Life & Wisdom Quote by Daniel Yergin

"The starting point for energy security today as it has always been is diversification of supplies and sources"

Daniel Yergin, Author

About this Quote

Energy security, Yergin implies, is less a heroic quest for independence than a boring, brutally pragmatic exercise in risk management. “Diversification of supplies and sources” sounds like spreadsheet language, and that’s the point: the sentence drains the romance out of geopolitics and replaces it with portfolio theory. If you want resilience, you don’t bet the national economy on one pipeline, one region, one technology, or one political relationship that can turn sour overnight.

The sly power of “today as it has always been” is its quiet rebuke to every fashionable energy slogan. Whether the era’s obsession is “energy independence,” “drill, baby, drill,” “100% renewables,” or “friend-shoring,” Yergin’s line insists the fundamentals haven’t changed: dependence is inevitable; vulnerability is optional. The intent is stabilizing, almost conservative. It invites policymakers to stop thinking in absolutes and start designing systems that can absorb shocks: wars, embargoes, price spikes, OPEC discipline, shipping chokepoints, cyberattacks, even freak weather.

Context matters here because Yergin’s career has traced the modern energy order’s recurring panics - from the oil shocks of the 1970s to post-9/11 security anxieties to today’s collision of climate targets and geopolitical fragmentation. In that light, “diversification” isn’t just more barrels from more places. It’s LNG terminals, strategic reserves, grid interconnections, nuclear baseload, renewables plus storage, demand response, and efficiency. The subtext: energy transitions don’t eliminate risk; they redistribute it. The smart move is redundancy - the unglamorous architecture of national survival.

Quote Details

Topic	Vision & Strategy

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About the Author

Daniel Yergin (born February 6, 1947) is a Author from USA.

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