‘Energy Security Will Be One of the Main Challenges of Foreign Policy’

In a SPIEGEL interview, United States oil expert Daniel Yergin discusses fears of a global energy crisis, the growing confidence of oil-rich nations and changes in world politics caused by rising energy prices.

Spiegel: Is the current scarcity just a question of capacity or also one of geology? There are quite a few experts who believe that global production will reach a peak soon and decline fairly rapidly.

Yergin: This is not the first time the world has run out of oil. It is more like the fifth. Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of oil. We experienced similiar fears in the 1880s, at the end of World War I and II. And we ran out in the 1970s. People always underestimate the impact of technology. To give you an example: In the 1970s the frontier for offshore development was 200 meters, today it is 4,000 meters.

Spiegel