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The quest: energy, security, and the remaking of the modern world by Daniel
Yergin

Article  in  International Affairs · January 2012

DOI: 10.2307/23255567

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Energy, resources and environment
grounded in real world examples. In part three (chapters five, six and seven) Venkatapuram
considers how the CH model competes (and enhances) alternative health and human rights
models; and then explores the CH model in ‘practice’. Chapter six examines how group
justice may be accommodated into the CH model without sacrificing individual agency.
Chapter seven expands upon the more ‘domestic’ focus of chapter six to see how the CH
model may operate and reflect individual needs at the global level.
Throughout the book, and especially in the conclusion, it is apparent that the author
knows the landscape of health and human rights sufficiently to be aware that the CH model
takes on immense challenges. But Venkatapuram persistently uses the evidence of enduring
health inequalities—within and among states—to reveal why his theoretical contribution
to the health justice debate deserves a hearing in policy circles. Health justice is a thought-
provoking, extensively researched book, which should reinvigorate the health and human
rights debate in global health governance circles.
Sara E. Davies, Griffith University, Australia

The quest: energy, security, and the remaking of the modern world. By Daniel
Yergin. London: Allen Lane. 2011. 804pp. Index. £30.00. isbn 978 1 84614 542 1.
The quest is Daniel Yergin’s new tome, drawing more attention than any other recent book
on energy. His earlier book—The prize (Simon & Schuster, 1991)—became the authori-
tative text on the history and geopolitics of twentieth-century petroleum development,
receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. The quest covers new ground by broaching a wider
variety of energy sources. Yergin describes how energy resources have evolved in an
increasingly integrated global energy economy and the role of new energy innovations in
broadening the energy resource base. Fossil fuel industries have benefited tremendously
from advances in computing power for exploration, techniques such as horizontal drilling,
and visualization software to design refineries and oil platforms in exquisite detail and
testing before building. Likewise, innovation will be critical for the success of renewables
such as wind and solar energy, where driving down costs is imperative to compete with
incumbent energy resources.
The quest is written in six parts. Part one recounts important events in the ‘new world
of oil’ since The prize was published, including the geopolitics of Russia, the Caspian, Iran
and Venezuela. He puts their ascendance as energy powers in the context of the late 1990s
merger mania of oil majors, the emergence of Russian oligarchs, 9/11 and the rise of China.
Part two focuses on energy security. Yergin describes how petroleum geopolitics are
linked to its scarcity. His narrative moves from the central tenet of Hubbert’s peak oil
theory—the decline of Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar Field—to the economic forces and public
investments that spurred the development of offshore oil and gas, as well as unconventional
petroleum resources such as shale and tar/oil sands.
The third section moves to the world of electricity, where Yergin takes the reader
from Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla, through the debates about General Electric and
Westinghouse’s designs for nuclear reactors, to the various future fuel options available for
electricity generation.
Section four—climate and carbon—introduces readers to the personalities behind
climate change science from Tyndall, Arrhenius and Agassiz to Keeling, Hansen and
Revelle, the latter of whom, Yergin points out, influenced a young Al Gore. He describes
the key findings of climate change science, and moves through the miasma of interna-
tional climate politics. Other topics include the pivotal case pitting Massachusetts’ efforts

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International Affairs 88: 3, 2012
Copyright © 2012 The Author(s). International Affairs © 2012 The Royal Institute of International Affairs.
 Book reviews
to regulate greenhouse gas emissions versus the Bush administration’s Environmental
Protection Agency, Climate Gate, and the recent international climate change meetings,
where Yergin lauds a historic US$100 billion fund to invest in clean energy (but nowhere
mentioning the controversy stoked when the World Bank was anointed the fund manager).
The fifth section—new energies—focuses on the prospects for low-carbon energy
sources, discussing solar and wind power, as well as energy efficiency and conservation
efforts including the smart grid technologies. Here, too, Yergin describes the renewable
energy landscape by introducing key personalities and discussing the new role for venture
capital in the renewable energy space.
The last section, ‘Road to the future’, describes the dilemmas of automobility. Transport
primarily uses petroleum and Yergin walks through the low-carbon options for automo-
biles including biofuels, natural gas, and various electric and hybrid vehicles.
Despite his energy expertise, Yergin’s interpretation of events leading up to the First
Gulf War, as well as his understanding of the Iranian situation, undermine the strengths of
the book. He casts blatantly overt aspersions on Hugo Chávez, failing to reflect an objec-
tive assessment. He seems keen on markets as solutions to environmental problems and
fails to describe efforts to decarbonize energy through other means. Many oil supermajors
advocate a carbon tax in order to be able to anticipate future costs of doing business.
Yergin seems to have unparalleled access to key energy industry sources, but he
sometimes capitulates to them. One example is Canadian tar sands development, which
is controversial because gasoline from tar sands creates more greenhouse gases in produc-
tion than conventional gasoline. Just how much higher is a matter of debate, and Yergin
chooses a low range of 15 to 20 per cent, where other scientific sources put it at 23 per cent
or higher. Yergin could have also drawn upon the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables to add to the
Deep Water Horizon story by describing BP’s similar blow-out a year earlier in Azerbaijan.
He could have shown how Nigeria is more complicated than a story of corruption by
mentioning the cables that showed Shell’s grip on the Nigerian government. He could have
mentioned the cables that describe Iran’s negotiations with Chevron over a joint Iranian–
Iraqi oil field, possibly in violation of UN sanctions.
Ultimately, Yergin shows how intractable energy issues truly are. Perhaps 20 years from
now, he will write The triumph: how the world stopped carboniferous capitalism, and decarbonized
energy though human civilization would have to write that story first.
Dustin Mulvaney, San Jose State University, USA

Energy and security in South Asia: cooperation or conflict? By Charles Ebinger.

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. 2010. 224pp. Pb.: £18.99. isbn 978 0 81570
411 9.
Global energy security and American hegemony. By Doug Stokes and Sam Raphael.
Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2010. 296pp. Index. £31.00. isbn 978
0 80189 496 1.
The basic premise in Charles Ebinger’s book on energy security in South Asia is that
there are demographic and economic trends that will lead to increasing energy use in the
region. The consequence of this process is that there are likely to be severe energy gaps in
South Asia. As Ebinger discusses, one of the possible mechanisms for reducing regional
energy shortfalls is through regional cooperation. However, the mechanisms for regional
cooperation in South Asia are rather limited, and so far there has been little evidence that

646
International Affairs 88: 3, 2012
Copyright © 2012 The Author(s). International Affairs © 2012 The Royal Institute of International Affairs.

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