165
" The linguistic root of “Ukraine” means “edge” or “border land.” The territory that became known as Ukraine is mostly an extended plain with few natural borders. Ukraine and Russia both assert a common origin in Kyivan Rus. This medieval kingdom was established by Viking warriors who intermixed with local Slavic tribes in what became known as the “Rus lands,” which were ruled from Kyiv (the capital of Ukraine today). Despite their shared lineage in Kyivan Rus, modern Ukraine and Russia clash bitterly over claims of common identity, as Russians portray it, versus separate identities, as Ukrainians assert. Kyivan Rus disappeared from history when the Golden Horde, the Mongols, sacked Kyiv in 1240. "
― Daniel Yergin , The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
168
" In the 1990s, before shale, gas never accounted for more than 17 percent of generation. But, with the arrival of shale, gas was highly competitive on price, and environmental opposition had made it virtually impossible to build a new coal-fired plant in the United States. As late as 2007, coal generated half of U.S. electricity. By 2019, it was down to 24 percent, and natural gas had risen to 38 percent. That was the main reason why U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions dropped down to the levels of the early 1990s, despite a doubling in the U.S. economy. "
― Daniel Yergin , The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
174
" Guar, mostly imported from India, is derived from the guar bean. It is used extensively in the food industry to assure consistency in cakes, pies, ice cream, breakfast cereals, and yogurt. But it has another major use—in fracking, in a Jell-O-like slosh that carries sand into the fractures to expand them. But guar and the related additives were expensive. At a baseball game in Dallas, Steinsberger ran into some other geologists who had successfully replaced much of the guar with water, but in another part of Texas and not in shale. In 1997, he experimented with their water recipe on a couple of shale wells, without success. Steinsberger got approval for one final try. This was the SH Griffin #4 in Dish. The team was still using water to replace most of the guar, but this time they fed in the sand more slowly. By the spring of 1998, they had the answer. “The well,” said Steinsberger, “was vastly superior to any other well that Mitchell had ever drilled.” The code for shale had been broken. "
― Daniel Yergin , The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
179
" They would have to do the research themselves. How large was a natural gas molecule, how large was an oil molecule, and how big before and after fracking would be the pore spaces—the tiny spaces or holes, invisible to the naked eye, in the rock? After investigating the matter with electron microscopes and a CT scan and thin slices of cores, they had the answer—an oil molecule was anywhere from slightly bigger than a gas molecule to seven times bigger. But, crucially, oil molecules of even that size could slide through the “throat” of the pore. "
― Daniel Yergin , The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations