YouSaid · the spoken record

Daniel Yergin

lines on the record: 102
first: 2024-09-18
most recent: 2024-09-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This is wonderful. It's great to have this conversation. Gave me a lot to think about too. So thank you.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, sometimes we had an apartment overlooking the Charles River in Cambridge. I'd look out there at 2 a.m. in the morning and think, you know, what's going to happen? And I think those around me kind of a little bit despaired. This could be a veil of tears, but it turned out, and then the book was basically five years late. brilliantly timed people said they had a great sense of time and i said i was five years late But I did have a sense that I needed to get it done, that some Some crisis was going to come. I had a sense of that. And that drove me. But otherwise, there's this danger that you just keep working on it.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Filling up our car with books, and just immersing it. And the way I would do it is I did not have a master plan. I really should have. It would have saved a lot of time probably. I would just immerse myself something and get my head and then my mother was a painter and I would watch her sketch and that's the image I have is that I sketch it out and then I Fill it out and work on it. And another thing, I mean, unlike a lot of people, I love to edit and polish. I mean, I love going over it and just making a sentence better and then saying how to make it better. And then like with the prize, one of the things I read the whole book aloud to myself to test every sentence. Does every sentence have resilience? Does it, you know, does it sing? And so for me, that's a, you know, a source of pleasure to do that.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, you know, I use the advance for the prize to actually, that's how I capitalized the company we started with, which created an incentive to finish the prize.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. I mean, the thing is that. Know the one thing I've learned from doing these books is it's the 3X rule. Is however hard you think it's going to be. It's going to be at least three times as hard to do. So, I mean, I started off with really unrealistic expectations on the prize, but I think the thing that kept me going was just how great the stories are and how important the stories were.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I was always actually interested. My father had worked at Warner Brothers for a time, and I was always interested in. The movie and entertainment business, you know, and how that developed. And, you know, a big epic story of that. I mean, I just think that's so interesting where you get. I mean, one of the things that is fun when you're writing this, when you have these oversized personalities. They may be kind of obnoxious people who you would hate to meet in person, but are very interesting to write about. And so you look for an industry. Here's something nobody's ever thought about history of the internet. No, I'm just joking.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is the technologies either Or they come from left field like fracking, or grasping what AI is going to mean for how our economies work. But I think you made a very important point, and that was the discovery in COVID. You don't have to travel. You can do it by electrons.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly, that it came to an end. It came to an end because of the electric light. And so, I mean, things are not going to stand still. So I think the most important thing is”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What's the chance of doing that? It takes 20 years to open a new mine. In the United States, we just did a study. It takes nine years to open a new mine. You know, changing $109 trillion world economy, it's going to change. And you said that development of solar is going to be really important, but things are not going to move in a straight line. I mean, we are in an energy transition, but it's going to be a longer one. Here we are, as you mentioned in Nantucket, which was a key part of the energy transition because it was a source of lighting in the 19th century from whaling.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Literally in 25 years. And I think energy, and I think some of that thinking was developed during COVID when demand went down and price went down, collapsed. Part of it is people worry about energy security. I was just reading last week the budget message from the finance minister in India, and she talked about energy security, and we have to maintain economic growth. And it's very important to do that. And energy security as well as energy transition. So it's a different balance. There's a difference between the North and South. And then there's the constraints on minerals because, you know, as you make an energy transition, what people are talking about, it's more mineral intensive. An electric car uses two and a half times more copper than a conventional car. Well, we did the study and said, okay, let's take the 2050 goals. And if you want to achieve them, copper supply has to double by about 2035.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every other energy transition we've had has been energy addition. Oil discovered in 1859 overtakes coal as the world's number one energy source in the 1960s. Last year, the world used more coal than it's ever used three times as much as the 1960s. Now the idea is, can you change everything in...”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which is kind of the expectation now that it's going to change everything, including energy. And, you know, and then you have $6 billion of venture capital money has gone into fusion. There's a lot there that can change. My own view is that the energy transition, it's not going to happen because of price. It's going to happen because of policy and technology, I think, is what's driving it. I have the view that people have, you know, have had to kind of simple notions of how the energy transition will work. That's one of the things in the new map. If people read one part of it, it's read the section on energy transition because it tells you what we're talking about today is not anything like any other energy transition.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You wouldn't see that in the GDP numbers. Yeah, I mean, it used to be a much bigger share of the stock market, you know, Dow Jones. It's also a smaller share. That's right. the strategic commodity. There are a lot of other things that go into it now. If you look at the, what are the Department of Commerce uses, there are different categories of jobs altogether, they'll say that they're about 12 million people in the United States whose jobs are Connected to the oil and gas industry.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hydrogen because that's another molecule. And can the degree hydrogen can substitute for natural gas, for instance? And that's where a lot of investment, but it's very early Again, things sometimes people forget about the energy business. It's scale. It's so big as what the requirements are.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a difference among some companies. Some companies say yes, and they look at offshore wind and say, well, we're in the offshore oil business. We could do offshore wind. And you see that in Europe where Ecuador, which is the Norwegian company, or BP or Shell or Total are big in offshore wind. And they say we have skills in that. Solar is a little different. Exxon is now going into mining lithium, thinking that they can use skills that they use for that. But the U.S. major companies say, well, we do basically we do molecules. We don't do electrons. And that's where the difference is the European companies say we can do all of it. The European say we can do all of it. The American companies say, well, we have no comparative advantage in electrons, but there's a lot of interest in.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, they just had a thing where one of the blades off one of the big wind turbines ended up fell off and washed up on the beach and has now created. You know, it's really huge in consternation and suddenly reopened the discussion. But, you know, you need supply chains. And wind and solar are different, of course. I mean, if you want to... Start a new offshore wind project in the United States, you can order your cables, but you won't get them until 2029 or 2030 because they're the supply chain issues. Solar is different. But of course, solar is Know is so dominated by China.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have to think about it. I mean, it's happening fast, but as I say, these guys started the solar business in 1973. It's now taken off. It's also interesting that what really gave the boost to the solar industry is German feed-in tariffs, which provided the incentive for the Chinese to dominate, to development because they dominate the business And But solar, I mean, right now wind is about 10% of U.S. electricity. Solar is about 3.5%, but solar is going to grow. It certainly will grow very fast. You do see. And I just heard this when I was at this utility commissioners conference real tension between states and localities where the states want to push it, but localities don't want solar or don't want wind.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now they're all tied up. Renewables are also now tied up in geopolitics. And when I call the new map, the movement to great power competition. There's the US just put 100% tariffs on Chinese electric cars, 25% tariffs on Chinese storage batteries. So we just had this building inflation reduction act, not just its very recent huge trillion dollars people the treasury estimates when it's done. But it's about climate and renewables, but it's also about competing with China.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because it was driven by tax credits, but they needed to find wind machines that could stand up in the wind blew in the Hachapi Pass. And so, but it took, you know, it's interesting, it took him about 30 years, both those industries, to become competitive. And it only happened around 2010 that they actually became competitive. Now, of course, very competitive. But then guess what?”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Generation in California, but 43% of electric generation comes from natural gas. So, you know, natural gas, and that gets back to the data centers, You're going to need to bolster your electricity power system. How much can you do with batteries? And how much can you do with and using natural gas? But, you know, wind and solar are also stories about entrepreneurship. In the quest, I have, you know, I ask myself, where did the wind and solar industries come from? And the wind and solar industries came from two. The solar industry from two emigrates who had left Europe, one of whom had driven his car out of Hungary in the 1956 revolution. 1969, he's a chemist working for the U.S. government and he and his partner decided to go into solar business. And that became the first solar company they started in 1973. And the wind business, I like to say the modern wind business is a result of the marriage between California tax credits and the sturdy Danish agricultural industry.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So for China, I think wind and solar, electric cars is very much a strategic issue because they see the vulnerability of importing 75% of their oil, much of it coming through the South China Sea. They know the story of what happened with World War II with Japan. And so for them, it is the shift to electric cars is less about air pollution, much more about energy security, and it's also about knowing that they couldn't compete in the global market with gasoline-powered cars, but they can with electric cars. So those are the strategic things. But wind and solar give you a more diversified system until you have batteries that can really deliver the storage. You have the intermittency problem. So you take California today. People think wind and solar is advanced. It's true there are 25% of your electric.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it's a question of scale and how long, I mean, I think what I carried away basic premise of energy security goes back to Churchill. He said safety lie in variety and variety alone. Diversification. So wind and solar give you diversification. Electric vehicles diversify your fleet. So I think those are all there. I think”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's Yeah, you don't understand why these things happened, and you just look at the numbers, but why did it happen? And so, you know, part of it is. Know through narrative explaining why it happened.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, sometimes, I mean, I will have great respect for them and I have great respect. I mean, I also love, you know, reading the monthly energy review from the Department of Energy, which is only statistics or the statistical energy review. So I love it. But I think what you may miss is The contingency The human agency, you know, the decisions that went unto things, the right decisions that were made, the mistakes, and the things that you missed, that you were wrong about or that would have been wrong. I think so, it's the texture. I mean, there is a tendency to think that things are inevitable, but you know that the world can change from one day to the next. What happened on December 7th, 1941, September 1, 1939. It could happen any day in the Middle East right now that you could go from one day to the next. And it's a different world.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I have been an entrepreneur, I have a feeling for it. I mean, you're an entrepreneur in terms of what you're doing with podcasts. You sort of invented as you go along. And I tried to capture that at the same time I love writing narrative.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I felt that I learned, so I was living entrepreneurship. And I think that sometimes people, when they go back and write history, they know the outcome. So I think everybody knows what was, you know, they had all the information, they had all the time, and they knew the outcome. Of course, you never have all the information. You certainly don't have all the time, and you surely don't know the outcome. And I think that sense of contingency, which is such a part of human history, I think I feel I tried to capture, I think that is one of the things that made the prize distinctive, that makes the new map, that makes the quest distinctive. I mean, in the quest, the middle book.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the end of this. You're making a deal with yourself. You're making a deal that what you write in year four, you're not going to totally rewrite in year seven, because otherwise you'll never get it done. And see, the odd thing, the strange thing is I started a business the same year I started the prize.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I've been this is, I started writing when I was like a child. My father had an old typewriter. He'd been a newspaper reporter and I would hunt and peck and just write stories. So in high school, I was student body president, but I was also editor of the literary magazine. And when I was an undergraduate at Yale, I started a magazine called The New Journal, which was narrative journalism. And so I learned a lot of my writing, doing that. I learned a lot of my writing, writing magazine articles, how to tell a story. And so I really, I love shaping a story. I love finding a character. I love finding the great quote that just kind of illuminates everything you're trying to do. And I love not boring people.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think in one way I see myself as a storyteller, as and I like narrative. I think that's the best way to communicate. I like writing about people and not just about abstractions. It's funny when I was like writing the prize or writing these books I almost, it's strange to say, I almost see it like a movie when I'm writing. You know, I see what's happening and that makes it more vivid for me. And I also think that there are more and more things you're competing with if you're a writer. You're competing with TikTok. You're competing with YouTube and everything podcasts. So you've got to draw people in and people love stories. I mean,”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gas revenues. I mentioned the word shale, and he erupted and kind of said it's barbaric. It's terrible. And he got really angry. And this is in front of 3,000 people. So it's rather uncomfortable in that position. I realized there were two reasons. One, he was worried about shale gas competing with Russian gas. And two, he saw that shale revolution would augment the position and influence of the United States because the U.S. would no longer be independent. And he was very prescient. He was right about both of them. I think when he invaded Crimea, I don't think he ever imagined that if he cut off the gas to Europe, that Europe could survive. Europe survived”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you think about what the Japanese are saying, that's really what their message is. I did an event with the Japanese prime minister. And, you know, now I think about it in the springtime, that was very much, that came through very clearly that for them U.S. exports to them are part of the security relationship. USLNG is now part of the arsenal of NATO. You know, we're talking about the geopolitical significance of US shale. No one would be happier to see a ban on US shale production than Vladimir Putin. And, you know, I have firsthand sense of that because in 2013, before he annexed Crimea, I was at this conference, which is his version of a global economic conference, and they said, you could ask the first question. And so I said, you know, and it was going to be about something we were talking about before, their overdependence on oil.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But including our exports. Well, that's why when the Japanese prime minister was here for a state visit a few months ago, they were expressing great alarm about future LNG exports because they, for them, being able to import energy from the United States is very critical to their energy security. Otherwise, they're pushed back where they're going to get their LNG. They'll get summit from the Middle East, some from Australia, but they'll be pushed back to get in from Vladimir Putin. So for them, their energy security, this has become U.S. Energy exports, U.S. shale has become part of their energy security. I never thought of it quite that way, but I think”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So worried about it. So it's something that is, you know, it really is a revolution that is playing out today. China imports 75% of its oil. It wishes it was in our position.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was like, you know, the late night comedians can make fun of it. Actually, it's happened and it's had huge economic significance back in like 2008. The U.S. was spending like $400 billion a year to import oil, basically spend nothing to import oil. And it's been geopolitically very significant. And I think that's been a learning experience for the Biden administration because there it turns out that if it wasn't for shale gas made into what's called LNG, liquefied natural gas shipped to Europe, Putin could well have shattered the coalition supporting Ukraine when he cut off. He used the energy weapon, not oil but gas. And that, you know, suddenly you had European politicians coming to the United States to try and secure supplies of LNG because”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, no, I think that that was a period, and that was a period up till about 2017 when it was growth for growth's sake. And then basically the financial community said, hey, guys, the party's over. I'm not going to reward you for growth. I'm going to reward you for sending money back on my investment. And so I think in a sense, shale is almost a mature industry. And I think people. Was the world's largest importer of oil. We were importing, we were only producing 5 million barrels a day of oil in 2008. Now we're 13.2 million barrels a day. The U.S. is energy independent. People thought it was a big joke. It could never be energy independent. It was every presence that”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think that's a question that I'd like to ask you. But it is the sense that we are at the beginning of something. I remember when actually it was interesting political leader in Central Asia saying AI is going to be the true source of power in the future.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The incentives for innovation are there. That's why we may see a runway of what's going to come, but it may really come from the side.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you were kind of going to run out of whales, basically. And I love that, you know, that these kind of consultants, this professor at Yale did this experiment. He needed some extra money. And he did some studies that showed, well, actually this stuff called rock oil, you could turn it into a lighting fuel fluid. And the risk taking of it, but yeah, it's hard to, you know. We wouldn't be where we are. We wouldn't have the world today. We wouldn't be a world of 8 billion people were not for it. Obviously, there's going to be change. And I'd say right now.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's right. What you really realize is that hydrocarbons have been the fuel, the engine really, of economic development. I mean, you know, people would still be in sailboats. They would still spend six weeks crossing the Atlantic. It would take weeks to go from one place to another. It's hard to, you know, that's a very interesting question to imagine our world without them.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You look at developing data centers, well, they'll take all of the electricity generated by a nuclear power plant. Well, if they do that, that means you've taken that baseload nuclear power off the grid. So, you know, there's a kind of scramble to understand this. And then there's the issues that we have in our country, which is you can't get things permitted. It takes so long you have supply chain problems and you have a workforce that is aged out. You know, it said that, you know, to be a fully trained lineman, you need seven years. So, you know, you can see that this area of electricity is part me for saying it is hot.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, let me say some will say the answer to that is innovation, that chips will become less electricity dependent, or data centers will operate differently, that the demand will not grow as much. So there is those who say that will happen, but it hasn't happened yet. And those who are saying, you know, how are we going to meet that demand? AI is going to demand a lot more electricity than we had thought about a year or year and a half ago”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About data centers is 20,000 CPUs. He said, now we talk about them as 300 megawatt data centers. And the sense is that You have electric cars and sort of energy transition demand, then you bringing back chip manufacturers and smart manufacturing in the United States, that's electricity demand. Then you have AI and data centers. And suddenly this industry that had been very flat is now looking at growth and how are you going to meet the growth is very much on the agenda right now. And data centers are looking where can we position ourselves so that we have access to the electricity that we need reliable 24-hour electricity. So now, you know, there's energy security in terms of oil and gas, but actually it's also energy security in terms of electricity. So there's your potential constraint on economic activity.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, there's one projection that 10% of U.S. electricity by 2030, which is half a decade away, will be going to data centers. And it's about 4% today. What a change it's been in the last year and a half in terms of thinking about data centers, AI, and electricity. It wasn't on the agenda a year and a half ago. And I remember I was at a CEO conference with electric power utility CEOs about a year ago, and they were talking about growth being surprised by it. Then we have our conference in Houston in March, and by then people have woken up to, in fact, you're talking about going from 4% of U.S. electricity to 10%. And U.S. electricity hasn't grown very much over the last 10 years. It's grown at 0.35%. Now you're looking at maybe it's going to grow at 2% or more. And that adds up very quickly. And I was very struck. I did a discussion with Bill Gates at our SERA Week conference in March, and he said, you know, we used to talk about...”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And now there's a fusion which seemed to be 50 years away, is now maybe 10 years away. And I think technology will change things. But, you know, I don't think. Electricity may be a constraint on the growth of AI in the near and the medium term, but that's a very specific problem.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That it's happened. I mean, it is, you know, like the oil industry, it's happened pretty quickly, actually, in this space of time. And so I don't think, I mean, I think when you have price spikes, when you have disruptions, then that's when you see the cost and those risks are there. But in general, although when you get into a presidential election, the incumbents always worry about the price of gasoline because it's so sensitive because people pay it. It's the one price you pay all the time and you see it. Need to think about it more, but I don't think it's a huge constraint. Now, maybe nuclear energy way back in the 1950s was supposed to be so cheap that you wouldn't meter it too cheap to meter was the phrase”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't think it seems to me today. And we'll come to it in terms of AI and electricity. I mean, I need to reflect on that, but it doesn't seem to me that the cost of energy is a general constraint on the economy. It is probably somewhat of a constraint in California because it has the most expensive energy in the country, but that's because of state regulation. But, you know, all of the big tech. Big tech wasn't born in 1973. It was much more recently.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, also the U.S. was your economy becomes bigger, you don't grow at the same rate, but you're growing off a much larger base.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't have expertise on that, but I know people like Ben Bernanke, the former head of the Fed, have actually studied that crisis and why you had that slowdown that occurred. But it was a, you know, the U.S. went from being on a very strong growth trajectory, went into at that time was the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Of course, we've had deeper recessions since then. And it took It took a decade to get out of that hole.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I think one that is in the new map and that you and I have talked about is the meeting with Prime Minister Modi in India where India was really at a crucial point, whether to get out of in a book you probably don't know that I did called The Commanding Heights in the Permit Raj, where a government really tightly controlled the economy. And I describe a scene in the book where he brought his senior advisors together to argue about whether you allow market forces to work or not. And it was a very heated discussion. And then I just remember his remarks is we need new thinking. And that, you know, just those simple words, I think have pointed to how India has become so much of a bigger force in the world economy today as opposed to being a sort of enclosed Closed economy.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, there are others that are well run, but Aramco is a very well run company because I think they did, you know, you described it before, they rather smoothly did their transition and retained, and people are highly trained. I mean, if you go to Aramco, you meet people with PhDs from MIT or Stanford or University of Texas, they have a very well-trained global workforce and a very high standard. But I think they drew upon initially the cultures of the companies that were eventually nationalized out of the business. But the people were trained.”
2024-09-18 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Daniel Yergin — Oil destroyed Hitler, fracking destroyed Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source