from the 1970s, when the Soviet Union spent a good part of its oil earnings buying wheat from the United States. Moreover, in retaliation for the sanctions, the Russian

finally the offering was launched on December 11, 2019, on the home court—the much smaller Riyadh stock exchange. Just 1.5 percent of the company was on offer. Still, it finally topped out at $29.4 billion, eclipsing the debut value of China's Alibaba to become the largest IPO in history.

Xi Jinping is of a new generation—the first Chinese leader born after World War II. His father, a veteran of the revolution, had risen to vice premier, before being purged and imprisoned.

The Groningen gas field in northern Holland, discovered in 1959, was the biggest domestic source of gas within Europe, and the foundation on which the original European gas system had been built. It still ranks among the top ten gas fields in the world. But its days are numbered. Owing to its particular geology, production over many years has led to subsidence, sinking of the topsoil, which has triggered tremors and earthquakes, causing cracks and damage in houses.

For Xi, the Communist Party is paramount and central, the defining organizing principle for China's rise, and its discipline and control are essential.

The "triad"—the convergence of electric vehicles, ride hailing, and self-driving cars—is far from sure. It will take electrics a long time to catch up with gasoline-powered cars as a share of the fleet. People may continue to want to own cars and drive themselves. Autonomous vehicles at scale are far from proved.

earnings from oil and gas exports provide the financial foundation for the Russian state and Russian power—in normal times, 40 to 50 percent of the government's budget, 55 to 60 percent of export earnings, and an estimated 30 percent of GDP.

domestic production. Yet the concern about Russia's potential leverage from gas exports does not fully recognize how much both the European and world gas markets have changed. The gas market in Europe has become a real market of buyers and sellers, rather than a system based on inflexible long-term contracts.

would go up the learning curve only once." These

Here is where the electric car can gain traction. While an electric car may cost more, its operating costs will be lower because the costs of electricity per mile will be lower than that for gasoline (unless internal combustion engines become much more efficient). So if you're running a massive fleet of cars that is working most of the time, the electric car becomes compelling. Moreover, the recharging conundrum can be solved with a central charging location.

By 1898, Russia overtook the United States to become the world's biggest petroleum producer.

Mary Barra of GM said. "But they're going to have multiple ways that they can do that." Her ultimate goal, she said, is "a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.

By the beginning of the 1970s, the Soviet Union's centrally planned economy was failing. It could not produce the goods that people wanted, and what it did produce was shoddy, except for specific sectors, mainly defense. The oil crisis of the 1970s came just in time.

Or perhaps the best that can be hoped for—as a play on the "MAD" (mutually assured destruction) of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear standoff in the Cold War years—may be "MAA," "mutually assured ambiguity." But seeking to address issues in a multilateral framework, with a critical role for ASEAN, would help modulate the conviction that the South China Sea is fundamentally a standoff between China and the United States.

By the end of 2018, Russian output reached 11.4 million barrels per day, as high as at the peak for Russia in Soviet days.

In July 2000, two months after his official election, Putin met in the Kremlin with some of the rich and powerful businessmen known by then as oligarchs. He very clearly laid down the new ground rules. They could retain their assets, but they were not to cross the line to try to become kingmakers or in other ways control political outcomes. Two of the oligarchs who did not listen closely were soon in exile.

at least for now, the "demand" for EVs is largely coming not from consumers, but from governments whose evolving policies are shaped by climate concerns as well as by urban pollution and congestion.

the result could well be the rise of a new breed of firm—Big Mobility companies that embody what would be the transformative world of Auto-Tech.

both Japan and South Korea are increasingly interconnected with China. Japan's exports to China are about the same as those to the United States—about 20 percent in each case of total exports. Korea is more dependent—27 percent of its exports go to China, as opposed to 12 percent to the United States.

Energy transitions are not new. They have been going on for a long time and unfold over time. Previous energy transitions have primarily been driven by technology, economics, environmental considerations, and convenience and ease. The current one has politics, policy, and activism more mixed in.