Energy: An Emergency Telescoped
Article Summary and Author Biography
Consider the plight of some distinguished oil expert, a modern-day Rip Van Winkle who had been lulled in the summer of 1978 into a long nap by the then widespread predictions for the 1980s--ample oil supplies at constant or even declining real prices. By the beginning of 1980 he would have awakened to a thoroughly disorienting situation. He would have thought that the year was 2000, for 20 years of anticipated change had been telescoped into one. From $12-13 per barrel in late 1978, oil prices had risen to the $30-35 range, a level that many 1978 predictions had not anticipated until the year 2000. And political threats to the world's oil supply that had been discussed as potentially serious five to ten years in the future had become visibly critical in 1979 alone. It was a fateful 18 months.
Robert Stobaugh and Daniel Yergin are co-editors of the recently published Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School. Robert Stobaugh is Professor of Business Administration at the Business School and director of the project. Daniel Yergin is a Lecturer at the Kennedy School at Harvard and directs the International Energy Seminar at the Center for International Affairs.
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