‘The New Map’: Daniel Yergin’s sobering and smart take on the global state of energy – by David Holahan (USA Today – September 14, 2020)

https://www.usatoday.com/

At a time when solid facts and reasoned arguments are in retreat, Daniel Yergin rides to the rescue. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and energy savant is armed to the teeth with enough telling statistics to sink an oil tanker in “The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations” (Penguin Press, 512 pp., ★★★★ out of four).

While most “experts” predicted a decade ago that peak oil production was imminent, to be followed by a slippery slope of declining supply, Yergin said they were wrong. As usual, he was right.

The big issue today is not supply, it’s demand. When will our voracious appetite peak for all that plentiful oil, gas and coal?

In his latest book, Yergin provides an engaging survey course on the lifeblood of modern civilization – where the world has been and where it is likely headed. By the final page, the reader will feel like an energy expert herself.

This book is worth reading for its marvelous statistics alone. Here’s a delicious morsel: Between 2011-2013, China poured more concrete than the United States did in the entire 20th century. Communists do love concrete.

For the rest of this article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2020/09/14/review-new-map-daniel-yergin-sobering-take-state-energy/5764296002/