44
" A couple of things are very clear,” he adds. “Number one, there’s a real push to electrification. Number two, autonomous driving is going to happen, although the timing we can debate. What’s unclear, though, are all the other ancillary businesses that will be developed around this new world. Those are still in the ‘what if’ and experimental stage. “I’d like Ford to be around for another hundred years. But we’re not the kind of business that can pivot on a dime. The more certainty we have, the better off life is. Unfortunately, right now, we seem to be in a world that doesn’t have a lot of certainty. "
― Daniel Yergin , The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
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" the NSR—the Northern Sea Route. This fulfills a major Russian objective, the opening up of a transit route between Europe and Asia through the Arctic Ocean. It has been facilitated by the retreat of the Arctic ice, although with more variability than sometimes recognized. For instance, in September 2014, the ice extent was 50 percent greater than it had been in September 2012. The route cuts the distance between Shanghai and Rotterdam by about 30 percent, and in the process avoids both the narrow Malacca Strait and the Suez Canal. This opening has been welcomed by Japan, South Korea, and especially by China, which, describing itself as a “Near Arctic State,” applies its own distinctive name to the route—the Polar Silk Road. "
― Daniel Yergin , The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
48
" will face a new competitor in Europe—Russian LNG. LNG projects for Russia’s Arctic gas make clear that Russia will become the fourth major pillar for LNG supply in the 2020s, along with the United States, Qatar, and Australia. These Arctic projects will give Russia the same advantage that Qatar achieved earlier this century—the flexibility, as Putin put it, to go either “eastward” or “westward.” And Yamal LNG, said Putin, “is one more confirmation of the status of Russia as one of the world’s leading energy powers.”16 "
― Daniel Yergin , The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
53
" energy scholar Vaclav Smil observes, “Even with the rise of industrial machines, the nineteenth century was not run on coal. It ran on wood, charcoal, and crop residues.” It was not until 1900 that coal reached the point of supplying half of the world’s energy demand. Oil was discovered in northwest Pennsylvania in 1859. But it took more than a century—not until the 1960s—for it to supplant coal as the world’s number one energy source. Even so, that hardly meant the end of coal, for consumption has continued to grow. As for natural gas, global consumption has increased 60 percent since 2000. "
― Daniel Yergin , The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations